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Phones aren't solved because we keep reinventing what a 'phone' is. The phone was solved 100 years ago, then we decided people should do their own dialing. Now

Phones aren't solved because we keep reinventing what a 'phone' is. The phone was solved 100 years ago, then we decided people should do their own dialing. Now we are at the point where a smartphone isn't really a phone anymore. I can think of a few improvements to phones as well. Make them smaller, and add a headphone jack, sd card reader and removable battery.... There's probably some good books on the subject that I can't remember right now, I think that design in the large, has a good amount out evolution to it, I mean that in the proper biological sense. It finds one, or a few local maxima, but needs really shaking up to 'progress' from there. We have found the local maxima in the smartphone space, but then Stove Jebs will come along with a voice activated communicator that you wear on your chest, and we'll start again.

mercer 8y ago
I think Stove Jebs did a great job changing what we think a 'phone', or for that matter a 'computer' is, and that shouldn't be underestimated. Even now, ten years later, I find myself amazed at how much of a change in the adoption of computing the iPhone has made, and how we are still trying to understand the effects, good and bad, this has on society. I still vividly remember 'chat' being something geeks do, or self-consciously using my stylus-based Palm device for todos and calendaring because I sure as hell didn't want my high school classmates to catch me in the act. But I'm also very curious about what the next thing will be that punts us out of this 'local maxima', whether it's some reconceptualization of how we actually use these devices responsibly, a completely new device, or something I can't imagine.