Introducing iCall
November 27, 2006It’s all been said before: A tablet is coming, a phone is coming. But then, nothing eventuates. In the past such mumblings have mostly been wishful speculation. This time around, however, they are more often than not media reports of Chinese trade gossip.
So, this could be it. The time is now, or at least sometime in the next six months.
Here’s my take on what’s coming, first the phone.
The phone is called iCall. It resembles an iPod Nano, only the screen is twice the height, and the wheel, which now has no markings on it, is situated lower down. On the screen, close to the actual wheel, is a depiction of the wheel that shows the current functions of the wheel’s buttons. Because the device is just as much a phone as a music player, these functions change depending on the current context of the device.
In phone context the up button (formerly Menu) calls up a list of recent contacts; scroll with the wheel and then click left or right to choose how to connect with the chosen contact. When receiving a call, the left and right buttons answer and hang up, and so on and so forth.
In text modes such as messaging and entering contact information, a keyboard slides out of the left side of the device, changing the screen and wheel orientation to landscape. The onscreen wheel disappears to the right, apparently under the real wheel. A key on the keyboard brings the virtual reference wheel back.
The keyboard itself is a satin finished touch screen in high contrast grayscale that can depict either a qwerty keyboard, a phone keypad, a calculator, or a touchpad driving an onscreen pointer, for web browsing etc.
The iCall is also a text file reader; when synchronized with your Mac it fetches text files from a particular shared folder. When you navigate away from a document, your position within that document is remembered. You can also create and edit documents using the keyboard. RSS and email can also be fetched and read using this interface.
When the keyboard is stowed there are no hatches or fasteners exposed, just like an iPod. The camera lens and sim card slot are exposed on the rear when the keyboard is out.
A set of iPod style earbuds is available as an extra. On the cord leading to one of the buds is a microphone. The main cord includes a remote control, similar in design to the current iPod shuffle. As well as controlling volume and track selection when listening to music, the remote can be used to control basic phone functions. Synthesized speech output is used to help you navigate through your contacts etc.
The iCall is expensive compared with competing mobile phones; it does nothing really new, but what it does do, is accomplished in that polished intuitive unified style that’s so much loved by millions of existing iPod users.
