Wednesday, April 29, 2009
Dude, Your Phone Is Dull
Antipathy toward a Dell smartphone is building and the device hasn’t even exited the rumor stage yet. When last we discussed the Dellephone, wireless network operators had reportedly been unimpressed, criticizing it as dull compared with current and upcoming handsets. Now comes further criticism from Bernstein Research analyst Toni Sacconaghi Jr., who believes that Dell will announce a smartphone in the next six months but will most likely bungle it.
Dell delivered its fiscal third-quarter results after market close Thursday, and they were about as exciting as the company’s industrial design. It reported a five percent drop in earnings thanks to what company officials euphemistically describe as “a challenging demand environment.”
In a short video, senior designer Jon Ives and other members of Apple’s industrial design team explain the new unibody enclosure. Machining enables a level of precision unheard of in the industry, says Ives. In many ways, these notebooks are more beautiful on the inside than they are on the outside.
