Just like Benq-Siemens did not too long ago, it seems that Nokia is also unveiling an early concept of a full surface screen cellphone.
What is a full surface screen phone?
So basically, it appears that this concept is a mix between a PDA in which the whole interface is accessed as a touch-screen, and a normal cellphone. It isn’t clear by the pictures Nokia provided, but it appears that only the lower screen will be touchable. I wonder where I’ve seen this concept before?
I think that the emergence of these recent concept designs is further proof that Nintendo is becoming the Apple of gadgets. Even in it’s own branch, big N’s most fearsome competitor, Sony, changed their controller so it would be more similar to Nintendo’s and now it appears that more companies are following the concept set by their very popular portable console: “Touching is good!“
Why is it that whenever some new gadget comes out with a touch screen and a regular screen that it is copying the nintendo ds. We have had touch panels and touch screens and regular displays for so long. What the ds did was not that amazing, people have been using touchscreens to control their tv’s for so long. Same concept, and since the ds now has it everyone from then on is automatically a ds rip off. Come on, this is a cell phone not a portable handheld, get off the nintendo fanboy bandwagon and let gadgets go their own way.
Parking Lot Justice Squad
If you compare the changes Nokia made in the past and present you’ll see that what their devices are becoming more similar too are the same as the general computer industry.
In the same way that Windows Vista changed it look and features, to be more similar to Mac OSX, Nokia did the same also with the operative system in their N Series.
And in the same way that Nintendo is making a huge profit with the touchscreen/screen combination, other companies are also pursuing the same functionality.
Companies follow what the consumer market wants, not the other way around. They take the best ideas of each other (specially those that sell more) and put them together.
If you’re doubting me here’s another example. It wasn’t until digital cameras started to become much more popular that Nokia (and other cellphone companies) began to seriously invest and develop camera phones.
I also disagree with this connection you have drawn, couldnt this just have anything to do with the fact that touchscreens are massively lower in price, more durable and smaller than they once were? Its “natural” progression for mobiles to head for a touch screen interface, this wish was expressed MANY times before the DS was even heard of.
Furthermore it wasnt until digital cameras became cheap and small enough to attatch to a phone that they became available, they were planning this from *very* early on, from pretty much as soon as colour screens became small and cheap enough to include. With phones its all about adding as much functionality while keeping the size down, corporate videophones were in existance long before digital cameras came about, its just a matter of adapting an idea.
I think you are being *cough* slightly *cough* blinded with fanboyism and forgetting that even without these popular items, most of the time they were copied from somewhere else themselves (iPod wasn’t the first mp3 player, and still isn’t the be all and end all, to clarify).
No debate is a bit dissapointing :/
You’re right Bob McConnahew, well, except for the “blinded” part :)
Even though touch-screens are becoming cheaper (like most other components), the current share of “Touch-Screen-Using-Devices” is very small compared to the “non-touch-screen” ones.
For example, 75% of all Smart Phones use the Symbian OS, however, almost none of those devices use touch screens. Pretty much only the remaining 25% do. And Smart Phones are much less in terms of share compared to the average cellphones.
IMO, the product that is helping popularize the old concept of touchscreen devices is the Nintendo DS. It’s the single most popular touch screen device ever released and I don’t think that that fact can be argued and I honestly do think that it’s helping to drive touchscreen device sales upwards.