The flip phone is dead, but there are countless people who miss it

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Some time ago, some internet manufacturers called layoffs "graduation", and the issue of "graduation certificates" to employees spread widely on the Internet. Everyone joked that graduation originally had this meaning.

However, if you think about it carefully, the "graduation" at this time is an imported product. For example, graduation in Japan often has the meaning of ending and retiring, such as idols quitting the group, artists leaving the show, can be called graduation.

Last month, there was a special graduation in Japan, which resonated with many netizens in China.

In order to commemorate the imminent withdrawal of a network service from the historical stage, mobile phone operator NTT specially found 400 of its old mobile phones and held a special graduation ceremony, the vast majority of which are clamshell machines.

400 "antiques" were brushed together on the stage, like a group of uniform students, when the retro-flavored classic bell ensemble sounded. The tears of the times suddenly slid through the corners of the eyes of countless netizens looking up at the sky at 45 degrees.

Nowadays, domestic smart machines are blooming everywhere, and clamshell machines have disappeared from the mainstream vision, but I believe that you may have had the experience of using clamshell machines for yourself, family or friends, and also have the opportunity to personally hand-plate it.

This is probably the first time that Gen Z, and even earlier people, have experienced the beauty of digital products on all levels.

01

Let's go back to the time behind that graduation party. In 1999, on the eve of the millennium, The Japan Telegraph and Telephone Corporation (NTT) launched i-mode, the originator-level service. You can understand it by entering the mobile Monternet that China Mobile imitated at the end of 2000, which provides sms, WAP Internet access, games and other content in one stop.

If you are too young, you still don't understand, it doesn't matter, when it is a variety of apps have not yet appeared in the context of the time, mobile phone Internet access can do something hodgepodge service on the line.

Here you can read pictures, web pages, and even low-quality videos, which is a huge qualitative change than in the pre-mobile Internet era when you could only make phone calls, send and receive text, and see text.

Software services are improved, and hardware parameters naturally have to keep up.

The world's earliest flip phone actually has to be traced back to another tear Motorola. In 1989, the cover on the clamshell machine was initially only based on cover protection, and incidentally responsible for the efficacy of the microphone.

Later, the hardware technology level went up, the clamshell machine gradually fixed the shape, the lower keyboard above the screen, the entire mobile phone opened to appear slender, after closing it is much smaller.

In the process, there is no shortage of cool "two creations" such as slide covers and screw caps. Based on the design concept of the clamshell, it has entered the stage of a hundred flowers.

This is the inevitable process of mobile phone history, when the physical buttons and the larger screen can not be compatible on the bar, in order to improve the use of space to physically "fold" the phone, is an easy to foresee the road.

The mechanical structure of the clamshell machine allows it to be folded, and if the product manager is more particular and does a good job of opening and closing the damping feel, it is not difficult to understand why some people are obsessed with the crispness of the mobile phone opening and closing.

The ritual of using a mobile phone is more important. Pick up a phone call and open it, hang up and shut it up, even if it's okay, you can do it back and forth. And the era of smart machines pulled out twice but forgot to look at the time, has the same magic.

To use a less appropriate metaphor, it feels a lot like playing allegro, inexplicably right. The interactive experience woven by the hinge gear springs is the same as the touch of the button that is gone after the touch screen operation.

"Can your smartphone do that?"

With the i-mode service in the sun, the clamshell machine is also popular in Japan. On the eve of the advent of smartphones, people began to use them to send emails, surf the Internet, listen to music, and gradually integrate into daily life.

The clamshell boom has swept Japan for nearly 15 years, and it is said that 3 out of 10 Japanese people at its peak were using i-mode services, while 10 people may have more than 5 clamshell machines.

Mermaid's clamshell brain hole

How powerful is everyday inertia? It should be known that even in Japan, which is one of the developed countries, the smart machine ownership rate as of 2014 is only 53%, barely half, and the remaining half is occupied by non-smart machines, especially the clamshell machine army.

Although the clamshell machine in China has not been able to form an era long enough to be specially distinguished due to manufacturers, usage habits, technology iterations and other reasons, it still carries the memories of many people.

For example, folding brings a double surface area, boys and girls can paste stickers and other decorations for DIY, similar to the Little Red Book's social platform so far has the clamshell machine decoration skills to share.

Classic models such as the Motorola Razer Blade of the year have created a highly recognizable design case in this multiplied space, and both men and women can directly perceive the outrageous design power of the product.

To put it bluntly, it is much more interesting than the boring mobile phone industrial design at present.

So why did someone blow the clamshell machine is the "mythical era" in the history of mobile phones? I think in addition to being able to play with the mechanical structure and appearance for more than a year. More importantly, under the combination of hardware and software, the large screen obtained due to the separation of keyboards began to gradually become a window for many people to perceive the world and connect others.

02

As a type of mobile phone that carries on from top to bottom, since the clamshell machine is a nail household in Japan, it correspondingly undertakes a part of the cultural output.

For the frequent appearances of the clamshell machine in anime works, the old two-dimensional is often like a number of family treasures, and you can see the paper man pulling out the clamshell machine in many scenes. Bedtime hot chat between friends and girlfriends, or green interaction between male and female protagonists. The flip machine becomes a bridge image between the plots of the characters.

For example, the mobile phones of the people in EVA borrow the style of Sharp of the Japanese Factory, classic with classics, and the temperament is in tune.

