we used to be a society that designed cool-looking technology

at the start of year, i was looking into if it was viable for me to function with a "dumbphone" instead of my iphone, eventually settling on an unspectacular looking flip phone.

in my research, it occurred to me that there used to be so many creative looking phones that were released regularly.

someone had set up a virtual museum of phones , a site that i encourage a gander, it's a real trip.

just a few that popped out to me in a sub-minute of scrolling:

the xelibri:

the curtel identity :

motorola startac rainbow:

now, we're just expecting the same bland slab, no physical buttons or limiting in ports, and nothing to reflect our personalities. its no surprise, even on the mainstream web, we had "spaces" that allowed us to reflect and showcase who we were, like myspace. not to say that those spaces don't exist anymore, like tumblr and personal blogs, but its not something everyone expects or are looking for.

we used to be a society that designed cool as hell technology, and with society's gradual embrace of ai, our design and identities are going the way of the smart phone slab, cookie cutter design.

Footnotes

mobile phone museum - https://www.mobilephonemuseum.com/catalogue ↩