RouseWorld | Main -- Keylock

Keylock

Generally I really like my new phone, it is the swiss army knife of the cellphone industry and if you put any more in it, it would probably be too big. But there is one feature that I really miss from my old Motorola -- the cover that flipped open.

I made several calls accidentally with the new phone before I finally bothered to figure out the keylock function. I think it would be interesting to see a pistol safety lever on the phones. Something simple and mechanical would be faster and easier to use, I think, than the hold-such-and-such-button method. If a pistol safety lever is deemed to large (or too militaristic), then a simple detented slider would be nice, particularly if you had a red dot showing when the user pushed it over to the locked position.

The interface could work like this; the user pushes the slider to "lock" to end the call and unlocks the phone to answer a call or make a new call. If the user tells the phone to pair up to a bluetooth headset or computer, then wireless commands could be used to make or accept calls -- while keeping the physical keypad locked.

And yes, this is a little how the Apple iPod works, when used with its wired remote.