In an original animation like "Eden of the East", the clamshell machine is directly transformed into the core thread of the plot. Dialing it up will call the wind and rain and save the country from fire and water.

In "Future Diary", the first episode of the sick and delicate female one is full of a sense of existence, and even the clamshell machine in the hands of the heroine is difficult to hide.

In Ghost in the Shell S.A.C 2nd GIG, which is set in 2032, the Japanese, who should have had a good life, insisted on this obsession to the "future".

Everyone is still using the clamshell machine.

The love of the clamshell machine was infused into the works by the Japanese. Netizens around the world who are influenced by anime culture inevitably notice the clamshell machine in Aiwu and Wu.

Knowing the sharing of netizens @ Ah Xuan, see ID is an old two-dimensional

Those creations that are based on reality are ultimately given back to reality. Linkage mobile phones always have sales, manufacturers are happy to come out, can engage in gimmicks, users are also willing to buy, recharge the faith.

Slide phone in "Soft Girl"

It's as if you have a mobile phone like this, you can open any door. This end is connected to reality, and the other end is connected to the fantasy world.

Eden of the East contains 10 billion yen of mobile phones

And the reason for wanting to buy a clamshell machine, in addition to handsome, romantic, can also be very simple: think it is simple.

Although the times have changed later, the proportion of smart machines in anime works has increased significantly. But the clamshell machine still has its own place, and from time to time some works come out to cause people to complain, "Why are you still using the clamshell machine?" ”

Outside of anime, the flip-flop year of mobile phone games has entered the fast lane.

At that time, the i-mode service was hot, and many well-known Japanese game manufacturers did not want to miss it, and namco, Konami, Sega, Taito and other major manufacturers have entered.

Although the volume of the work is not large, it can play games of various genres on the mobile phone that was once only regarded as a communication tool, and the experience is very different from the handheld.

A set of strategies for the clamshell i-mode game

Something really interesting happened in the process. The first game that really swept Japan on the clamshell was actually a fishing game called Turibaka Kibun. The gameplay system and feedback of the game is simple, choose the bait, wait for the bait... It's over, it's essentially like a lottery.

Too long ago, the picture is this one

The Japanese love fishing is another proof.

The point is that if the phone is in vibration mode and the antenna is pulled out (if there is a telescopic antenna), the vibration when hooked will give you the feeling of holding a virtual fishing rod.

The extremely rough gameplay, combined with the hardware mechanics and the novelty of the use of the scene, I think this game can explode the fundamental reason.

Let's mention a game company that you are likely to be familiar with: its works are pixel style, simulated business gameplay, and obviously each one has a "skinned" flavor, but it is fun to stand up.

Yes, the cairo-called game company was founded in 1996, and after the first two works were successfully tested on PC, they began to enter a high-production period around 2001, and works with different background settings were successively launched on mobile phones, coinciding with the rapid rise of the clamshell machine.

And Cairo games have a phenomenon that everyone may not care about, but there must be an impression: Cairo games in the smart machine environment, the lower half of the interface will have several analog buttons by default.

Such an "awkward" design can be regarded as a legacy of the clamshell era to some extent. Four directions plus the middle confirmation, the perfect reproduction from the straight plate machine, the clamshell machine to carry forward the function button layout.

Because of the high quality of the game, the awkwardness eventually twisted into a classic. So much so that some players used to go down to pirated Cairo works, and the ads blocked the virtual buttons, and the result was unbearable.

In other words, what I want to create for you is a retro experience similar to playing on a clamshell machine.

The larger display space of the clamshell machine makes it inevitable to become a wave force that cannot be ignored to drive the development of mobile games.

After NTT launched its own improved Java in 2002, more color games were released on clamshell machines with higher hardware performance, indirectly promoting competition among game manufacturers in the creation of works.

It can be found that whether it is anime or game, the clamshell machine stands in its place and witnesses the era of wild wild growth.

03

Since the "PHS" that came out of Mr. Ye Yonglie's works has become synonymous with the national mobile communication, the clamshell machine has also entered the life of the domestic public in one of the hardware forms.

UTStarcom

I saw many young netizens talking about their memories, one of which was a common scene: "I once had a heart water for a certain clamshell/slide machine, and I thought it was very scientific and technological, very youthful, but before I could use it, the smart phone came."

Either they have only used one and are pushed to "suddenly enter" the next generation of operations on the glass screen.

Therefore, when they look at the clamshell machine, they feel that it is more like a footnote in a certain period of history, short and long, far away in the sky and seems to be in front of them.

It's as if every classic has a highlight moment of the Renaissance. Now some brands have re-launched the clamshell machine, and some brands have imitated the clamshell design with a folding screen to make it open and close. At the same time, there is a higher scientific and technological content.

Whenever such a product gets a lot of praise from netizens and the media, I always feel that at the moment of homogenization, people especially need some truly innovative designs.

It was an era that could not be easily erased. Some people say, "Now the mobile phone is more powerful, but it is not as fun as before." To be fair, this is not pretentious.

Why can domestic netizens also feel nostalgic because of the graduation of Japan's clamshell networking service? Eventually, it comes back to the old saying, "It's not nostalgia for something, it's a time."

Mobile phones, like everything, may also spiral. Now that everyone uses mobile phones, they are gradually returning to the state of using it as a tool in the first place. If you look at it with a cyclical eye, will there be another "big clamshell era"?

I can't say it clearly, but I sincerely hope that this bridge section, which is far from reaching the singularity of science and technology and resonating with feelings, can be a little more.

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