Lacks the standard android buttons for a more iphone like single button interface. On android you need to have the home, menu & back button or else most apps won't work. The search button is also needed but the lack of one would probably not break most applications.
Designs like this are great, but often the achieve their elegance by ignoring physics or some other constraint that makes them completely unworkable.
I share your concerns for the kick stand and the UV light. Maybe the UV light could be integrated into a docking station? While it's a strange thing to integrate into a phone, some people might value the perceived hygine.
Regarding your last point: How many people would change the inner workings of their device? I think a big selling point is the sleek look of the phone. You'd have to account for a lot of eventualities: What about a second camera, additional microphones etc.? How thick should it be, given that advances in technology could make it feasible to reduce the thickness significantly.
I'm not sure it's even possible to create a phone "for the ages". Even if you disregard the wear of the hardware: A phone design from even 5 years ago looks dated - maybe simply for the fact that it has been around for so long. And while you remain the same design, every company around you changes their designs.
At this point, the material cost of the outer shell of your phone is pretty insignificant compared to the rest of the hardware. You'd have to ramp up the value of the shell quite a bit to make it economical to keep the hull and change the innards.
I think the last one is a very good point. Why not go the whole hog though and make the mainboard upgradable?
The phone could just be a really nicely designed and well built 'shell' to hold the main board + display etc. Then every 2 years, instead of buying a whole new phone, you just get an upgrade to the internals.
It seems a little silly to pay too much attention to the external design of phones since most people only have them for a year then change.
I'd sort of like a beautifully designed custom phone shell into which I slot the latest internals with the new chips etc. Having the same phone shell for 10+ years, but seeing the internals upgrade would be nice.
> I'd sort of like a beautifully designed custom phone shell into which I slot the latest internals with the new chips etc. Having the same phone shell for 10+ years, but seeing the internals upgrade would be nice.
Maybe we treat our phones differently, but unless it was made of diamond it would be beat to hell well before 10 years passed. Not to mention that mobile changes so quickly that internals will be hardly recognizable in 10+ years (at least 5G and god knows what else).
I think most people keep the same wallet/card case/key rings etc for 5-10 years at least. So I don't see why a mobile can't survive either.
I'd actually quite like a metal/leather one. And no, a case/protector just isn't the same.
Do people here remember the Nokias where you could buy different facias, backs, etc - They kinda separated the case in that way which I thought was a step forward. And if the facia gets scratched you just bought a new one and slotted it in.
Reminds me of the Sandbenders computer from William Gibson's "Idoru":
...he used to tear up her hardware, the designer's, and put the real parts into cases he'd make in his shop. Say he'd make a solid bronze case for a minidisk unit, ebony inlays, carve the control surfaces out of fossil ivory, turquoise, rock crystal. It weighed more, sure, but it turned out a lot of people liked that, like they had their music or their memory, whatever, in something that felt like it was there... And people liked touching all that stuff: metal, a smooth stone... And once you had the case, when the manufacturer brought out a new model, well, if the electronics were any better, you just pulled the old ones out and put the new ones in your case. So you still had the same object, just with better functions.
I always thought those should just be soft keys anyway. Why not make the home button bring up a soft version of the 4+1 (last one actually confirming the "home" action)?
As long as there's no lag, it would be a lot better than accidentally hitting them while typing.
That would be so much slower. I use back and home quite frequently on my phone; I would hate another key press.
Also is accidentally hitting keys a frequent problem? On my hero, that has never happened.
It's a big problem on phones that use touch sensitive keys placed directly under the screen. Your back or home button can be uncomfortably close to the spacebar on the keyboard.
Based on all of these responses, I'm wondering if the Hero's key layout (2x2 matrix of buttons) is better than the droid/N1's. The hero's buttons are farther from the screen, therefore impossible to ever hit accidentally.
(Also those who have issues with accidental keypresses should give swype a try -- since you rarely tap keys, the accident rate should drop.)
Funny you should mention Morse code. At some point someone suggested adding a Morse code interface to cell phones in order to speed up text messaging. A decent "Morse coder" apparently can beat the best teen texter in speed and accuracy. I can't remember where I read this but I'll post a link if I find it.
Designs like this are great, but often the achieve their elegance by ignoring physics or some other constraint that makes them completely unworkable.