3D Phones? Come On, Really?

Maybe 60 years ago the headline was Colour TVs? Come On, Really? And a few years before that it was Sound In Movies? Come On, Really? But seriously, come on, really? My point is, 3D at the movies and especially 3D in the home, hasn’t really taken off. What gives them the impression that it will work on mobile phones? Google certainly doesn’t support 3D in Android yet and there aren’t many apps(if any) that have anything to do with 3D in the Android Market.

LG Optimus 3D

LG is going to unveil the worlds first full 3D smartphone capable of 3D photography and video recording at Mobile World Congress(MWC) 2011. The phone also features a glasses-free LCD 3D display. The thing about 3D is that it’s not everywhere. Where are you going to view these movies and photos? On your phone’s ~4″ screen only? On the 3D  TV that you probably don’t have yet? Granted, there are some 3D TVs, photo-frames and laptops on the way and already on the market, but they cost a lot. This 3D phone is like an invitation for an expensive ride that’s going to crash.

It’s future proof though, right? Not even close. First, there’s no guarantee that this 3D phone thing will take off. We might remember it as one of the great flops of 2011.  Second, 3D hasn’t really been standardised. So the kind of 3D that this phone produces and displays may not be the one used by everyone else, making it redundant.

The ultimate questions are, does a 3D user interface have advantages over 2D interfaces to justify the price? Are videos or pictures that much better? Like the difference between black/white and colour, SD and HD, day and night?

Phone screens are small and you interact with them; tap, flick, swipe, long press etc – effectively obscuring your view of the display partially. They are also flat; 2D with a width and a height. Introducing depth in the UI without extra screen real-estate is a formula for disaster. Unless it’s just a cosmetic change and that makes whole thing pretty pointless.

3D phones are a gimmick not worth paying for. I wonder when coffee making holography phones are going to be announced? It’s about time!

Plans for the future

Out with the old, in with the new

Samsung i9000 Galaxy S
Samsung i9000 Galaxy S

Well, figured I should use this blog to vent other thoughts.

First off, a bit about the Samsung i8910. I thought the most likely update for it to get was Touch Wiz 3.0. I emailed some folks at Samsung and they don’t have any plans to implement that on the device.

Windows Phone Series 7 on the i8910? Well, that seems unlikely. Turns out, Microsoft made a ‘gimmick i8910’ just to get people excited. It’s totally not happening. To get it in on our current devices we would have to replace the display with a smaller one. Microsoft certainly wouldn’t let us have this device with WP7 without Windows branding on the buttons. So sad but true. If that i8910-like device running WP7 is ever to be released, it will be different from what we have now.

Other OSes are just not going to happen. It’s too complex to implement them and there are few people who have the time or the skills to do that successfully.

With the slew of new devices coming out and Samsung’s heavy marketing of the i9000 Galaxy S, the i8910 is pretty much dead. Updates will come, but mainly to fix bugs. The introduction of kinetic scrolling will remain the biggest update the i8910 will ever receive.  Modders simply mix and match what’s there, and they are doing some awesome things with the device but not a lot will change.

A combination of old hardware(developed about 2 years ago), poor coding, and an ailing OS(Symbian^1) are to blame for the i891o’s demise. It’s a pity it fell even before it had a chance to shine.

Pity I can’t afford these new devices coming out. I’m stuck with my i8910 for a least the next year… Heck, I’ll probably have this same phone for the next 4 years!

The big move: anphase.wordpress.com to just anphase.com

The move
The big move

My new website is http://anphase.com

I have decided to move from wordpress.com to wordpress.org.

There are several reasons for my move to the new domain.

1. More control: with the move I am more able to control everything about the website. You will see that the difference between this website and the new one is quite big. I can now embed videos from any services, store more data etc.

2. Ease: wordpress.com and wordpress.org are about the same, I transferred about 99% of the blog/comments etc to the new site.

3. Ads: As you may know, I’ve been doing all this work in my spare time without much to show for it. The new domain allows me to place a few subtle ads so I can make a dollar or two out of it 🙂

4. Easy to remember: anphase.com is easier to remember, it just rolls off the tongue.

It’s still a work in progress, tell me what you think, suggestions, attacks etc. all welcomed 🙂