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What would your perfect phone be?
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Lee  
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 More options Feb 25, 2:18 pm
From: Lee <drybur...@gmail.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:18:25 -0800 (PST)
Local: Mon, Feb 25 2008 2:18 pm
Subject: What would your perfect phone be?
Lets start a thread to gather thoughts on what the perfect phone would
be. I'd came across the OHA magic phone video (http://www.youtube.com/
watch?v=jWtFeIw8MVM) which got my mind thinking about gathering more
serious input from others.

I will throw in one just to start with: a perfect phone would help two
parties meeting up to find each other simply by showing Left/Right/
Forward/Back arrows. This would save the ~4 calls I need to place,
getting irratated each time to ask my partner "where exactly are you?"
when we both arrange to meet out somwhere new (her responses are
somewhat vague). It would also be nice if it could show you what mode
of transportation the other person was on (fairly easy to work out I
believe with a cheap accelerometer) - this would mean you would know
when the other person had actuall left the house etc. so you could
factor that in so as not to arrive too early.

I've got plenty more...But lets see what others have in mind.


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Johannes Ernst  
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 More options Feb 25, 2:44 pm
From: Johannes Ernst <jer...@netmesh.us>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 11:44:50 -0800
Local: Mon, Feb 25 2008 2:44 pm
Subject: Re: [eComm.General] What would your perfect phone be?

The perfect phone would only run software that third party developers  
could improve on. By "improve", I don't mean adding applications or  
"customizing" but partially or completely replace every single bit of  
software.

This could allow a third-party market to spring up that would be much  
better at fixing the very annoying usability problems that all phones  
had that I've ever owned ... A bit like you can choose from different  
window managers and default configurations through Linux distributions  
and installation alternatives on the PC -- "anybody can play" and  
built their own distro.

[This may be a very "boring" step, but it would be an incredible  
enabler of innovations, including for the new features that are dear  
to your heart ... and mine for that matter]

On 2008/02/25, at 11:18 AM, Lee wrote:

Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.

  openid-relying-party-anonymous.gif
1K Download

  lid.gif
1K Download

  http://netmesh.info/jernst


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Jim Van Meggelen  
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 More options Feb 25, 3:11 pm
From: "Jim Van Meggelen" <jim.vanmegge...@coretel.ca>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 15:11:29 -0500
Local: Mon, Feb 25 2008 3:11 pm
Subject: RE: [eComm.General] What would your perfect phone be?

It would need a stealth mode similar to IM services, so that when you wanted
to be anonymous or unavailable, you could do so.

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Tim H. Panton  
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 More options Feb 25, 3:23 pm
From: "Tim H. Panton" <t...@westhawk.co.uk>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 20:23:17 +0000 (GMT)
Local: Mon, Feb 25 2008 3:23 pm
Subject: Re: [eComm.General] Re: What would your perfect phone be?

Please, NO! I lived with a phone like that ( the savaje)
for a couple of weeks. Each of the developers had a different
idea about how the perfect UI worked.
As a result the cancel button was in a different place in
each application.

Tim.


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Bob Frankston  
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 More options Feb 25, 10:44 pm
From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0...@bobf.frankston.com>
Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2008 22:44:14 -0500
Local: Mon, Feb 25 2008 10:44 pm
Subject: RE: [eComm.General] What would your perfect phone be?

A phone? Why would I want a phone any more than an email machine or the old
HP Workslate (a spreadsheet machine).

Just give me a pocketable generic computer with a haptic interface and I'll
probably run a telephony app on it. But you might not recognize it as a
phone -- especially if I implant audio transducers. Of course I'd also want
one on my wrist so I can use it as a display surface. But then I've already
written about this in Rush Hour 1997
<http://www.frankston.com/?name=RushHour1997>  - OK, so it was twenty years
ago and the future ain't want it used to be.

