Insiders at Taiwanese phone maker BenQ say that Apple procurement executives have been talking to various Taiwanese phone makers during the past few months in an effort to cut a manufacturing deal on an iPod Phone. My take: Just for kicks, here’s my iPhone mockup.
BenQ Exec Rumoring About Apple iPhone
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Eugenia Loli
Ex-programmer, ex-editor in chief at OSAlert.com, now a visual artist/filmmaker.
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nice mockup
I’d love to see Apple design a convergence device. I have the Motorola A780 with a microSD card for music, and while the Real Player is okay, it isn’t integrated very well and takes forever to load.
Doesn’t Nokia have a fashion phone that just has a scroll wheel to dial? I can see an Apple cellphone like that. Or another option is since it’s not an iPod without the wheel, maybe they’ll go old school on it and put the numbers in a rotary fashion around the wheel? I just think that’d work better with the scroll wheel (visually and functionally) than the usual rectangular 12-key layout.
BTW Hey Eugenia, might want to update your image to say “2006”.
>I have the Motorola A780
I have the very similar software-wise E680i and it’s slow indeed, especially Real Player (it crawls when playing QVGA video even if the CPU is fast enough).
>might want to update your image to say “2006”
hehe, yeah…
About the arrangement of numbers:
I’ve got the Nokia 3650 with the round keypad and circular arrangement of digits. My wife can’t use it. My colleagues can’t use it.
I got used to it very quickly, but again, this is the first phone I’ve ever typed an SMS on, so there wasn’t any acquired habit or skill before.
I don’t play games, but I guess I couldn’t if I wanted to, because the numbers serve as direction arrows, with 2 being up, 8 down, 4 left etc.
The prevailing arrangement, since the first dialkey wired phone, is going down just as QUERTY does: it is so entrenched that any deviation is punished in the marketplace.
Of all the products Apple could make I think a phone is the worse possible choice.
I want a modern Newton.
but that’s me. I want something larger than the nokia 770, but slightly smaller than the tablets that are out there today.
Hehe.. funny..
Microsoft fan? ;o)
Why would a phone be such a bad choice?
I think you should buy a new UMPC/”Origami” device. Sounds like what you’re asking for.
Um no. the Origami have ~3 hours of battery life, and weigh in a lot more than they should.
It’s a MSFT product so they cram as much as they can inside Shove a bloated OS on top of it, and then wait for the hardware to catch up.
Sorry but that doesn’t seem like a good product to me. the UMPC’s have all but died out completely. I haven’t seen one in a store for months. Tablet’s are cool but windows XP tablet edition has a horribly interface. It’s designed for a keyboard not a touch screen.
I don’t think a Newton-type of device would be a better decision than a cellphone for Apple. The Newton wasn’t exactly a stellar seller, and it’s terribly outdated now. The Nokia 770 isn’t flying off of the shelves either. I think it’s the form factor: it’s too big to fit in a pocket but not powerful enough for true productivity. Most people (most) would rather choose either a PDA or a laptop (not some weird hybrid), and that’s been proven in the market.
I’m still wondering what your rationale is for saying that a phone is a terrible choice for Apple. For example, smartphones have gained popularity for two reasons: 1) because people don’t want to carry a phone AND a PDA; 2) they provide integration of obvious overlaps in functionality (contact info, calendar, etc.). I believe that an iPhone, executed properly, would appeal along the same lines.
If you’re going for a touchscreen anyway I think it would probably be more like this video ipod mockup : http://guides.macrumors.com/Image:Ipod-next-step-2.jpg
Full screen gui and ‘virtual’ controls drawn on screen – seriously sexy !
Radio would probably be an optional addon like on the ipod remote, it would probably have better reception that way anyway.
Edit: I forgot my whishlist would include “OSX embedded” running it, hey we’re dreaming here right?
Edited 2006-03-23 05:32
Full screen gui and ‘virtual’ controls drawn on screen – seriously sexy !
From a different point of view – no tactile feedback, greasy screen covered by fingerprints or two-hands operation with a stylus. Definitely not a good idea for a phone.
With physical buttons, I can type an SMS without even looking on the phone. Try that with virtual buttons on the screen!
GPS isn’t fashion, it’s the law. You cannot sell a cellular phone that doesn’t have GPS enabled for the purpose of tracking fugitives and suspects movements. Thank you 9/11.
GPS isn’t fashion, it’s the law. You cannot sell a cellular phone that doesn’t have GPS enabled for the purpose of tracking fugitives and suspects movements. Thank you 9/11.
That’s pretty much a moot point. Even without GPS just triangulating the GSM signal will give you a pretty accurate location for any cell phone. The accuracy depends on the network coverage of the area I believe.
http://www.telematicsguide.com/Articles/GSM_Tracking.htm
Here’s a cartoon to console you : http://www.ashfieldonline.com/d/20001010.html
I thought that GPS was mandated before the Sep 11 attacks. Anyway, it was always intended to be part of the 3G spec.
I’m pretty sure it was after, I worked for Nextel for a spell after the merger with Sprint. There it was beaten into our heads that we coult not sell them because of legislation passed after the terrorist shinanigans.
Pretty sure the GPS requirement comes from the 1999 Wireless Communication and Public Safety Act (WCPSA or E911 Act).
The Act required all mobile telephones created after 2000 to have the capability to map the user’s location through the use of global positioning systems. The primary benefit of such a system is that it enables 9-11 operators to locate callers in distress.
I think there won’t be a physical scroll wheel, there will be a virtual one (like the one rumoured on the new iPod video), also, there won’t be a need for numbers as we can get that on the touch screen too, so it probably won’t be a flip top thing, be more like the current iPod I guess, only with a larger screen area… Kinda what Tyr was saying (but not OS X on there (if we are dreaming, then yes :-))…
I’m hoping the iPhone will be an iPod with PDA capabilities, so will be able to play music, watch videos, make phone calls, GPS etc. etc… Probably have a built in H/D, so we will be able to put lots of accessories on it too (probably able to use widgets from Dashboard)…
Maybe a mode button, iPod (with current interface + virtual scroll wheel) or PDA/Phone (with similar iPod interface)…
Not sure…
Here’s a better iPhone mockup: http://www.applele.com/pict_05iphone_r04.html
That’s a *very* sexy phone. Except for iTunes integration, it doesn’t really bring much new to the scene though. A true iPod wheel, like in Eugenia’s mockup, would be better IMO, and the screen needs to be bigger.
Here’s the iBond version: http://www.applele.com/pict_04hipod_r01.html
If Apple’s phone includes a clickwheel (which it will, without a doubt), then it is completely and utterly useless to me, no matter how sexy or cheap it might be. The clickwheel is a usability nightmare: you way too easily overshoot items, and the sensitivity of the thing is way too high. I can already imagine how often I’d dial the wrong girl…
The clickwheel is much hyped, but it takes utter practice to get used to it. I don’t want to practice to use my phone. Normal buttons should be on a phone, preferably big buttons.