For all its failures, the Blackberry Storm’s clickable screen was an innovation ahead of its time. Roundly criticized for inhibiting typing speed by adding the need to depress the screen-button before clicking it again, it dared to add a whole other layer of tactile communication to what was originally just a visual display. Reversing this fundamental concept and throwing in a dash of technological whimsy, I present the first MozPhone Throw-away Concept: OLED Blackberry.
But this is no great innovation, it’s an Optimus Keyboard + a Blackberry 7130. What I do think is significant is the goal it works toward and the channels of communication it opens up. If the greatest challenge to phones are their limited ability to receive and provide information (see thumboard, see 3″ display), then it follows that every square inch of the phone must eventually be utilized in as many different ways as possible. What if instead of predictive text, a predictive keyboard displayed the expected characters, allowing the user to preempt a mistake rather than fixing it after the fact.
Another interesting way of looking at this solution is how the content is separated from the interface. No screen real estate is sacrificed for “New Tab” or “Back” buttons, each channel of communication perfectly tailored for the purpose it serves best. It takes what was a maddeningly soft interface and makes it hard.
So where does this idea go? How can every square millimeter of a phone both input and output information to the user? How can our buttons, screens, speakers and trackballs communicate to more of our senses? How about a volume wheel that gets harder to turn the louder it goes? Lets see some comments below.
February 3, 2009 at 6:03 am
Nice idea. it would be great to even use the oled displays in speed dialing friends, you would never have to memorize which button went with which friend.
Oh and say goodbye to your battery life. even so, I’d buy it.
February 3, 2009 at 6:11 am
Love it,
But yeah, battery life would go down the drain. I would say the biggest opportunity would be how each application would utilize that extra display space and specialized buttons. Predictive suretype and bookmarks are great but what about music, video, contacts, camera, etc. Also, where’s the trackball!
February 3, 2009 at 9:54 am
Overall I like it. I would like a more fleshed out idea of how you think the predictive keyboard would work. It would seem to me it would posses the same drawbacks that I deal with while texting as predictive text has. That is, it is still PREDICTIVE. Even with the best software behind it, it will never contain my complete vernacular.I will have to maddeningly fiddle with it to type even basic four letter slang (Read: swear)words or use the newest leet words out there.
February 4, 2009 at 3:47 pm
- What will make it a Mozilla Phone?
A phone you can literally browse. Everything runs in the browser so there is a seamless bridge between history and content. What makes Mozilla so powerful is the core idea that developers will provide extensions to let you customize the entire experience, not just ringtones and wallpaper. The widgets and extensions need to be able to elevate access to the data that is most important to the user. On top of that there needs to be an easy tool set to allow users to create their own niche apps/extensions to manage content and communication that is most valuable to them. Plus updates all the time, without wiping the phone.
- How can every square millimeter of a phone both input and output information to the user?
I hear the term “elevated” information to often with very little idea how to make that information quickly consumable. Icons and information need to quickly communicate if there is a reason to explore deeper. As adoption grows, users could have an interest in numerous information sources that would be to numerous to display with any relevance but understanding the change in those that are most important would help to best optimize time.
- How can our buttons, screens, speakers and trackballs communicate to more of our senses?
Tactile resistance is really the next big frontier. Adding to that the ability to detect the position and motion of the device allows for greater interaction context.
- How about a volume wheel that gets harder to turn the louder it goes?
That sounds like a real positive, but needs to have on screen feedback to better communicate the interaction.
I think the design is moving in a very good direction. I think the newest Moto ROKR could help communicate the idea well of the keypad. I have to say that the use of physical keys is a top notch interaction model for all use cases, but the flexibility of the screens under the key makes it very flexible. I think an area to add some focus is regarding the multitask features of the device as Mozilla really brought us the idea of tabbed browsing.
Would it hurt to “rock” the buttons so you can get a full qwerty but have the fewest number of tiny screens?
I look forward to more additions.
February 4, 2009 at 6:00 pm
Functionally: Nice!
Aesthetically: Snoozefest. Where is the lust factor? Build in desire. This looks very dated while some of the Marc Newson phones still look fresh and modern.
February 4, 2009 at 10:24 pm
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February 4, 2009 at 10:41 pm
[...] good way to end the debate between using real estate for physical keys or pixels. In theory. [MozPhone via [...]
February 5, 2009 at 12:30 am
[...] good way to end the debate between using real estate for physical keys or pixels. In theory. [MozPhone via [...]
