How smart is YOUR phone?

November 6, 2008 4:08 PM

How smart is your phone? Maybe it plays music. Boring. Maybe it's famous for constant connection; almost addictive? Ha. Ha. It's been done to death, that one. But wait, there's more. Warning: This is not what you think it is. Also, pretty sure you have to have up-to-date Flash.

...and I'm not going to give away the surprise here. Have fun exploring!

posted by ZakDaddy (49 comments total)

Maybe it's famous for constant connection

Originally, the telephone was conceived as a point-to-point constantly open connection. The word "hello" was coined by Thomas Edison, to be shouted into the phone to get attention on the other end.
posted by StickyCarpet at 4:12 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

A+++ WOULD CRASH BROWSER AGAIN!!1
posted by odinsdream at 4:14 PM on November 6, 2008 [7 favorites has favorites]

Ring, ring, ring, ring, ring... pomegranatephone?
posted by PontifexPrimus at 4:16 PM on November 6, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

I am enthralled by this advertising.
posted by degoao at 4:17 PM on November 6, 2008

CANADAAAAaaa!
posted by boo_radley at 4:19 PM on November 6, 2008

Is your phone smart enough to remove excessive carriage feeds?

Also, why not just add intergalactic communicator and sporty SUV to the Pomegranate phone? It's no less fictional than the rest of the mockup.
posted by GuyZero at 4:19 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

And the solution to the crackberry is obviously the blackberry helmet.
posted by GuyZero at 4:21 PM on November 6, 2008

Mmmm, Sumatran. Good choice. What a riot!
posted by DesbaratsDays at 4:24 PM on November 6, 2008

Put me down for one (1) groan, heavy on the sigh.
posted by heyho at 4:27 PM on November 6, 2008

Would you like to see another feature, or have you seen everything you want?
posted by Phssthpok at 4:29 PM on November 6, 2008

That is a long, hard crawl for a bad joke. I kept expecting it to sell me juice.
posted by The Whelk at 4:29 PM on November 6, 2008

I kept expecting it to sell me juice.

Even worse, it sells Molson's, eh.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:36 PM on November 6, 2008

I must say, I did not see that coming.
posted by Hutch at 4:36 PM on November 6, 2008

It's a harmonica!

/Brain Candy
posted by WolfDaddy at 4:36 PM on November 6, 2008

So the fake ad winds up being a real ad?

Super.
posted by paisley henosis at 4:41 PM on November 6, 2008 [2 favorites has favorites]

Originally, the telephone was conceived as a point-to-point constantly open connection. The word "hello" was coined by Thomas Edison, to be shouted into the phone to get attention on the other end.

I found that surprising so I took a gander at Wikipedia. There are references to "jello" in literature that predate Edison's telephone work. (Actually, the referenced quote from 1826 predates Edison.)
posted by eyeballkid at 4:45 PM on November 6, 2008

*cough* "hello" *cough*

The word Jell-o was actually invented by Heathcliff Huxtable.
posted by eyeballkid at 4:46 PM on November 6, 2008

Please to not use so many carriage returns on front page kthxbai!
posted by Hairy Lobster at 4:48 PM on November 6, 2008

So lame.
Just like Nova Scotia.
(keeeeding!)
As embarrassing as it may be, I'll admit: I was fooled up until the coffee-brewer-a-ma-thingy. Actually, even that took a few seconds to register.

Coffee? Whoa! ... Hmm, no. Ohhhh.
posted by Menomena at 4:49 PM on November 6, 2008

I like coffee, and Nova Scotia.
posted by jessamyn at 5:02 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Wow. Did not see Nova Scotia coming. Alberta, Nebraska or New South Wales, maybe, but not Nova Scotia.
posted by Rock Steady at 5:08 PM on November 6, 2008

Mmm, Sumatran. Good choice.
posted by turgid dahlia at 5:13 PM on November 6, 2008

wow, is that pomegranate phone real???????? =D
posted by girlthursday at 5:13 PM on November 6, 2008

I like carriage returns.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:24 PM on November 6, 2008

No snark. Long paragraphs annoy me.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:24 PM on November 6, 2008

In a case of reality beating satire to the punch the iPhone already has a Harmonica app you can actually play.

Yes--I bought it.
posted by sourwookie at 5:24 PM on November 6, 2008

LAT blog post.
posted by mrgrimm at 5:25 PM on November 6, 2008

So, I lost interest in that site pretty quick. Is it a real phone or what?
posted by puke & cry at 5:27 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

I must say, in all my years of internet travails, I definitely did not anticipate visiting pomegranatephone.com/novascotia.html
posted by Rhaomi at 5:34 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

Pomegranatephone.com/novascotia.html. Because www.clownpenis.fart was already taken.
posted by Saydur at 5:59 PM on November 6, 2008 [4 favorites has favorites]

Originally, the telephone was conceived as a point-to-point constantly open connection. The word "hello" was coined by Thomas Edison, to be shouted into the phone to get attention on the other end.