Why would I want children or a phone company telling me how to communicate?
That would be stupid. I already wrote my own WM app to track locations of my
friends -- OK, I did a prototype though not a production version but it's a
pretty simple app -- too bad all that Mashup stuff is confined to big
lumbering desktop PCs because there's no market for small generic computing
devices -- yet.


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Johannes Ernst  
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 More options Feb 26, 5:30 pm
From: Johannes Ernst <jer...@netmesh.us>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:30:11 -0800
Local: Tues, Feb 26 2008 5:30 pm
Subject: Re: [eComm.General] Re: What would your perfect phone be?

I think Bob says the same thing I said in different words. Give us  
incredibly powerful hardware (perhaps in many different configurations  
so we can pick and choose) and let others provide the software (such  
as Bob.)

On 2008/02/25, at 7:44 PM, Bob Frankston wrote:

Johannes Ernst
NetMesh Inc.

   http://netmesh.info/jernst


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Michael Shiloh  
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(1 user)  More options Feb 26, 5:39 pm
From: Michael Shiloh <mich...@openmoko.org>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 14:39:02 -0800
Local: Tues, Feb 26 2008 5:39 pm
Subject: Re: [eComm.General] Re: What would your perfect phone be?
This seems like a good time to introduce myself: I'm Michael Shiloh,
head of Developer Relations at OpenMoko.

Within the constraints of size, weight, and battery life, we are trying
to do just what you say: Create the hardware platform, open source
everything, and get out of the way.

Bob: Your answer is great. It's not a phone that does other things, it's
a generic computer that does many things, including being a phone.

Lee, thanks for starting this conversation. I'm still thinking of my
answer, but I think Bob and Johannes have captured the spirit of what I
want.

Michael


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Lee  
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 More options Feb 26, 6:09 pm
From: Lee <drybur...@gmail.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 15:09:54 -0800 (PST)
Local: Tues, Feb 26 2008 6:09 pm
Subject: Re: What would your perfect phone be?
During the core hours today, I placed five calls. Four calls where to
ask "where are you"? The fifth call was to ask if somebody else wanted
me to pick something up. If i had instant messaging, I'd never have
placed the 5th call as the value/interruption trade off was borderline
(they where unlikely to need something and I was more likely to
interrupt them). As for the other four - I'd like a phone that against
my contacts or at least the strong social ties, shows their
approximate location. Then I'd never need to place at least two calls
a day just to ask my daughter when she is coming home from school, or
to ascertain if she will be home before the shops close as I'd like
her to pickup something. Even just show me the text associated with
the Cell ID and that alone is enough much of the time. It's all very
possible without hardly any effort - somene last year showed me a
website in which you could enter in anyone's cellphone number (on GSM)
and back out would come the persons's current cell ID along with text
describing that location - all without the tracked person being aware.
(for the technically curious, it simply relied on sending some false
SS7 signalling and striping out information coming back in responses).
So if someone can put together a site that lets you track people it is
very easy for the network to ping your phone with the cell ID of your
closest contacts - all very incremental stuff and stuff that works
over plain 2G, yet would vastly improve the device utility.

Regards

Lee

On Feb 26, 11:39 pm, Michael Shiloh <mich...@openmoko.org> wrote:


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Bob Frankston  
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 More options Feb 26, 7:05 pm
From: "Bob Frankston" <Bob19-0...@bobf.frankston.com>
Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2008 19:05:15 -0500
Local: Tues, Feb 26 2008 7:05 pm
Subject: RE: [eComm.General] Re: What would your perfect phone be?
Neat hack but it's an app not a phone. We shouldn't confuse the two.

I can put in on my entrepreneur hat and figure out hacks but I'd rather
focus on enabling far more than a few hacks, especially when they take
advantage of such accidental properties of a corrupt system. By corrupt I
mean one that, as with SMS uses far more bits to bill than for the actual
message but is worth billing for because they bill can be high enough to
cover the only cost -- billing. That's corrupt.


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