The moment I realized mobile had a serious problem on its hands came not during a keynote address at a phone launch, but rather during a food run. This past summer, I headed over to my local sandwich shop (this op-ed was not brought to you by Subway) and I noticed this sign.
Subway sandwich pro. Just take a moment to let that sink in. Double meat on your sandwich makes it a “Pro” sandwich. After throwing up in my mouth a little bit, I had the realization that things were getting out of control, and the blame rests solely on my department — phones.
Phones in particular, as well as tablets, are all resorting to the same naming systems — Pro, Max, and Ultra. Each of these names is trying to imply that they’re the best of the best, the supreme state a phone can be. As the saying goes, if everyone is special, no one is special. The same goes for phones. Let’s run down the list:
This is not an exhaustive list by any means. But not every phone can be an “Ultra.” Not every phone can be a “Max.” By definition, “max,” which is short for “maximum” means it’s every little bit of what’s possible and nothing more. It’s like saying you can have more than one Final Fantasy. Oh, wait. Never mind, let’s move on.
By definition, a “Pro” should be reserved for professionals. “Professional what?” you might ask, to which Apple replies, “Don’t worry about such things.” I mean, come on, the OnePlus 10 Pro doesn’t even have a OnePlus 10 not-pro to compare itself against. Don’t even get me started on “Plus.”
Semantics aside, the problem is manufacturers have forgotten how to use their words. They’ve all tossed their thesauruses to the side, and we’re left with a landscape of phones whose names are formatted like this:
[Phone manufacturer name] [*optional subbrand name] [Number, not necessarily, but often sequential] [Pro, Plus, Max, Ultra] [Pro, Plus, Max, Ultra]
That is the extent of it. So as a service, I decided to put together a short list of other words phone makers can use as suffixes for their phones. These don’t have to be series names. I’ve frankly given up on companies coming up with clever names for phones. But as for superlatives, there are options out there, people. Let’s look at a few.
Granted, some of these don’t exactly roll off the tongue. I never said this would be easy. But when sandwiches are being named after your phones, something has gone off the tracks. Or, it’s possible something has gone really right; it’s frankly too hard to tell. But my point is, there is a wide, wide world out there, and it’s full of adjectives that can excellently describe your multi-overpowered super phones, so let’s explore language a little bit and inject a little bit of the spice of life into our phone names. At the very least, it would stop op-eds like this from being written and I think we can all agree that would be a win.
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Building Android XR apps without owning smart glasses
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The new skill goes beyond responsive layouts, adding support for desktop-focused features and foldable-specific interface adjustments. Google is also signaling that adaptive app experiences will be more prominent on Google Play, with the company planning to pay more attention to how apps and games perform on foldable devices next year.
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