When Mr Burns answers the phone on The Simpsons, he says "Ahoy-hoy?". A while ago I found out that apparently Eidson's competitor (or rival or something) suggested "ahoy-ahoy?" instead of "hello?", and that's where the Mr Burns thing comes from, which I thought was pretty cool.
posted by EndsOfInvention at 6:22 PM on November 6, 2008

DON'T BUY THIS IT STABBED ME IN THE FACE
posted by loquacious at 6:23 PM on November 6, 2008

more awesome widget
posted by hortense at 6:36 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

How stupid is YOUR PR firm?
posted by spamhead at 6:38 PM on November 6, 2008

Viral marketing that gave me techno-lust, made me hungry for pomegranate and homesick all at the same time. Didn't see that one coming!
posted by derekpaco at 7:14 PM on November 6, 2008

Oh, Canada.
posted by Blazecock Pileon at 7:14 PM on November 6, 2008

Do they even have pomegranates in Nova Scotia?
posted by maxwelton at 7:21 PM on November 6, 2008

When Mr Burns answers the phone on The Simpsons, he says "Ahoy-hoy?". A while ago I found out that apparently Eidson's competitor (or rival or something) suggested "ahoy-ahoy?" instead of "hello?", and that's where the Mr Burns thing comes from, which I thought was pretty cool.

Nope, that was also used by the good Mr. Bell himself. It was an old ship-to-ship greeting, from before the phone was invented.
posted by rkent at 9:49 PM on November 6, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

The coffee was cold and the harmonica was out of tune. feh
posted by Cranberry at 12:14 AM on November 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

In a case of reality beating satire to the punch the iPhone already has a Harmonica app you can actually play.

I so want to see someone playing the blues on the street for money with this.
posted by ODiV at 12:47 AM on November 7, 2008 [1 favorite has favorites]

i knew something was off the moment i saw that keyboard. somebody in the ad agency's design department fails to grasp the advantage of having a "querty" keyboard ... it's not just about having those six letters next to one another in that order. or maybe they just didn't care enough to make it convincing?
posted by radiosig at 12:56 AM on November 7, 2008

The language translation thing was pretty cool. Does something like that actually exist? If not, somebody should get to work.
posted by gfrobe at 2:19 AM on November 7, 2008

I'm with Bill Hicks on this one.
posted by DreamerFi at 3:45 AM on November 7, 2008

The coffee was cold and the harmonica was out of tune. feh

Bear with us. By the time we release pomegranitephone 2.0, the coffee will be a Vente Mochachino, the harmonica will be a Moog Synthesizer and Nova Scotia will be British Columbia.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 4:36 AM on November 7, 2008 [3 favorites has favorites]

All I have is a land-line. It has call-waiting and caller ID.
posted by doctorschlock at 7:38 AM on November 7, 2008

Oh, wait! What if we spent our traveling-to-Nova Scotia-money on developing the Pomegranate?
posted by wundermint at 8:03 AM on November 7, 2008

Does something like that actually exist?

No, but we might see it in our lifetime. Voice recognition and language translation are challenging problems, but the technology is steadily improving. It will never be perfect—human language is too full of ambiguity and too interwoven with cultural context—but we'll certain see devices like this within the next couple of decades.
posted by greenie2600 at 9:58 AM on November 7, 2008

doctorschlock wrote "It has call-waiting and caller ID"
Yep. But you probably pay extra for that. I ditched the land line because (a) as a cellular user, my phone company doesn't automatically sell my contact information for profit and (b) less of the features I want cost me extra.

See, the projector built-in sounded reasonable, given the new handheld-sized laser projectors I've seen on tech sites earlier this year - but the second they said "watch full HD video from your phone" I said "not only is this an obviously fake ad, it's also an obviously fake ad that took nearly 5 minutes to load."

Tastes like Pepsi FAIL to me.
posted by caution live frogs at 10:35 AM on November 7, 2008

It has call-waiting and caller ID.

You have call-waiting and caller ID? Such luxury. Our family is so poor, we have to make do with two tin cans with a piece of string threaded between them. We take one tin can around to the house of the people that we want to speak to, and we talk into and listen at the other can.

We're somewhat limited in terms of call distance, but the price is very reasonable indeed.
posted by PeterMcDermott at 10:36 AM on November 7, 2008