Phone, keyboard and camera grip put together
 

The other half concept of Jolla is a good idea. It allows the design of some extra accessories and features so that their design does not interfere too much the design of the phone. It provides also more options for the people who purchase the Jolla phone.

But in the long run, also other alternatives will be needed, for these reasons:

• The sizes of phones and their accessories can vary. When a bigger phone model is launched, for example.
• The stacking of other halves may become complex. If there is more than one half and the phone, putting them together may be problematic. For example, if there is a "tablet half", into which you can insert the phone which is equipped with a "slliding keyboard half". Do you need to remove the keyboard half every time when inserting the phone into the tablet half, or is there space for stacked halves?
• The total price of the phone and its other halves may become a challenge.
• The management and the total volume of the halves may be challenging. The total set which you carry daily may consist of several "halves", which you may drop or forget somewhere. And the total volume of the separate halves may grow bigger than a typical compact camera. You may wish to own the phone + sliding Qwerty keyboard + camera grip, and perhaps a couple of other halves for frequent photographing and for the writing of longish texts.
• There are also other challenges, but llisting them is not the point for this topic.

Please comment by writing your own analysis of what might be needed. You are naturally welcome to critisize this post and its comments.

In this thread we concentrate on the use of the phone when it is equipped with a sliding Qwerty keyboard and/or camera grip, and perhaps some related accessories. But before writing a detailed comment about a new feature which might be out of the scope of the "phone + keyboard + camera grip" concept, please first suggest whether your new feature can be discussed in this thread. Or create another thread for the new feature of yours.

Re: Phone, keyboard and camera grip put together
 

Let's analyse the use of cameraphones and keyboards, and try to improve their usability.

Challenges

• Some cameraphones have a lens cover which protects the camera lens. Certain camera functions do not activate until you slide the cover aside. But on most cameraphones there is no lens cover.
• Unlike many compact and system cameras, cameraphones have no lens hood. The purpose of the hood is to reduce flare caused by stray light striking the camera lens.
• For some cameraphones are available camera grips which provide a good grip of the phone, an easy-to-reach shutter button, and tripod fixing. They may be equipped also with extra battery, memory card and Wi-Fi connection. The total volume and weight of the phone + cameragrip combination may not be liked by some customers - so they purchase an ordinary digital camera.
• The protruding lens of some cameraphones make the phone unstable on a desk, which makes it impractical for ad-hoc text entry with a single hand. Perhaps there could be an even surface or 3 or 4 "feet" against the desk.
• On the market there are add-on lenses and separate add-on cameras for smartphones. But their use and carrying may be complex. Instead of carrying a smartphone and an add-on lens, or an add-on camera, you could carry a smartphone and an ordinary digital camera. Or even better, all these put together, as a single device.
• Cameraphones have typically a single physical button for the camera functions: the shutter button. But in some situations, more buttons might be needed. A reference: some compact and system cameras have a small keyboard for the entry of short texts and arrow keys for advanced controls.

To make the management of the phone, hardware keyboard and camera accessories easier, could we put them together, making 1 + 1 + 1 > 4 ?

Solution, which can be applied partly also to a "Sliding Qwerty Half"

It is possible to integrate the lens hood and sliding lens cover with the sliding Qwerty keyboard of cameraphones. Here "up" and "down" refer to the situation when the phone is kept in landscape orientation.

• To the direct-sliding Qwerty keyboard à la N810+N900, make two holes so that they match with the lens of the cameraphone, when you open (slide down) the keyboard, and when you close it (slide it up).
• The lower hole is covered by a detachable cover (cap).
• Slide the keyboard down and you can photograph thru the upper hole of the keyboard. And when not photographing, slide the keyboard up, and the lens will be protected under the cover of the lower hole.
• Those who prefer photographing with the keyboard inserted, can take away the cover from the lower hole, permanently.
• The cap can be replaced by a closeup lens. Screw the add-on lens into the hole and you can keep it there permanently. The diameter of a closeup lens element can be less than 10 mm and its length does not matter, if it is shorter than the thickness of the Qwerty part of the device.
• Even a telephoto lens can be considered, but with an add-on lens it is very challenging to compete with the quality of bigger telephoto lenses, on the edges of a photo. And telephoto lenses tend to be longer than the thickness of the sliding Qwerty part. But a small telephoto add-on lens may work fine as an ad-hoc lens, especially if you crop out the less sharp edges of the photo.
• Just slide the Qwerty to choose between add-on lense, cover and hole: hole / lens, or cover / hole, depending how you have filled the holes.
• As an option, the closeup lens or a special lens could be used for fingerprint detection.
• In integrated devices, the keyboard part can be made heavier and thicker than the screen part of the phone (like Nokia N900 has). Those changes will make the Qwerty-phone easier to hold and enter text, because its center of gravity would be low enough in the keyboard part.
• Thanks to the relatively thick Qwerty part, on its top can be built a large shutter button. Yes, think about N900: when you keep it in landscape orientation and slide its screen up, you can keep your right-hand index finger comfortably on its top. That's where the shutter button needs to be added.

