On Jan 10, 2010 I wrote If I had a phone, on the subject of pointless wishery, phones, hardware, and lazyweb.

See, what I want out of a phone is this: it should be a solid, featureless shiny black block. Look like it's made of black ice, or quartz, or black glass, something like that. With no external buttons or connectors at all. None. Then when you pick it up the screen lights up, and it's all touch controlled.

That'd be brilliant, that would.

I can hear you saying: it's gotta have external connections. And you are, I believe, wrong.

How do I charge it?: Induction charging, like the Palm Touchstone. Also, have the battery charge off wifi, assuming that that isn't complete lies.
How do I change the battery?: You don't, just like an iPod. It's sealed inside.
How do I turn it on if it's off?: Haven't worked this one out yet, but it's surely not beyond the wit of man. Shaking it would probably work.
How do I plug it into the computer?: Well, first of all, do you need to? Store all your stuff online. Yes, yes, copying songs onto it, assuming you actually have a personal music library rather than just using online storage, but even then with the new fast Bluetooth stuff, I'm not sure it's that critical to have a USB cable. Also, wifi. Why can't it be a server? Just copy stuff onto it over, I don't know, webdav or something. Maybe you could do USB over induction, too.
How do the company build it if it's one solid piece?: What do I look like, an engineer? If you can build a Lamborghini Gallardo this must be possible. Presumably you could build all the internals, put them in a mould shaped like the phone, and then pour molten lucite over it or something similar.
How do you get the SIM card into it?: Now this one I have not worked out, I admit it. Suggestions welcomed, some of which might include "just use Skype over wifi and don't care about a mobile carrier".

Of course, this is just pointless whining since it won't happen, unless Nokia employ me as Head of Design. It is a source of constant frustration for me and probably for you too that it is not possible to do in hardware what we can do in software. I think of things that I want all the time and it's just flat out not doable to make them. Hardware manufacturers of the world, you are letting me down egregiously. When we're in the future, I don't want my jetpack, I want affordable one-off creation of hardware items. Where's my replicator?

Alecs

Closest you are going to come today is...

Motorola Droid or (how we europeans call it) Motorola Milestone :)

I'm happy with it, you should try it too :)

Alecs

Ade

So heres the thing - anyone who would give you a job in design would clearly be mental, seriously frakin mental!

Every time I hear your "designs" Im reminded of the Simpsons episode where Homer designs a car http://img91.imageshack.us/i/thehomerfinal2mw6.jpg/ It would be EXACTLY like that

If anyone needs any proof of this,

* exhibit A. This Post.

* exhibit B. This fucking theme

Do I need to go on?

Mattj

The switching it on part could be activated by a combination of shaking and using something like those metal lights that you touch the frame to turn on (no idea how they work, but they do). The phone would be in a constant 'sleep' state like the ipod touch/iphone- they can be turned off, but most of time they are in a sleep mode.

The problem with moulding the phone like you suggest would be that it then is a disposable item, it is impossible to fix. The iPod touch is very close to what you describe, but still has a degree of serviceability. I believe that CDMA phones in the US don't have a SIM so that could be solved for that market, it does cause a problem for the rest of the world though. Maybe there could be a virtual SIM, where there is a reserved area of internal memory and the details can be written to it, either by the network, or DIY with some kind of SIM reader and a PC. Each SIM card has a unique ID number as does every phone, there has to be some way of linking them and pulling down the network settings.

I'm sure it could be done. How hard can it be?

Stu

I reckon it should be able to change shape from featurless block, to getting actual indents for the buttons... with my old phone I can write texts and walk at the same time, by feeling the buttons but with iphone I have to stop and peck it.

mike

I quite like the idea (and the theme of this blog fwiw).

mrmcq2u

You forgot whdi so that you could use an external monitor at fullhd as your display wirelessly. Oh and make it a wimax phone to get rid of the stupid gsm issues and roaming rates :D

Force everyone to use a federated im system like xmpp and everything should be dandy :D

mike

[except for the wavatars :D]

Staz

So what you want is a reprap http://reprap.org/ - for the building part not the phone. I don't really agree with your design but I more of the "I want a swiss knife and a beer bottle opener in my phone" crowd.

Staz

sil

mrmcq2u: I'd never heard of WHDI. Can you make an existing monitor/TV be WHDI by plugging something into it, or does it have to be baked into the hardware somehow? (I'm imagining here a little box that receives WHDI, with a 2-inch lead terminated by VGA/DVI/HDMI socket.) Also...doesn't wimax require there to be wimax routers all over the place, which there emphatically are not?

Staz: five hundred years from now a reprap might be the way. At the moment, it isn't. At all.

mike: hey! what's up with my monster avatars? I like 'em :)

Lefty

Actually, I don't know that you'll "never get it". There are definite advantages, from a manufacturer's point of view, of having the device be completely sealed.

