My Cellular Unit

One time, Oliver was looking at my phone and he said, to me something along these lines:

"You would have a nokia, you designer."

Despite all the terrible things I think about my current phone, that was a huge compliment. I suppose this actually happened when I still had my previous phone...but they are very similar (except in the design details that are driving this new model into the ground).

Let's get out there to begin with that I own this phone because it is the cheapest one you can get, period. That is the number one reason. The number two reason is that it is not a flip phone, and I do not like flip phones.

But the design reason is because I do not want all those features and crap. If they're not going to work beautifully and elegantly (and really, the only one I've found that I find acceptable is the iPhone, sad to say), I'm not interested. Why would I want a crappy tiny camera? Or a web browser system for a screen that's as big as my thumb? Or any other additional buttons? Or whatever?

So my old phone fit my needs perfectly. It basically had 4 functions: call, text, calendar, alarm. You could change the sound on the alarm, it was easy to use, the buttons had a pleasing response, it didn't break easily but was easy to clean and small to carry around. I didn't have a headset for it but I also had a landline for most of that time, so it was not a serious concern. When that phone pooped out (bastards turned off its software!), I got it's older cousin, as pictured here.

And this phone is not all that I hope that it cracked up to be. The buttons do not have the responsiveness. In fact, it's a struggle to dial on them, even without gloves on (and on a bike with gloves on you might as well kiss your phone call goodbye). It spontaneously hangs up, has backwards features and does weird things like saving your text messages all the time (without you asking), and not allowing you to change the alarm tone. Overall, it's unsatisfactory for me. But, it is the cheapest phone, and it doesn't have all the features I don't want.

What I see as being unique about this particular design is the fact that the things that I don't want define the thing that I do want. I'm looking for simplicity and easy use, and not having features that don't function to their full ability. This is reflected in a lot of my design choices, when I have that opportunity (for example, the tool bar on my computers, which is minimized of clutter to the max for most efficient usage). But here, rather than saying I want this this and this, I say I don't want a camera, a computer or a gps device. It's almost a negative space approach to object programming!