Nokia Aeon: The IPhone Nano You've Always Wanted | Hacker News Reader

Nokia Aeon: The IPhone Nano You've Always Wanted

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39 pointspbnaidu22 comments

The difference is that if Apple were to do something like this they'd actually ship product and not just release a far-fetched concept.

I remember the article on why Apple doesn't make conceptual phones. This article reminded me of that.

Apple's magic isn't that they have ideas of beautiful things. I'm sure every company does. Apple's magic is that the beautiful things they imagine come true.

(And I'd guess that's why a lot of people are Apple fans, myself included: because Apple seems to spit in the face of the idea that you can dream but it'll never come true. It's almost a giddy feeling.)

http://counternotions.com/2008/08/12/concept-products/

A commercial company’s ability to innovate is inversely proportional to its proclivity to publicly release conceptual products.

That's the post I mentioned. So true.

Exactly! "Real Artists Ship"

http://www.folklore.org/StoryView.py?story=Real_Artists_Ship...

That's an incredible story. What a concise look at the drive that Jobs puts into Apple employees. And, from what Apple's been churning out, it seems to work.

I also recall hearing that Apple engineers didn't think the iMac was technically possible, and Jobs made them build it anyway.

I'll have to disagree with the rest of the commenters here.

These concept devices are useful the same way (as they essentially are) science fiction is. Inspiration and a focus on new ideas instead of implementation. Too much focus on the latter can distract engineers from solving higher-level user problems.

You just have to look at them more as sci-fi than vaporware.

So if it's sci-fi, what does that say about Nokia?

That dreams are much more exciting than mundane reality?

100% true, but as everyone is doing such concepts, the value of a particular one is rather low. Few ones get implemented, and these are what's really valued.

I find there to be little value in designing without engineering constraints.

Agreed, that's where the beauty is always found.

For example, it doesn't take into account the fact that current e-ink displays are really slow.

Also, it's a friggin HOVERCRAFT! And it shoots LASERS!

Guys, I think I should be a concept phone designer. I especially like how you get to talk about imaginary phones like they're real. ("So naturally, the whole surface is a touchscreen.")

Guy's whole portfolio of sketches is pretty interesting and worth checking out: http://petitinvention.wordpress.com

ohhhh shiny

It's cute how the phone includes Apple's modifier keys.

This is NOT a Nokia concept phone. This is a 'just a sketch' design by Mac Funamizu. You can see the originals on his blog here: http://petitinvention.wordpress.com/2008/10/08/just-a-sketch... , where he links to the Nokia Aeon video on YouTube here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f5jPtUym7oc . Altogether, a nice phone but not connected to Nokia in any way as far as I can tell.

Concept phones are really fun to dream about, but they aren't real.

Agreed. This amounts to technological masturbation.

The author is clueless about the response time of E-Ink. Also, no one is noting that E-Ink achieves a lot of its power thriftiness by being a reflective screen, not a luminescent screen.

Also, eInk is not OLED.

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