1
00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:05,000
Phones that flip, phones that slide, phones that have a full keyboard on the inside.

2
00:00:05,000 --> 00:00:08,840
It feels like it wasn't long ago that we had phones in all shapes and sizes.

3
00:00:08,840 --> 00:00:13,580
But with the exception of recent foldable phones and other things that mostly feel like gimmicks,

4
00:00:13,580 --> 00:00:16,880
these days they're all flat candy bar shape.

5
00:00:16,880 --> 00:00:20,640
But why? Well, back in the day when they were all shapes and sizes,

6
00:00:20,640 --> 00:00:25,160
our phones didn't really do as much. It was mostly calls, texts, and impressing your friends

7
00:00:25,160 --> 00:00:29,720
with your cool new ringtone. So for these use cases, it was a no-brainer

8
00:00:29,720 --> 00:00:33,480
what to put on a phone. A small screen to handle the user interface

9
00:00:33,480 --> 00:00:37,960
and a physical keypad since you'd be constantly punching in numbers.

10
00:00:37,960 --> 00:00:41,560
Of course, phones like the BlackBerry had full-on QWERTY keyboards

11
00:00:41,560 --> 00:00:45,800
to make texting and emailing easier, but the screen itself was still rather limited

12
00:00:45,800 --> 00:00:52,360
in functionality. The point here is that a small screen and lots of actual buttons made sense on every phone.

13
00:00:52,360 --> 00:00:57,120
And as long as you had these two things, there wasn't necessarily a standard way to arrange them.

14
00:00:57,160 --> 00:01:01,160
Hence the very large variety of phone layouts that we saw.

15
00:01:01,160 --> 00:01:05,160
I had a Kibo. Then of course, the iPhone came along in 2007

16
00:01:05,160 --> 00:01:08,200
and it helped set a trend. It wasn't the first smartphone,

17
00:01:08,200 --> 00:01:13,680
but it put the idea in the mind of the public that the phone should actually be a hyper flexible device

18
00:01:13,680 --> 00:01:17,720
that shouldn't be limited by things like hinges and sliders or buttons.

19
00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:21,600
Instead, it opted for a design that was mostly a touch screen

20
00:01:21,600 --> 00:01:24,720
so it could adapt to whichever app the user was running.

21
00:01:24,840 --> 00:01:29,480
And a large screen makes it harder to incorporate tons of physical bells and whistles

22
00:01:29,480 --> 00:01:33,360
as you need one big slab that can hold the entire display.

23
00:01:33,360 --> 00:01:37,800
And if you have a do it all device, you also need a lot more battery life

24
00:01:37,800 --> 00:01:41,160
than you did in the days where the most power draining activity you could do

25
00:01:41,160 --> 00:01:46,520
is to have a long phone conversation. This necessitates a larger physical battery,

26
00:01:46,520 --> 00:01:51,840
which limits how the phone can be shaped. If you take a look inside just about any modern smartphone,

27
00:01:51,840 --> 00:01:55,920
you'll see a standardized rectangular lithium ion or lithium polymer battery

28
00:01:55,920 --> 00:02:01,280
that takes up a significant amount of space inside. On top of that, making phones physically complicated

29
00:02:01,280 --> 00:02:05,840
makes them more likely to fail. This could be seen in everything from slide out keyboards

30
00:02:05,840 --> 00:02:10,360
to more modern foldable phones. And as important as smartphones have become

31
00:02:10,360 --> 00:02:15,760
for daily life, this is a big deal with most phone makers advertising toughness and durability

32
00:02:15,760 --> 00:02:19,720
with ever stronger screen glasses and impressive water resistance ratings.

33
00:02:19,720 --> 00:02:22,760
Phones get sold based on hardiness, speed,

34
00:02:22,760 --> 00:02:28,240
and camera quality. None of which require a phone maker to push some crazy new form factor.

35
00:02:28,240 --> 00:02:32,720
I mean, it's a lot easier to just point the back of your phone at something to take a picture

36
00:02:32,720 --> 00:02:36,000
than to have an extra part, like a pop-up lens.

37
00:02:40,200 --> 00:02:43,720
At most manufacturers might try and make a new device thin and elegant.

38
00:02:43,720 --> 00:02:49,000
So there's a high demand for the premium feeling phones or they make minor tweaks such as a screen

39
00:02:49,000 --> 00:02:52,040
that wraps slightly around the edge of the chassis.

40
00:02:52,040 --> 00:02:55,880
And with all the high-end processors and camera lenses inside modern phones,

41
00:02:55,880 --> 00:02:59,000
it's very important to make sure the phone is tough enough

42
00:02:59,000 --> 00:03:04,040
to protect the sensitive innards. A goal that's most easily achieved by simple designs

43
00:03:04,040 --> 00:03:09,880
instead of weak hinges and physical buttons that could serve as ingress points for water and debris.

44
00:03:09,880 --> 00:03:13,720
And of course, even the most innovative manufacturers

45
00:03:13,720 --> 00:03:17,760
copy each other. In the constant struggle to appear trendy and bleeding edge,

46
00:03:17,760 --> 00:03:24,280
it's difficult for a company to put on a new form factor that customers simply don't associate with high-end.

47
00:03:24,280 --> 00:03:28,960
Basically, if it doesn't really look like an iPhone, then it's kind of this wacky other thing.

48
00:03:28,960 --> 00:03:32,720
Though, of course, someone has to be the trendsetter. So maybe one day instead of just settling

49
00:03:32,720 --> 00:03:35,760
for rectangular devices, we'll have a perfectly round phone

50
00:03:35,760 --> 00:03:40,000
that can double as a coaster. Thank you for watching and be sure to hit like,

51
00:03:40,000 --> 00:03:45,320
subscribe and go to the comment section and give us an idea for a topic that we should cover

52
00:03:45,320 --> 00:03:46,160
in the future.