February 5, 2009 at 1:59 am
[...] [MozPhone via Core77] Share and Enjoy: [...]
February 5, 2009 at 3:29 am
Amazing! I love every feature except the fact of the volume wheel that gets louder to turn the harder it goes. That is a completely useless feature that will be certainly phased out in later generations if it ever does make it to market with that.
February 5, 2009 at 7:50 am
The idea with the keys lighting up during writing to show possible words from the dictionary is interesting. I wonder how many people look at the keyboard while typing – I usually write without looking at the screen, let alone the area occupied by my fingers.
I think a lot of the success would depend on making sure that the user knows what to expect where consistently. Otherwise it would be unnerving to have to find the right buttons to press with all these keys. It needs to be simple, and from what I see right now it looks rather scary because it conveys complexity
even though the potential for functionality is great.
February 5, 2009 at 9:46 am
Love the favicons!
February 5, 2009 at 9:55 am
“T0: Some Broad” ? Who does the comps for those things?
February 5, 2009 at 12:58 pm
I like the idea of OLED keys. What I really like the design of is that Lenovo phone that is unfortunately going to be an Asia only release. Sleeker and sharper than the iPhone.
One phone that would be awesome would have a full-sized, touch-sensitive widescreen, possibly OLED and a slide-out qwerty keyboard (non-OLED) but possibly tritium backlit (doesn’t need power, lasts 12 years).
Make the casing of the phone from Zirconium ceramic coated with Kraton. You can make the frame from Zytel. It will dissipate heat and be light and virtually indestructible. Kraton only costs $1 USD a kilogram, so its darn cheap. Zytel could be a little pricey, but for the amount used, it would be cost effective on a $300 phone.
As for the OS. Build one specifically for the phone’s hardware. Take a look at the design of QNX and add in today’s sandboxing.
February 5, 2009 at 1:14 pm
good
February 5, 2009 at 1:15 pm
Nice idea …
February 5, 2009 at 1:27 pm
[...] I am an iPhone guy myself, but this is a cool Blackberry concept [MozPhone] [...]
February 5, 2009 at 3:38 pm
Not sure why people are saying “goodbye” to battery life… it’s OLED, only requires an electrical charge when changing the image. This means that there is no consistant charge to the keys required to keep them lit. A great idea that has been thought of many times over, just needs the price of tech to come down to a reasonable level and whoever can do that first will implement it.
February 5, 2009 at 3:52 pm
[...] this week posted the first throwaway concept of the Mozilla Phone. He admits it is nothing stellar — really just a Blackberry mashed up with Art [...]
February 5, 2009 at 4:08 pm
I agree with DiTullo.
If you are going to reinvent the user experience, you need to reinvent the conduit.
I think the ideas are valid, but the foundation is fundamentally wrong.
Go touchscreen! If your focus is browser, you need a larger screen to show off the browser. Maybe a touch screen with a trackball on the side, where your thumb would go.
February 5, 2009 at 4:38 pm
[...] his most recent post, May explores how best to utilize a phone’s touchscreen: For all its failures, the Blackberry [...]
February 5, 2009 at 6:26 pm
I love it! This gives a nice blend of flexibility and tactility. All in all, a great first cut, though as others have noted, I think some refinement is probably in order.
My biggest gripe with the “all screen” designs of late is that it makes blind-typing, or blind-keying near impossible. It shocked me when I realized how often I did this when I first tried using a touchscreen phone for an extended period.
February 5, 2009 at 6:42 pm
What about e-ink-based touch keyboard?!
February 5, 2009 at 6:45 pm
And maybe cooperating with Open Source OpenMoko Neo Freerunner project, at least in the software part, will be better way?
http://wiki.openmoko.org/wiki/Main_Page
February 5, 2009 at 7:02 pm
What about a slider, being the keyboard another touchscreen?
February 6, 2009 at 12:46 am
I think the key thing smartphones, especially since the iPhone’s introduction, have lacked is physical response on touchscreens. I think this is an innovative way of doing it, however I feel that there must be a way to make a full touch screen with feedback that isn’t just a vibrating motor like in some low-end ‘smart’phones now and the poorly implemented Blackberry Storm.
I think sticking with the becoming-standard touchscreen devices of today and focusing research on some sort of localized vibration or pressure changing system in a screen would be amazing. Whoever finds the way to make touchscreens feel similar to physical keyboards without actual buttons is going to revolutionize the market. I think this could be your focus and gem, although it is a very tough task.
