Originally Posted by linkinpark875:
“I think the smart phone market has slowed the innovation. They focus too much on apps, software rather than design and cameras now.
You have Android (they kind of all look the same lets be honest), Blackberry and Iphone) That's the choice people have some go with BB for design and others the other two.
Think of the great Samsung phones like Pixon or older slide model phones. Some were great.
Sony Ericsson is another since going to Android. Tell me what is the flagship model these days? Xperia but which model? There's 30 cloned models cheap budge ones all looking the same. From a company that use to innovate in the way Apple did Ipod vs Walkman phones and the Iphone's early camera being poor vs Sony Ericssons photographer pushed high end Cybershot phones? No wonder sales have dropped.
Think of all the camera phones that dropped mega pixel after the Iphone 3GS? I bet the new 8MP in the Iphone could boost the camera phone market again how long before a company tries to say how much better "there" camera is than Apple's Iphone 4S?
It was a disaster for SE C905 was the last great cutting edge design followed by W995 and the X905 was full of faults. They launched the Satio a bit of a confusion last good camera phone but they picked the wrong OS Symbian lots of faults and returns and lost ground to Samsung. Now the Galaxy S2 is seen as the proper Android alternative to the Iphone 4S.
If you want to blame lack of innovation blame Android or atleast the companies for focusing on software over the hardware. My ideal phone would be a bit more of a camera phone deisgn than Iphone's simple one maybe a Pixon 12 back but with the simplicity of Apple IOS.
For me Iphone 4 was the best innovation design wise it was not far off the LG Viewty idea back in 2007. Back to the OS thing I'm surprised Samsung never pushed the Bada OS from the Wave phones over Android the handset was much better looking than the old Galaxy and despite the lesser app store I found the device a little smoother than Android. But saying that you have to look back to the old early smart phones Blackberry, xperia the Nokia's they all had the same problem boring deisgn (maybe the only stand out Nokia being N95).
Bring back Cybershot, Walkman, Snakes, LG Renoir, Prada the early 3G phones, all the cutting edge features, design that lacks these days.”
The Arc S is the flagship SE phone of the moment (however this is only a mid-range phone), not very hard to answer. SE got it wrong with the original Xperia range but now they are getting things right and there is a dual core model round the corner. You may criticise them for offering several different models, some of them cheap, but what is wrong with that? Why can't people on a limited budget have a SE Android phone? Not all phones need to cost £400 +.
As for Android slowing down the rate of hardware innovation, well look at the G1 from 3 years ago compared to the Galaxy Nexus. Look at the Galaxy S compared to the Galaxy Nexus as well. Huge improvements in hardware have been made and the pace is, as always, accelerating.
The original iPhone design was not only innovative but beautiful as well. The iPhone 4 & 4S, are imho, ugly, chunky and way to heavy. They are one of the first Apple products that have been undesirable as objects.