Talk:Ill Bethisad Technology

One thing I am wondering is what exactly happens with phones? Do people even have mobile phones? Is there smartphone technology? I ask this especially because if we equate Ill Bethisad's and our timeline, a smartphone would be a recent invention as of right now. Specifically, the iPhone would have been released *there* in March 31, 2016 if we use the technological conversion provided in the computer technology article. I simply wonder now, what about phones? --Gwaell 14:54, 23 December 2017 (PST)

to me, it would be interesting to find some "dead end" tech from *here* to develop or go a different path instead of just simply transposing techs from *here* but with a delay.

One possibility could be those wristwatch phones to have succeeded. They would have the basic functionality of mobile phones with other apps relegated to personal data assistants. --Marc pasquin 01:33, 25 December 2017 (PST)

Aren’t wristwatch phones basically just the iWatch and Galaxy Gear, though? We definitely have those *here*; hell, there’s been an absolute explosion of them lately. The Apple Watch 3 can make 4G calls now, after all. I guess I could see maybe Apple (or whatever equivalent company), Samsung, and other technology conglomerates in IB pushing for earlier smartwatch development, but I’m not sure if the tech would be advanced enough to support a “true” intelligent watch.

One personal headcanon I have is that Blackberry fared much better *there* than it did *here*. I’m not really sure if I have any other specific tech headcanons, though. Juanmartinvelezlinares 14:44, 25 December 2017 (PST)

my suggestion wasn't that the divergence would be that we ended up with alt-iWatch *there* but that the evolution went through that phase instead of another. To perhaps explain better, think in term of this oversimplified evolution of personal communication:

suitcase phone + blind pager -> brick size phone + digital display pager -> pocket size phone with digital diplay + PDA -> smart phone

the IB version could instead be:

suitcase phone -> belt-worn phone apparatus linked via wire to wrist receiver -> all-integrated wristphone

in this scheme, all aspects beside phone-calls we expect from a smartphone would be relegated to small PDA-like portable computers having evolved separately. This could in a way link up with your idea of better faring blackberries as an actual keyboard would make sense on a smart device which evolved without links to phone and thus never had the need for a limited keyboard.--Marc pasquin 07:00, 26 December 2017 (PST)

Marc, so then the middle phase would have a keyboard on the wrist receiver? This seems like a great idea, but I imagine the wristwatch would be pretty small and you wouldn't be able to fit too many keys on a wristwatch. Would it just be limited to calling at this phase? --Gwaell 15:40, 27 December 2017 (PST)

Pretty much. In my head, I was imagining them to look a bit like the wristwatch calculator that used to be popular with nerds of my generation:

the buttons would obviously have a slightly different arrangement to serve their purpose. As for the speaker and microphone, they would be on the other side on each side of the clasp so that the person using the phone would first dial then put his hand with his palm to his hear to speak and listen.--Marc pasquin 16:37, 27 December 2017 (PST)

I don't know about anyone else, but personally I am in love with this idea. I am sure this could have been a viable product had technology gone this way. I believe that the pictures you put up would be the technology equivalent of today's dumbphones. Then, as an evolution from that kind of phone, these watches would develop color displays, touchscreens, and possibly have operating systems similar to today's smartwatches. --Gwaell

Now, now, smart watches are still a ways off. Give ‘em... eh, another 3 to 5 years, give or take, and then we’ll be seeing all those fancy-schmancy Galaxy Gears and iWatches.

If we were to put smartphones with actual calling functionality in IB, then I still think Blackberry would hold up alright in IB for a couple of reasons (including reluctance to adopt touchscreens), but allow me to make an even more radical suggestion; in light of the fact that the watch-phone took up much of the “phone” part of the smartphone, I hereby propose that the good ol’ PalmPilot is still alive and kicking. Perhaps PDAs are even more or less the iPhone equivalent *there*, which leads me to another headcanon of mine: the Ill Bethisad equivalent of Apple’s ill-fated Newton PDA fared much better and managed to become something of its own version of the iPhone. (Hell, if I recall correctly, Apple actually borrowed a few elements of the Newton OS for iOS, although the vast majority of iOS is a descendant of the fabled Unix operating system.) I think that eventually the PDA would still give way to the smartphone, though—even though BlackBerry’s never managed to fully drive a stake through the heart of the PDA, they were still losing a lot of market share by that point. But maybe the Blackberry ended up getting precluded. IDK. Juanmartinvelezlinares 14:33, 28 December 2017 (PST)