Just experimenting with something different. While this doesn't have any specific bearing on the development of Synthesis, it was just something I was planning on having fun with sooner or later.

Some good ol' industrial design-esque drawings of the phone that appears in the much older "thesis" pages seen [link] , [link] , and [link]
- it's funny looking back at those pages because I kept drawing the phone off-scale from panel to panel. It's so small on page 5!

The original phone was just a quick on-the-spot idea, but I always wanted to do a real drawing of it to hone in the design. Despite being drawn back in 2008, it resembled a bit like the Zune HD - [link] -- even though the Zune HD was not released for more than a year later. Even my original concepts for the phones UI appeared similar to the new minimal approaches taken by MS with Windows Mobile 7 - [link]

I always liked the idea of the phone being white in color and the UI elements just "appear" as black or grayscale graphics. No backlights, no shadows cast by the LCD, no slowness like e-Paper, this is just some made-up screen technology. I also particularly like the fact that the screen ACTUALLY WRAPS AROUND the TOP of the phone to the back. That's why there's a clock visible on the back, and a running ticker on the top. I always thought it would be cool that, while the phone is in your pocket and you get a call, you can peek into your pocket and see who's calling via the topside ticker without even taking the phone out.

The phone is actually one of the higher end models that can be found in the world of Synthesis. Which is interesting, because compared to phones we have, this phone is actually more primitive, or rather, has design elements reminiscent of more retro technology [the mic holes on the FACE of the phone, for example, and the hard angles of the battery cover on the back -- looks like an 80's TV Remote.] This is the sort of technology the story has. It's technology we're used to, yet it can do some things considerably better than the phones we're used to, yet at the same time, do other things notably worse. For instance, this is a touch-screen phone reminiscent of many todays Smart Phones like the iPhone and Droid etc. Yet, it has the feature set of a very basic phone -- messaging, making calls, maybe some light media features like music and picture viewing. However no internet, apps, all that stuff. I liked the idea that the phones were more advanced at doing what they were designed to do -- make calls to people. Not designed as mini computers in your pocket. [Also, story wise I feel that giving Maia TOO advanced of a phone opens up too many "easy" solutions for story telling.]

Also, the phone BENDING to answer it was always an interesting idea I had ever since I got the first iPhone back in 2007. Imagine holding it, and when you get a call, just press in the center of the screen to "bend" it in your hand, then raise it to talk. I'm not sure what the practical applications of this would be, aside from MAYBE being easier to hold against your face, I just thought it would be cool.