February 6, 2009 at 3:12 am
I love Mozilla! They always create quality products.
February 6, 2009 at 6:22 am
I really like the ideo of a volume wheel that gets harder to turn as it gets louder. Awesome design.
February 6, 2009 at 6:34 am
It will be wonderfull… It’s a great idea !
Perhaps it would be better to have a phone like this with 4 / 6 buttons oled at the bottom of the display (multi-touch?), but with a keyboard which could be slide under the screen… like SONY ERICSSON XPERIA X1 for example…
Mozilla = Futur and progress
February 6, 2009 at 10:04 am
Agree. The keyboard and input should be rendered. If you need buttons then take a page from the video game world and just give buttons that are assignable. One idea is the put the buttons around the screen as a pressable border. In a way like the buttons on the bottom of say a tilt but around the phone. In this way the border of the phone acts like a game controller Dpad you can use them directionally in some apps, or as assigned buttons(completely free for assingment) for functions. The keyboard and other detailed input is simply rendered on the screen. You can have the small input of a windows phone keyboard(with more screen for display) or a larger keyboard for thumbs with a smaller display area.
February 6, 2009 at 11:06 am
No half measures. If your going to do a phys keyboard, make it qwerty. This is going to be a new phone, from a new maker, and then your going to ask people to learn a new predictive system? No. A qwerty keyboard with only some customizable would be better than the picture above.
February 6, 2009 at 1:49 pm
drooger +1
February 8, 2009 at 1:07 pm
I believe the concept is great and would produce a much more versatile and engaging interface than many devices out there.
However instead of a button keypad, I think the entire interface should be a touchscreen, this would enable a larger display to be available when the keypad isn’t needed, i.e. internet page browsing, video play back etc.
That being said, buttons do have the advantage of tactile feedback that saves the frustration of the sometimes weak interaction with toucscreens. This however could be solved by incorporating a similar mechanism to that in Johnny Chung Lee’s ‘Haptic Pen’ which mimics tactile movement using an electromagnet:
(check out his video @ http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sk-ExWeA03Y&eurl=http://www.cs.cmu.edu/~johnny/academic/&feature=player_embedded)
This method would also allow a more versatile interface, i.e. various pressures could produce different outputs. For example, taking your volume dial idea; the harder someone presses the screen, the faster the volume goes up… or… the more the volume goes up, the harder you have to press to increase the volume further. This could enable people to jump directly to a preferred volume setting by simply pressing the screen once, for a short time, at the required pressure.
Furthermore, this tactile feedback could be used whilst browsing to produce a similar feel to the traditional computer mouse.
As for the battery issue some people have mentioned, it don’t believe it would be any different to similar touchscreen devices such as the iphone, and they can last longer than a lot of conventional mobiles.
Overall, I like the direction you’re heading in and I think the idea has great potential.
I hope you found this feedback helpful.
February 8, 2009 at 4:16 pm
I’m hoping for a clamshell mozilla phone. I don’t know why they are so few and far apart as “smartphones” in Europe and the U.S. They have a large surface for both screen and keypad. The Japanese Docomo Panasonic P-01a is a great example of a screen that can be flipped open both in portrait and horizontal position. The casio W63CA for AU KDDI is also a clamshell with agreat screen solution, only this one can be twisted around 180 degrees, to bad it’s not also a touch screen. Or how about the Softbank 932sh, another way of making the screen go horizontal, and unlike the W63CA, you can still have access to a keypad on the LARGE bottom half.
I hope mozilla can give the clamshell formfactor a chance.
A big touch screen on the top half that can either be flipped around 180• to become a regular touch screen phone. Or the opposite: a touch screen on the bottom half that can give you any keyboard you like, while the screen can be flipped open like the p-01a to give you a horizontal qwerty keypad of your choice, in any language. Or how about going all out with two touch screens (if the battery allows it)!
February 8, 2009 at 4:17 pm
I’m with the touchscreen side. Check out this design of Aza Raskin’s that takes advantage of having a lot of touchscreen. It lets you navigate around pages like they’re pieces of paper on a desk.
February 9, 2009 at 2:33 am
Actually since the iPhone’s attractive slab aesthetic caught on, smartphones WASTE four sides. Put dedicated camera controls on one side, put dedicated media player controls on another. Use the tilt sensor to figure out what the user is doing. It also lets you control various aspects of the phone while doing something else — control the music player while browsing.
Doing everything by morphing the display is NOT the best solution.
