Ugliness (was Re: 10 PACK UPDATE!!!)
Stroller
linux.luser at myrealbox.com
Fri Apr 25 22:15:26 CEST 2008
On 25 Apr 2008, at 16:25, Lowell Higley wrote:
> Nine out of ten "typical consumers" I show it to think it's ugly
> and wouldn't buy it because of looks alone. If I show it to a
> techie type, I get the "what are the specs?" question. Lesson? To
> the consumer, beauty is only skin deep.
This is typical of the consumer, though (and of the place the mobile
phone has taken in the mainstream, of "reflecting" the owner's
"personality").
At the end of the day, there are a hundred mobile phone designs on
the market - and for probably this reason. Substantially all mobile
phones do the same thing - make & receive calls - and I guess
appearance is a primary differentiation. If your one consumer in ten
finds the Freerunner acceptable (or even, shudder!, attractive)
enough to that they'll buy it, then Freerunner surely has a far
greater market interest than most mobiles! It's all a matter of taste
and I'll bet there are very few phones on the market which would be
_universally_ considered non-ugly.
We should also remember that OpenMoko is probably not aiming at the
"girlie" market, of consumers for whom appearance and daintiness is
the primary concern. I am reminded of a girl I knew two or three
years ago who was pleased with her new mobile - it was a small
clamshell design with a second screen on the outside; the outer
screen showed the time or, when it rang, the caller's name or number.
A screen saver was available for both screens - floating pink &
pastel bubbles were chosen.
When making calls is the only function then I do like small phones,
but the aforementioned girlie phone had no features that appealed to
me over any of the other clamshell designs available on the market
for the past decade. The Freerunner is surely aimed to compete with
phones based on Windows Moble & Symbian - phones on which email,
calendaring & media playback are important features (it may even
compete, then, with the PSP).
The Freerunner will be replacing a Sony Ericsson P990i <http://
www.cellphonebeat.com/images/p990i_.jpg> here - now THAT'S a phone
which could barely be more ugly, but nevertheless it sold well on its
features (and besides, ugliness is STILL only an opinion).
Stroller.
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