Where did all that creativity go?

Point blank – The phone market has grown too large and become far too competitive for companies to experiment in Creative aspects of making them.

Have a good day!

Long version

Ever heard of this phone?

No?

How about this ?

Maybe?

I’m sure you have heard of this…for the right reasons that is…

I present to you – the Flat earth theory of phones.

This stems from a group who have been posting hilarious stuff about the Earth being flat, faking of moon landings and even question the existence of Volcanoes!

More here – The Flat Earth Society

So what is the flat earth theory of phones ? – that ‘Creativity’ is overrated in phone manufacturing.

Yes, I know it sounds unreasonable. It is supposed to be.

Manufacturers are trying creative stuff all the time. It is just that they get very little to no support there. Then again ‘Creative’ is a very subjective term.

Motorola recently tried Modular phones with expandable units with the Moto Z series. The implementation was not great, neither was the price. But it was a new attempt.

1. Our main problem is – We want all features, bells and whistles in a phone but we also want it to be presented in a more ‘creative’ package.

So you want to browse facebook while shitting just like you did with your last phone , but still want it to be unique – How much sense does that make? And how much time are we interested in investing in a learning curve? On the other hand – designs that don’t work are dealt with brutal trolling and criticism.

(an example of poor creative design)

1. Our second problem is – The developers who are the lifeline of modern smartphones need to ‘align’ with your creativity

You want a foldable phone? How about a pear-shaped phone? You want a phone with a pull-out keypad? How about a phone with a trackpad? A phone that will double as a computer?

App development is a very tedious and serious business. Changes in the canvas lead to more changes in Application’s ability to adapt to your phone. A video player for example will have to be designed to fit your screen. The app developers will lose precious user base with the minutest of mistakes.

1. Our third problem is – how much do we appreciate creativity when we ourselves are industrious with the use of a device?

You look at a novel phone with novel features and you think ‘Great, what an awesome idea?’. You may reject it immediately out of your shopping cart since it may not be the phone for you. It is quite reasonable to get you a phone that serves like a work horse rather than a phone with features and looks that will age badly as you use it longer. Phone like that do not change. They have a faithful user base and the companies will continue to give them what they want.

At least in the mobile industry, staying Niche doesn’t pay much.

1. The fourth and probably the most boring point – Hardware support,repairs and regular servicing

Changes to your phones design and build leads to umpteen complications in supporting them if there is a problem. Users will constantly screw up something with the phone either during the learning curve or later on due to unfamiliarity with the product. Support is the boring part of any industry. How do you get your entire support team to gear up and stay ready for a phone that even you as a company has not fully understood yet? Very minor incidents in support lapses will alienate your user base very quickly. a lot of them may never return.

1. Last point – Not all creativity is apparent

Due to the above points and many other reasons, the folks have quietly shifted their creativity to the inside of the phone. There are more apps now than in the history of mobile phones. There are so many updates and improvements happening in the software side of these phones. With every iteration they are improving the UI, constantly learning from underworld app ecosystems like Cyanogen, jailbreakers and even popular third-party apps.

Thanks for reading.

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