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My mind is often disappearing down rabbit holes, often triggered by something I’ve seen on social media.
In this case, it wasa post about the Amazon Fire Phone.
The Sprint Kyocera Echo was an early, and unsuccessful, attempt at a foldable
That weirdo bit of gadgetry may have been the Fire Phone’s undoing.
And that got me thinking.
They’re the tech equivalent of flash paper.
The Sprint Kyocera Echo was an early, and unsuccessful, attempt at a foldable
In other words, Facebook was inescapable.
Facebook Home was festooned with notification elements, and was constantly downloading updates and photos from your Facebook Friends.
Few remember The Facebook Phone or HTC as a phone manufacturer, for that matter.
Imagine a smartphone with a pop-up camera.
Better yet, check out the one on theOnePlus 7 Pro.
The 16MP selfie-camera lens popped up from the top edge of the camera.
The Sprint Kyocera Echo was an early, and unsuccessful, attempt at a foldable
If you dropped the phone, the camera automatically retracted into the body.
This was brilliant and it was also quickly dropped by OnePlus.
OnePlus' second piece of weirdo tech was essentially an accident.
LG Wing Phone
I finally have an x-ray camera!
Used the OnePlus 8 Pro photochrom filter to see inside my Amazon Fire TV cube.
ht: @richdemuro who discovered this.
Will.I.Am’s Puls
No one could find a rational way to deliver more than one screen on a pocket-sized smartphone.
Early on there was the Sprint Kyocera Echo.
I remember two things about this phone.
A Google Project Ara concept phone
Years laterLGconfounded us with theWing.
Even star power can’t shield bad ideas from discerning eyes.
Think of this group as the Build-a-Bear of handset design.
The Essential Phone with its 360-degree modular camera
To be fair, this was never more than an experiment.
The sales told a different story, and Google has long since shuttered that project.
Motorola tried the same thing with modularMotosthat accepted snap-on-backs with better cameras, giant speakers, and more.
No one bought them.
Andy Rubin’s Essential Phone tried a similar tack, but with tinier modular add-ons like a 360-degree camera.
Sure enough the Essential Phone soon became anything but essential.
Being different is not rewarded in phones world.
Most smartphones now succeed by looking for instance, like thebest iPhone.
Breakthroughs are rare, but not impossible.
If not, they’ll be at the top of my next list.
