iTalk - Fantastic Apple Phone/Pod mockup

As seen on Cult of the Mac

iTalk Phone Mockup

I wish that Apple would produce something as exciting as this. It's been awhile since the last iMac design, the most recent exciting piece of design to come out of Cupertino. I'd say they are due. Unfortunately it seems that this isn't from Apple. Perhaps they will be smart enough to clone it.

I really enjoy the flashing Apple for the ringer. Consistent with Apple or not, I wish they would make it. As for having to unfold it to dial (though probably not to speak), I think I can handle that okay. This is the most beautiful piece of portable kit I have ever seen. I WANT ONE!!!

So don't buy one.

I disagree by the way, but that's okay.

And who says it takes two hands to open it? You clearly have not imagined one of several solutions to how it opens. You have only visualized the most ineffective way. It is clumsy to you. That's fine. It isn't so to me. Further, as someone who used to make ads and has worked on product design and development and interface, no, I wasn't won over by slick advertizing. Be more careful about what you assume.

Okay, here is just one way.

One button release spring loaded with resistance, giving a smooth and gentle opening with some stability.

There's one. I really want to focus on other things at the moment. There are a number of ways that they could do it. Your are assuming that the action is entirely manual and fully operator-dependent. I think that is a bad assumption. In fact, I couldn't imagine anyone deploying a two-gait cover in such a way because, as you point out, something engineered in that way would be difficult to operate.

I can, however, imagine that one might close it by squeezing both wings between the thumb and forefingers...though that would depend at least in part on the size of the unit, which is tough to judge here.

Heck, you find it clumsy and I find it beautiful. You see its problems, and I imagine a unit that has elegant design solutions engineered into it. Some people like the brick. I still prefer my Razr because I neither want my phone redialing on its own in my pocket, nor do I want to unlock the keypad every time I need to use it. Makes the world go round.

Not if you are holding the body, no. Why the smugness about how you see it? I see someone trying to use it too. Me. Just different strokes for different folks, but your repeated assumptions about me and how I see and what influences me are a tad insulting. I love the phone and you don't. I want one and you don't. I get it. Let's leave it at that, eh?

Your arrogance is not becoming.

I am not sure that I would point to current mobile manufacturers' work as evidence of what works and what doesn't. Most mobile phones are crap. Nobody had made a StarTac until Motorola did so.

Some will love it. Some won't. Not a reflection on either.

I am not being blindly positive. I like it. Yes, I can see a mechanism that works, and as I said, can also imagine that it will only be necessary to open it, and not to close it. Yes, it presents some engineering challenges to making something that rates in terms of usability. Insurmountable ones? I don't think so. You do. To me, it would be worth solving them, and I do think solutions could be found. To you, I suspect that it is not worth it.

Personally, this is the first iTunes/vTunes phone that I have seen that is of any interest to me. Others love the sliding-panels phone we have all seen here, a design solution that currently exists in the marketplace, and one that could be good though I really don't like any of the phones currently on the market that use this strategy, not that someone else couldn't impliment it better.

I am not asking you to like this phone. Some will like it and some won't. Some will imagine ways to impliment this design in a usable design, and some won't. I think that I understand where you fall on these points, and I have no problem with that. I don't think that you are being negative. I do think that you unfortunately insult in order to assert your point with a seeming air of authority.

Now you're talking like a problem solver

Get this man a job at Apple.

I don't know about you, but I couldn't have been much more disappointed than I was in the Motorola iTunes phone. Then again, even though I used a Motorola know, I have to admit that the interface is just awful, so Moto probably wasn't the best choice to add even more functionality to phones that don't even operate smoothly in the first place Fortunately, I just use my Razr to dial friends and take calls, and couldn't care less about all the whistles. To me, it's just a phone, albeit one with a lovely form and a terrible keypad that I suffer gladly.

Admittedly, I like innovative design as long as it works well, even at times if it does not add any real functionality, so long as it doesn't make something less usable. Then again, that is a bias that I share with many. A true early adopter, I guess, which has left me with more than my fair share of new tech toys that didn't work too well, like my Duo 210 and my first Denon CD player. I am even one of those who wants the next iBook to be a tablet, something that raises the hackles of many, but unlike the tablets available that people point to, I want one that really works, with a great OS adaptation and handwriting recognition that hums. In essence, I want a tablet made by people who have thoroughly rethought the tablet, just like the folks at Xerox Parc did with the computer.

Agreed about the hinges. This phone is full of challenges, and given the chips it would require, along with the disk, I am not even sure that it all could be crammed into this phone, certainly if it is to meet radiation regulations. LOL

Still, I think that there are a lot of people that would love this phone, just as there are many who lust after the Mercedes 300SL Gullwing. Was that practical? Mmmm. Did the doors hold up? Ask anyone who owns one. Are they great? All in the eye of the beholder, and I do love them. Then again, try opening the door on a Ford GT40 in a parking lot. You will need two spaces or remain a prisoner in your car. Still, at the dealer near me in St. John's Wood, they get them in from time to time, and they leave the lot quite quickly at a substantial premium. This phone isn't Falling Water, where I could well imagine curling up for a weekend with a great book or three, but it sure makes me more excited than the Slivr, and excites something in me that triggers that elusive emotion we call desire.

Thumb and two fingers. The magic of the opposable digit.

You can't please all the people all of the time.

FWIW, no, I had nothing to do with this mockup. I just posted it here because I like it. I am surprised that so few others seem to. Oh well.

Thanks

Agreed. Not having the expertise in electrical engineering nor knowledge about the restrictions around radio devices, these are the obstacles that I suspect render the issue essentially moot. Sad but true.

While I am not happy with Motorola's software, I have to say that my Razr, bought when they first came out, has been (over)used and abused and has had absolutely no problems. Nor have the Razrs that belong to any of my friends. I can't agree that the build quality is bad, nor that the reception is "positively terrible." It does not have the reception of some of the larger thicker phones, but its reception is comparable to the other smaller phones in use by people I know. I think that perhaps you have just had some bad luck.

Relevant Apple content: I wish that this thing would sync up with Entourage, not that Motorola's directory is any good at all.