I like induction charging, and I was considering getting the magic case and pad that allow you to charge an iPhone that way, but the magic case easily adds an ounce or two to the weight of the phone, which is a bit of a showstopper for me (not to mention to ~$150 cost of everything one would need). Hopefully this will improve.

sil

hey, Lefty, you work in this industry. How do I get a phone custom designed to my specifications without it costing a million quid? :)

dai1313

Woah man, that phone sounds like a completely awesome idea... to bad something like that would have a horrifying price tag.

Also, if there is one feature i could add (which i know does not make sense because it is supposed to be ultimately minimalistic) I would have it have the ability to be a mouse for my computer - yet still be able to use all the apps or whatever on the phone.

Also, perhaps touch sensitive parts on the sides you can use for controls.

I have a question for you, out of all the phone OS's that are out there right now - which one would you most likely put on the phone? (Writing your own is not one of the choices)

Peter Oliver

Also, it should be spherical, reflect light at night, influence the tides, and come on a stick.

dobey

Buy an iPhone. Fill all the 'ports' with glue. Paint it black. It would be equally as useful. :)

If you're going to bother with futuristic thinking, why bother with touch at all? Why do I need some big hunk of plastic to carry around? Why can't it all just be in an ear piece, and voice activated. And why should it ever be turned off? (By definition if it can sense you shaking it, it's probably not *off*.) It just needs to be super at not wasting power, and not frying your head with radio waves while in use.

mike

@dobey: Enjoy all those twitter-updates coming right into your ears :D

sil

dai: I'd put Android on it, I think. I like Android.

dobey: total voice control is sci-fi, realistically, right now, not to mention that I want to be able to read books on the bus without looking like a nutter who talks to himself. I have many, many ideas for "invisible" control mechanisms (remind me to tell you about my wristbands, sometime), but the phone I describe above could be built right now this second. There's no non-existent technology in it at all (well, the wifi charging thing, but that's optional). It's purely a question of design.

Erik Snoeijs

Well it's not a replicator just-yet, but shapeways.com is pretty cool.

I found your last sentence funny though, on the 7th I twitted this.

http://twitter.com/esnoeijs/status/7494127005

"No jetpack yet but at least I can have my replicator. @shapeways added full colour Now just hot liquids and I can get my Tea, Earl grey, Hot"

Jakub Steiner

So what exactly are you trying to solve with the sealed design? You work in a desert or something? ;)

Ade

Yes I was thinking why bother with a touch screen, why not voice control. You say its sci-fi now (unlike your crackpot design) but had you not heard about how good Fords "sync" voice control is? http://www.fordvehicles.com/innovation/sync/?brand=flm

Since when have you ever caught a bus by the way AND dont even get me started about your flippin wristbands you nutta

sil

Jakub: it'd look cool. That's the reason :)

Ade: not just buses. Trains, too. While sitting in the pub waiting for someone to turn up. While on the throne. In shop queues. And Ford's sync thing is OK, granted, but it's a bit harder on a phone on a busy street than it is inside a (relatively) silent car.

Mattj

*Predicts opening can of Worms*

What are these wristbands?

Stef

If future leans towards green appliances, then your sealed-and-change-nothing mobile phone is definitely not compatible with this future - unless you provide the reverse magic method for opening device...

sil

Mattj: http://groups.google.co.uk/group/birmingham-hack-space/browse_frm/thread/b045e25f8d278f34/3333185c62ae3ab8?#3333185c62ae3ab8 has the summary. I need to write it up properly, though.

Stef: why is an unopenable device not green?

james

with regards to your sim card dilemna, while i don't envision the same design as you, i thought i would let you know that there is a "wireless" sim card spec.

it's definitely not exactly what you're looking for as it's usually the phones sim card which broadcasts to a car phone, but if you'd be content with storing the sim card in an external location, eg: some multi-card with bluetooth, it could definitely broadcast to your pocket phone from your pocket multicard thing.

fwiw, hth.

james

and i forgot the link, sorry:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bluetooth_profile#SIM_Access_Profile_.28SAP.2C_SIM.2C_rSAP.29

dobey

do you want a phone? Or do you want a PC that can make calls over GSM?

Lucas

My answers to your questions:

How to turn it on: Fingerprint detection when you pick it up. This way it's useless when stolen. (also solves part of the next question)

Sim card: You "induce" the sim card's data into it by Bluetooth or similar. Why keep obsolete technology like a piece of plastic with a little chip on such a futuristic phone?

My question would be: How would you tell your phone apart from someone else's if they're all the same?

sil

Lucas: fingerprint recognition in arbitrary places on the device, while cool as a concept, is flat-out science fiction at the moment, as far as I can tell :)

How you tell your phone from someone else's...you can't, until you turn it on. My HTC Hero looks the same as everyone else's, too.