A third hole can be used for an extra lens, if you add an intermediate stop to the sliding rails of the Qwerty keyboard. On such devices you will be able to choose between cover / hole / lens, or hole / 1st add-on lens / 2nd add-on lens.

If the camera is in the middle of the other end of the phone (like on Jolla phone), and the Qwerty slides about 60% of the height of the phone in landscape direction, the upper hole is not needed.

The mechanics can be designed so that the "camera bubble") of smartphones like Nokia 808 and Lumia 1020 goes inside the empty space in the keyboard, so that it almost touches the lens cover of the lower hole. When the Qwerty keyboard of such a device is slided down, the hole may be seen as a hole in the keymat. But that is no problem, if the camera bubble is built in the center, and the keyboard is modified to a "split Qwerty" (such splitting to left-thumb and right-thumb halves would be needed anyway on large smartphones, in order to make it easier to reach with the left thumb the T, G, B keys, and with the right thumb the Y, H, N keys).

To make a ring-flash for closeup photos, perhaps several LEDs or other flashlight components can be added around the holes in the keyboard part, on its outer surface. Thanks to those extra flash diodes, the protruding "bubble" can be made a lot smaller, making the holes smaller and the fixing of add-on lenses easier to design.

Benefits

1. The holes in the keyboard work as lens hoods.
2. The lens of the camera will be protected by the cover of a hole.
3. Also optional add-on lenses can be added by the owner of the phone: just screw the add-on lens into a hole and keep it there for a long time. With a closeup add-on lens can be taken sharper photos at short distances, and with a telephoto add-on lens can be taken sharper photos from a distance.
4. The lens-hood, lens-cover features and the add-on lens do not add the dimensions of the Qwerty-phone in any way. Only the close-up lens adds its weight, but very little (a few grams).
5. No need to carry loose lens hoods, lens covers nor add-on lenses, which you could easily drop or forget or somewhere.
6. Optimal usage of the limited space; everything is included on the keyboard, and no extra adapters will be needed between the camera and an optional lens.
7. Thanks to the large shutter key on top of the relatively thick Qwerty part, most owners of the integrated Qwerty phone will not long for a separate camera grip. The need of a separate camera grip can be reduced further with careful design of the device. This will mean that in a way the integrated Qwerty-phone works as a camera grip, too.
8. Because the thick "camera bubble" of some smartphones goes into the hole of the Qwerty part, the camera can be kept steady also on desktop, so that you can enter text with its keyboard.
9. The extra flash lights around the holes work as an ideal ring flash for closeup photos, which can be made with a closeup lens in a hole.
10. With the keyboad pulled down (100% or 50% of the height of its visible part, the keymat), you can use its lowermost keys as control buttons of the camera. For example, the Spacebar can be used as an extra button to lock exposure measurements, Shift key to lock auto-focus, Enter key as an extra shutter button, etc. And the four arrow keys of the Qwerty keyboard can be used for navigation is the menus of the camera or to adjust the manual focusing of the lens. The use of those keys may not be ideal for ergonomically correct use and for a good grip of the device, but they may anyway be easier and quicker to use than the corresponding controls on touch screen.

For ad-hoc experiments

• By adding a special adapter, it will be possible to attach other lenses and accessories. Big lenses may, however, overshadow the photographing thru the other holes and otherwise make the use of the device cumbersome. But if you want to make experiments with surplus lenses, you may appreciate this feature.

Pictures / Phone, keyboard and camera grip put together
 

I have drawn the first pictures of the "Cameraphone + Qwerty combination" which makes camera grips obsolete. First I was going to publish them here. But because they contain several unpublished details which I do not want to be copied by the manufacturers of cameraphones and their accessories, I do not publish the pictures. Those companies might be quicker in copying some details than Jolla Ltd, for example.

Although the drawings describe an integrated device which comprises a cameraphone, sliding Qwerty keyboard and several add-ons for photographing, they are partly applicable also to a "Landscape Sliding Keyboard Half" for Jolla. Additional drawings will be available for that "other half".

People who want to participate or otherwise support the implementation of this idea, please contact me with a personal message. In your message, please describe what kind of skills you have, or in what way you can support the implementationt. Nobody with sufficient enthusiasm will be disregarded, but a special plea is addressed to people who possess CAD-skills or have experience with the mechanics design of consumer products, or with the switching domes or keymats on keyboards. Perhaps a prototype can be done in parallel with that of the "Building OtherHalf keyboard prototype" thread; http://talk.maemo.org/showthread.php?t=91535 or as a separate kickstart operation.