World’s simplest phone!

Baggy pants are out and narrow fit and skin fit pants are back in vogue. Fashion goes a full circle and keeps coming back. There’s only a limited innovation which can go with men’s fashion. Looks like technology is going the fashion way. At least this phone from Amsterdam’s John Doe design team proves it is. What they have designed is world’s simplest phone. How simple? Ten buttons for numbers, two buttons for hash and asterisk and two buttons for calling and ending. That simple. At the top of the device is a calculator which disturbs the simplicity of the phone. In fashion, we can go backwards without losing anything. Like a narrow fit pants will still cover your butt and everything that has to be covered. For technology if we go backwards, it would be like not covering your butt and some other vitals.

John’s phone does only one thing and it does it very well. Making calls is John’s phone’s specialty. Isn’t that all the phones are supposed to do? Yes. All the phones are supposed to be good at making calls and in addition are asked of to perform some other duties like text messaging, taking pictures, playing music and so on. Not John’s phone. That would be too much of a distraction for it. There’s no texting and it can be charged with a micro USB dock. The battery goes on for 3 weeks on standby. The package comes with a phonebook to write down your numbers if you don’t want to rely on your memory.

John’s phone costs $110 which is Rs. 5000. Now that’s expensive for a phone which only makes calls and nothing else. Though this is the simplest phone, there’s hardly any design as it looks like a box with numbers on it. A kid with a paper and some water colors can draw it up when asked of. The design element isn’t really a design by design but design by default. If you are telling me that this is targeted at older people or illiterates well then there are better designed phones for that demographics. iBall’s Senior is one phone which immediately comes to my mind. It has a SOS button and a torch light which can be activated through a hardware buttons. The numbers on iBall Aasaan are big to facilitate calling for people with declining vision (pictured below). In fact, the numbers are bigger than what we have on John’s phone.  John’s phone is one phone, I am fine for not making it to India.

Source : FoneArena