Julie bee1: Cellular Phone

We've got a mobile phone.  Its for work purposes and is one of these.  Normally I don't like phones, they allow you to talk to people and when you hate phoning, that is the last fucking thing you need.  However this is not only necessary for my work but it also allows you to listen to music at work which is much, much better than it seems.  We've decided to sign up to a no personal calls so the only thing we can do is contact work mates and surf the net (when there is WiFi available).   It isn't that reliable as the touchscreen needs some serious poking to get it registering, and of course it relies on GPRS (and Oranges shit network for all calls and mobile internets) which is severly pissing on my chips. 
Those who have phones (and lets face it we work with iPhone bores) say that its not as good as an iPhone and after giving us a try its not.  Which has got me thinking what would be the ideal phone would be like.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

A Blackberry yesterday.

 Fantasy Phone.

Specs.
I don't know too much about specs, most modern phones run ARM processors so something like a quad core version of this would be cool.   More cores could be added for insane power, or just add whatever cpu the PSVita uses.   They should have a gpu as well for 3D stuff, the one in Dave Brabens Raspberry PI project seems interesting as well as mighty powerful.  It would have a decent cameral say 8MP and output 1080HD for all filming purposes as well as having 16GB onboard storage backed up with SD cards in its SD card slot.

Casing.
One of the main problems with the iPhone flat touch screen style is that its all too easy, when in pocket to trigger something you don't want to (yeah we know you can lock the screen but I'd rather not have to) so it'll either be a clamshell device or something with a recessed screen like the bottom screen of a DS.  We also like the old Blackberry mini keyboard style of keyboard, so maybe have it dual screen like a DS with controls and keyboard on the bottom screen and touch screen at the top.  We'll also add in proper joypad controls as what most phones have is just virtual sticks on a tiny screen. The little 8 way joystick from a Neo Geo Pocket I remember being especially boss, so lets add two and make sure they are made by these guys, as well as 6 face buttons (for Megadrive purists), start and select and 2  shoulder buttons that double as phone call and exit.  Seeing as its clamshell we would love to see the sim card input fit in the side like a PSP memory card as well as a top slot for a full sized SD card or Micro SD with adaptor.  Finally we'll add a headphone port, a USB port for charging / USB intergration, and whatever kind of Zero point energy source that'll make it run for 100 hours between charges, (in a generic case of course) and an off switch.

Something like this, though maybe not.

Software.

To end all fanboys we would love our fantasy phone to be system agnostic, running apps flawlessly under emulation or using a virtualisation to run either, Memo, Windows Stupid, mandroid, Quackberry and Apple software natively.  You would load up a browser and pay a license to dual boot your phone and share contacts between the two services.  Oh and it must multitask,  letting you switch between programs on the home menu and

Offline software / Third party.

Because most phone management software is the work of the devil we have decided to mock up our own.

We didn't put in drop menus but trust us they are there.

It would, on initial start up, sync your phone and create folders on screen with which you simply drag and drop your files to transfer them across (in fact we hate the fact that all ITunes software auto scans your drives for music which it auto installs), you would then press the sync button to sync all files automatically when you are done transferring.  It would on start up tell you that there would be updates to the main software upon loading up and when your phone is synced let you create a folder for storing your apps on your PC/ MAC/LINUX/ Amiga compatible computer. You could then back them up to disk or to the phones SD Card.  It would also come with a help file showing you what to do.  If ever your phone is knackered or need to switch then transfer them across.  Like regular handheld consoles, I'd also like to see regular console games and utilities to come on SD card as well as be downloadable from the APP stores much more regular Phone game fare.

Fi nally when it comes to content, your phone would be like the mobile equivalent of Irfan View.  One of the things  I hate about the quackberry is that any video requires paid apps to convert to a convenient file format so it'll play.  We want it playing every obscure format from MOD. files to MKV files as default with downloadable codecs available from app stores where available.

Phone calling and texting.
I doubt any of these will come of age and that, and of course pricing would be a moot point, I'd say it would be on a par with the iPhone and of course maybe more once you add a monthly call plan from the major phone companies.  We would love it to not of course and just leech off of WiFi and Satellites even GPRS if you are in a pinch to connect to the net to make calls (maybe through skype or another video call).  Yeah cos I'm a loner and its my phone this is what I'd like the most.  A smart phone that isn't really a phone.

Now thats smart.