February 10, 2009 at 5:23 pm
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February 11, 2009 at 6:06 am
The perfect phone needs to give full place to the content. The screen must be full sized (take all the space possible on the phone) and tactile. The real point should concern the interface, and how it is controled.
I believe it should be mainly controled elsewhere:
- It could be on the side of the phone as said by others.
- But I personnaly prefer it to be on a slide-out full keyboard.
This keyboard could be another tactile screen but I don’t think it is the way to go.
I want to feel the keys under my fingers and therefore would prefer it to be a tactile screen divided in as many keys as possible where every key being a clickable screen showing what ever we want. (exactly like the phone presented here, but imagine an entire keyboard like that).
Also, being able to use an entire line of keys as a regular display screen would make a real difference.
No more limits to the content you put on it. It can as well be a regular qwerty keyboard for when writing, or it can be the internet adress + back, forward buttons,… when surfing the web, or it can be the name of the video + the play, stop, fast forward buttons,… when watching a video, etc.
The last idea I would add to this would be for this keyboard to be able to slide-out in different ways:
- Only two lines of keys if I just want to control the music,
- entirely for writing
- and even why not, being able to slide it vertically or horizontally depending on how I’m holding my phone.
February 14, 2009 at 2:31 am
I like the design. Buttons that respond to context should have been the aim of touchscreens for a few years now, but I guess its open season to shoot for that since the iPhone 1gen.
Interesting choice in using the BB. Its a handable mobile. Though I wonder if the keys would be too small.
The tech to do this is here. It would certainely be something at the head of the class innovation wise, and would force mobile developers to finally seperate content from interface (which could make for some neat solutions).
Very cool.
February 15, 2009 at 3:15 pm
[...] good way to end the debate between using real estate for physical keys or pixels. In theory. [MozPhone via [...]
February 15, 2009 at 5:43 pm
[...] Domain haben sie schon. Jetzt folgen die ersten Konzeptzeichnungen. Das besondere: Es kommt mit einer OLED-Tastatur von Art Lebedev. Das wäre mal doch mal wieder was [...]
April 6, 2009 at 11:05 am
I like a full face touch screen, no actual buttons. I’m approaching 50 and need to make the text large enough to read, so resizable fonts would be nice. Having started with a palm many years ago, I prefer a stylus for text input, I can write on my phone as fast as I write on paper.
April 12, 2009 at 7:54 am
I like the phone plaese can you make it i am so sick with my iphone
July 4, 2009 at 1:20 am
What I think would be really neat would be if the Mozilla phone had a touch screen, and came with a version of Linux, perhaps of your choice. Next to the regular buttons could be shortcut buttons that you could assign stuff to, along with a little slideout gamepad for gaming
August 19, 2009 at 8:55 am
Actually since the iPhone’s attractive slab aesthetic caught on, smartphones WASTE four sides. Put dedicated camera controls on one side, put dedicated media player controls on another. Use the tilt sensor to figure out what the user is doing. It also lets you control various aspects of the phone while doing something else — control the music player while browsing.
January 1, 2010 at 2:37 pm
Thanks very much for sharing this interesting post. I am just starting up my own blog and this has given me inspiration to what I can achieve.
January 22, 2010 at 10:13 am
I like a full face touch screen, no actual buttons. I’m approaching 50 and need to make the text large enough to read, so resizable fonts would be nice. Having started with a palm many years ago, I prefer a stylus for text input, I can write on my phone as fast as I write on paper.
February 19, 2010 at 6:19 pm
I love Mozilla! They always create quality products.
March 15, 2010 at 11:00 am
I like a full face touch screen, no actual buttons. I’m approaching 50 and need to make the text large enough to read, so resizable fonts would be nice. Having started with a palm many years ago, I prefer a stylus for text input, I can write on my phone as fast as I write on paper.
April 5, 2010 at 7:08 am
very nice blog…Thank you for all the valuable information
June 18, 2010 at 7:28 pm
Hey “Billy May”,
Why the F*** are a bunch of Turks adding comments that do nothing but regurgitate existing comments on this blog post?
Please delete all the duplicate spam comments, block those commenters, change your blog software to use rel=”nofollow” so spammers aren’t rewarded, and get your blog software to detect repetition of existing comments and flag it as spam.
July 11, 2010 at 12:20 pm
I like a full face touch screen, no actual buttons. I’m approaching 50 and need to make the text large enough to read, so resizable fonts would be nice. Having started with a palm many years ago, I prefer a stylus for text input, I can write on my phone as fast as I write on paper….!