Upside Down Phone Patent

An anonymous reader noted that "A patent has been filed for the "Upside Down Phone", which features the keypad on top and the screen on the bottom. The idea behind the upside down phone is, apparently, to allow faster texting by have a more comfortable position for the thumb to work from. A quick check of this seems to confirm the theory, making this one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments."

Comments

haHA

[TinBromide]

Gonna get rich! I just filed a patent for the upsidedown laptop, where you pull up the keyboard and look down at the screen.

Makes it easier for those of you who type with your feet. (I'm looking at YOU, AOLers...)

Re:haHA

[emurphy42]

Prick.

'Texting'

[bytesex]

Brought to you for the people who do the most 'texting' (shudder at the term); British teens. So what if you gave one of 'em, when, in a rare moment, they use their phone for its intended purposes, a big push on the phone: they'd press all the buttons at once with their zitty cheecks. You'd have to scrape all that pus out from in between the buttons. Yek.

You know what they say about guys with big hands?

[rsilvergun]

Big Gloves.

Re:I guess....

[backwardMechanic]

Whoa, slow down excitable-designer-person. This too fresh and clean idea is a phone, with buttons for pressing and a screen for watching. It's been done before.

Next story? Upside-down slashdot!

[neonux]

"A patent has been filed for the "Upside Down Slashdot" which features the comments on top and the fucking article on the bottom. The idea behind the upside down Slashdot is, apparently, to allow quicker reading by not having to RTFA. A quick check of this seems to confirm the theory, making this one of those "Why didn't I think of that?" moments."

Re:Garmin GPS did this 10 years ago

[montyzooooma]

"I bought a Garmin GPS12 back in '98 that had the screen on the bottom. It made for great one-hand use."

Whoa! There's GPS porn?

Prior art: I've been doing this for years

[aborchers]

I just stand on my head and use my right-side-up phone!

cool

[White Yeti]

Of course, this was all on a bicycle, so that makes a difference as well. We need more posts that end with this line.

Re:"Why didn't I think of that?"

[ozbird]

I had a job during the summer where I had to do a lot of data entry into phones ... this was all on a bicycle, so that makes a difference as well.

I find your ideas fascinating, and I would like to subscrib*CRASH*.

Re:"Why didn't I think of that?"

[squiggleslash]

Good story, and it reminds me of another story, involving - interestingly enough - Christopher Columbus again.

In the story, Christopher Columbus attends a meeting involving Craig McCaw, Christopher Gent, Steve Jobs, and the entire staff of Nokia. Christopher asks all the people in attendance to design an easier way of entering text messages into a cellphone. After all those present have tried and failed, they state that it's impossible to get better than iTAP. Columbus then pulls out a whopping great IBM Model M keyboard, attaches it to his phone, and types in his text message. Columbus then states that it is "the simplest thing in the world. Anybody can do it, after he has been shown how!"

Columbus then went on to patent his invention, but in one of the great tragedies of science and technology, received nothing in royalties due to the slight issue with his "solution" being as idiotic as his more famous attempt to stand an egg on end.

It's a sad story, I know.