“The Phone Guy” is an article by Michael Specter on how Nokia came to revolutionize and conquer the world market for cell phones. Good reading.

[Erik] Anderson reached for his briefcase and turned it upside down; at least a dozen telephones came tumbling out. He grabbed the oldest among them, the nine-year-old 101. “See the space here?” He pointed to a gap between the numeric keypad and the scrolling keys above it. “Frank [Nuovo] did it with his own hand,” he said. “Look at the racetrack, a curved oval shape. It was subtle. You wouldn’t notice it consciously.” He rubbed his thumb slowly across every line and contour. “Look at the earpiece. It has three holes. But what shape are the holes? Three ovals. Look at the microphone. It’s a little oval. It cost money to make those holes into oval shapes. A circle would have been cheaper. You don’t notice it—but you see it, you feel it. The phone creates a feeling of coherence, of understanding, which is both intellectual and emotional. It is a sense of organic rightness.” He glanced over at me. “You think this is a bunch of crap, don’t you?” he asked, amused as my eyes moved from the cell phone to Alberti’s essay, passages of which Anderson had underlined. “What could making a goddam cell phone have to do with the Renaissance?”

[ via gulfstream ]