I was thinking about what features I would like to see in a phone. I realize that as I’m coming up with these, they’re probably not imaginative enough. From the perspective of 2020 or 2025, the phone I describe will sound ridiculously old-fashioned, just an incremental improvement upon what we have today. Nevertheless, I thought it would be fun to get down some ideas I’ve been having about phones.
- It should be unbreakable — bye bye Otter Box.
- It should either be safe to wear close to the body, or it should have some built in way to wear it at a safe distance from the body.
- It should never run out of batteries when you need it. Maybe it could pick up energy from the environment, from movement, from solar power, or from body heat.
- It should be aware of context. For example, it should know enough about movement patterns to understand that I’m running, and start a Runkeeper session. Similarly, if I forget to turn off activity recording, it should realize that, for example, I’ve boarded a bus, and stop recording.
- It should be able to apply passcode lock only where needed. Viewing archived data should be considered private, and subject to passcode lock. Essential functions should be left unlocked. For example, when I’m using Runkeeper, I have no reason to keep the controls for recording my current run private, and it is an annoyance to have to unlock the phone to look at my current run’s data or use the controls. The same annoyance holds true for audio controls. The phone should be able to figure out what applications require privacy controls in what contexts
- It should have a “guest mode,” where things that the user is comfortable sharing are available, but private things are not.