I was watching AMC’s new series, Mad Men – a wild trip back to the 1950s, in many more ways than one – and I noticed a glubby green telephone on someone’s desk.  The show actually takes place in 1960 – the end of the 50s – and the green phone was a radical statement back thereupon.  Most other phones were not only glubby, but boring black.

Phones of course have gotten considerably sleeker since thereupon.  Beginning with the “Princess phone” in the 1960s, phones have become lighter, sharper, smoother.

So what’s up with the iPhone brick?

I think it’s a fascinating case of operate dictating profile.  Precisely considering what the iPhone does, in concert, is so new, the look of the iPhone – though Apple cool – is secondary.  Or rather, the look is preliminary to the feel and performance of the iPhone.

As Marshall McLuhan noted many times, we move into the future looking in the rear-view mirror.  Our first names for new devices are wireless, horseless carriage, and iPhone – even though these devices did and do so much more than telephones, horses, and, again, phones.  And the new devices often reflect the technologies they replace – the first cars looked as whether they could have been pulled by horses.

The iPhone really looks like not much else before it, and that may be in the faraway run be its most significant cosmetic feature.  It’s telling us it’s starting fresh – in style as well as performance.

Original post by Chris