Mobile phones started out as car phones, and before the technology was available to enable pocketable devices with good reception and decent battery time, there was some "hybrid" devices out there. One was the Benefon Class 450 Ultra which was available for the NMT 450 network, before the NMT 900 and GSM 900 networks had full coverage. This Benefon was a car phone with a detachable handset that was capable of working like a cordless phone up to 500m (1640ft) from your vehicle.
Due to the very rapid development of the above mentioned 900 networks and shrinking handsets for those networks, this type of phone did not have a very long lifespan. So short that it was not an easy task to even locate any information on it online.
So why do I bring up this topic? Well because the mobile phones or/and gadgets have actually stopped shrinking some time ago and actually have started to grow into 5-7" tablet type devices (ie. Dell Streak & Samsung Galaxy Tab). So far a couple of companies that have understood that these phones or/and tablets now are of a size where we might want/need a remote for them, these are Sony LiveView™ and a concept from Fossil.
I am wondering if this could be part of our future? A device that is small enough to fit in our pocket or/and bag but large enough where we don't want to pull it out for each interaction we want to have with it, coupled with a wearable remote that also has some sort of of keyboard like input?
When I started thinking about this the Benefon mention at the beginning came to mind, how it was an extension of the car phone of the time, and how we are at the point soon where we might need smaller extension of our phones. What do you think?
