zerosleeps

I acquired an iPhone 15 Pro at the weekend, which is the first modern pocket-computer I’ve owned with an always-on display. It’s really nice being able to glance at the thing to see if there are any notifications.

While I was thinking about this new trick, I realised that this is the way phones always were! My first half-dozen mobile phones were things like the Nokia 5110 and Nokia 3310. I remember a Samsung A300, and a Nokia 3100. Oh and the outstanding Sony Ericsson T68i.

They all had always-on LCD displays. The last few were even colour!

Then in 2010 I replaced my can’t-remember-the-model-number Nokia for an iPhone 4 and that was the end of that.

Yeah they were terrible displays when you hold them up to what we have now. Terrible devices compared to what came after. But isn’t there something amusing about the fact that it’s taken 15 years to get back to where we were?

Maybe next year’s iPhone will have a status LED like that goddamned amazing Sony Ericsson T68i did!