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Why does every phone these days come out looking like the standard rounded-corners slate? Have companies stopped innovating on phone design anymore... are roun
by kirse 10y ago
Why does every phone these days come out looking like the standard rounded-corners slate? Have companies stopped innovating on phone design anymore... are rounded-corners superior for deflecting drops or something?
I yearn for the days when we got unique designs like the Nokia 6820/E70/N95, the Sony Ericsson M600i, Moto Razr (as junky as that phone was), etc. Even the Nokia Icon was an edgier but classy design. I just went with a Sony Xperia XZ recently because it's one of the few smartphones that seemed like the engineers bothered to apply a modicum of creativity/differentiation to the physical design.
- LeifCarrotson 10y agoIt is a rectangle because the screen is a rectangle. What do you want them to do? Not round the corners? That gives you 2 options, and one is less comfortable in the hand. The old phones could have interesting features because they had hardware keyboards, but the screen that's sometimes a keyboard (and symbols/numbers/emoji/swipe/draw) has won out over the better keyboard and smaller display options.
- will_pseudonym 10y agoTriangles are superior. What shape did the Egyptians build the pyramids into? http://www.nbc.com/the-office/video/power-of-the-pyramid/n21971 http://www.nbc.com/the-office/video/power-of-the-pyramid/n21...
- jljljl 10y agoMost of the creativity in the phone designs you mention is around fitting or concealing physical input. Modern touch screens negate the need for buttons, and the most useful format becomes a large screen.
- kirse 10y agoYea I realized after my lament that is probably the case, we have reached "peak smartphone" until the super-flexible screens can become a reality... Maybe then we'll see the return of the physical keyboard and cool things like retractable/foldable/slidable devices again. My beef was mainly that I went through the top rated devices on GSM/PhoneArena recently... Basically the only smartphone with squared edges or a unique design was the Galaxy Edge, the Xperia XZ, and the Xiaomi Mi Mix.
- digi_owl 10y agoI read just now that a gamepad module may be on its way to Moto Z officially. That is perhaps the closest we will get, if Motorola or similar is willing to stay the course on device shapes (not likely given what happened to the Atrix line and accompanying laptop docks. Every damn device had slightly different spacing between HDMI and USB ports).
- mcbits 10y agoI liked the overall idea of the N93 and wish Nokia (or someone) would use it as inspiration for a new design. Having the camera on the side with a swivel screen, there's no need for a lower quality front-facing camera.
- pavlov 10y agoIn this case, the explanation is simple: these new Nokia-branded phones are made by Foxconn, the company that manufactures iPhones. After years of working with Apple, they already have the equipment and process set up to manufacture unibody aluminium devices. Building anything else than iPhone clones wouldn't really make sense: it would be a substantial extra investment for a dubious return. Nokia used to innovate with phone design because they had their own factories. Those days are long gone.
- daenney 10y agoFoxconn builds much more than just iPhones and its clones though, so I doubt the investment would be that high. They also build the new 3310 which is rather different so clearly they're able to accommodate different form factors. According to wikipedia: > Notable customers and products the company manufactures include BlackBerry,[5] iPad,[6] iPhone, iPod,[7] Kindle,[8] Nintendo 3DS, Nokia, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Wii U, and Xbox One.[9] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foxconn
- bobsam 10y agoI am sorry, that is the worst "explanation" I have ever seen on HN...
- pavlov 10y agoWhy? The company that makes these phones, HMD Global, is part-owned by Foxconn. They wanted to create a line of affordable phones quickly, so of course they use their existing expertise and manufacturing lines. Experimenting with design has very limited payoffs in the phone market these days (ask HTC), and retooling at Foxconn's scale is very expensive. Design innovation wouldn't be worth it.
- bobsam 10y agoYou are making things up. According to people who seen the phones the are similar to the old Lumia line by Nokia. Guess why that is??
- plainOldText 10y agoI concur. Perhaps after a certain level, most people fail to notice the details. And whoever designs these phones are actually people, so... you get the point. On the other hand, Apple is known to be obsessed with design even in the most unusual places. Have you ever looked at a motherboard for a MacBook? It's just beautiful; the colors, the arrangement. But not everyone will notice.
- Pxtl 10y agoMoto Z has a nice innovative design - big magnetic attachment plate in the back for external modules. Still waiting for the killer mods like slide-out keyboards and gamepads though
- richardboegli 10y agoGamepads on the way: https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/26/the-next-wave-of-moto-mods-turn-your-phone-into-gamepad/ https://www.engadget.com/2017/02/26/the-next-wave-of-moto-mo...
- digi_owl 10y agoThe big deal will be to see if this end up with the same fate as the Atrix lapdock, where every subsequence device generation needed a new dock because of different spacing between ports. Until Motorola basically threw up its arms and released a dock with the plugs on flexible cables (actually made it an interesting RPi accessory)...
- Nursie 10y agoI love mine but what I'm still waiting for is slimline Qi charging without the extra battery (or pricetag)
- epmaybe 10y agoDon't rounded corners spread impact over a larger area? Same for rounded LCDs as in the newly announced g6.