On transitional forms

One of the few ideas that really stuck with me from history class is the “horn book”, a very early single page study aid. Horn books simply consisted of a single illustration of the letters of the alphabet, mounted on a (usually) wooden tablet. Printing was expensive, as were vellum, and kids are hard on their belongings. Multipage printing was for the Bible (or didn’t exist). So the horn book was the thing for hundreds of years, with examples even making their way here on the ships of early American settlers.

But like a lot of things that made perfect sense for generations, the horn book eventually gave way to the…not horn book. That is, just regular books. All the parts about bookmaking that were once expensive and precious eventually got cheaper and more plentiful. The horn book, it would seem, was a transitional form; the need for the designed object didn’t go away, but its form changed based on the environment. The same has happened with recorded music many times, moving from wax cylinders, to records, to tapes, to no physical media at all (and back again). It’s even happened with the wireless phone, going from something that actually resembled an analog phone to something more like a digital horn book. Point being, the wireless phones we use today are a transitional form, and their design is heading to a place that looks and works differently than what we have now.

I think it’s important to point out that often, it’s easy to feel when something is transitional in form; are you looking at a clock radio with a 30-pin iPod dock in it? That is a transitional form, and it surprises almost no one that it is. And the iPod’s days were likely always numbered, and no one was surprised when the mobile phone took over for it. (Maybe a little sad to see it go, but still.) The early 2000’s were littered with transitional forms of consumer technology, as devices “converged” to finally become, well, the iPhone.

But there are other designs that stick around for absolute ages, making it seem as if the thing in question could never exist in any other way. It’s harder to spot these transitional objects, because they frequently will have huge industry behind them. Radio was the undisputed form of entertainment for 60 years, before being overtaken in very short order by television. All movies were silent for almost 30 years until “The Jazz Singer” in 1927. And then all movies had sound ever after. Whole industries came about to support silent movies and radio-based entertainment. In fact many of them were so big they still exist today.

So here’s my prediction: in five years all mobile phones will fold. It’s the only form factor that really makes sense as I think into the future. Sometimes things are just simple: the form factor that makes the most sense for a lot of the things people use these devices for is more like a book, and less like a tablet. The issue before was that the technology wasn’t there. Now it is and I can read on my phone like it’s a paperback book, with a crease for my thumb like nature intended. The mobile phone itself is not something we’re going to transition away from any time soon; there is so much web traffic, and so many billions in retails sales, all from mobile phones. Like the horn book, it isn’t the need for the device that will go away. But the form will certainly change.

Lots of low cost laptops are purchased for movie watching and the kind of “work” that can’t be done on a phone, but which no one is getting paid to do — like paying bills, writing emails, etc. A small folding phone, especially with a virtual keyboard, is perfect for this stuff. In fact it’s probably better suited to it than a device with 40% of its screen area taken up by a soft keyboard. Tablets — and let’s be honest, we’re talking about iPads — are often purchased for the same types of tasks, but practically anything you could do on an iPad Air could be done on a folding phone with an 8” square screen. The only obstacle is cost. Right now you can get a very fast, capable iPad for around $450 new. Folding phones still retail in excess of $1000 (but can be subsidized by a wireless carrier.) Large screen tablets and traditional computers will still serve creatives and anyone else who can’t comfortably get work done on a small device, the same as today. You might say this is the best kind of transition, in that it doesn’t have to cannibalize other categories of products. So how will this not be like netbooks, which seemed like a really big deal at first but were decidedly not? The biggest reason is performance and physical quality. Mobile phones are insanely performant at the present time, and only getting faster. The phones most people carry around are so fluid and fast, and packed with so much computing power, that it’s rare to ever feel like you’re waiting on the computer. Netbooks, by comparison, were dog slow with cheap components and terrible plastic screens.

Folding screens are still not without their flaws, but they’re getting better with each generation. And the generations are coming out fast. For most people a phone really only has to last for two years; every 24 months or so, most consumers just get another one, needed or not. In most of the cases I’ve seen, foldable LED screens can do a two year service interval. And again, this will only get better.

The thing that will change folding devices is, probably, Apple. They have a proven record of taking good ideas with rough edges and turning them into billion dollar businesses with ubiquity. Right now folding phones show promise, but don’t account for enough of the total device population to warrant special attention from developers. Apple would change that, by virtue of a large developer community that has shown interest in supporting even some of Apple’s more esoteric devices. I also think that ubiquity will, at least for a short time, usher in a mini renaissance in UI design.

So would all phones be folders? I tend to think what will happen is that most phones are sold as folders, with single screen phones being a secondary offering; think the mini and SE phones being sold alongside the Pro and Pro Max phones. Not everyone needs, wants, or can afford the bigger screen and upgraded camera. Same with a folding screen. I could also see Apple offering a couple of device sizes, maybe even one that approaches laptop size.

That’s my prediction, anyway. Feel free to bookmark this and come back in five years.