Tag Archives: WinPhone 95

What if Microsoft made a smartphone 15 years before Apple did?

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The year is, well 1995, and Windows has just released an operating system that defines the company’s future, and pretty much the future of computing too. I’m talking about the extremely revolutionary (for its time) Windows 95. The graphical user interface based software spread like wildfire, becoming arguably the first professionally and personally used OS for Microsoft. Just for a second imagine if the past were different. If mobile computing devices did exist in 1995, and Microsoft beat Apple to the first smartphone (technically). The WinPhone 95 phone is a great piece of alternative-history that explores the idea of technology taking an unexplored path.

Created by designer Henrique Perticarati, the phone is a brilliant insight into Microsoft’s hardware and software. It, for starters, completely ports Microsoft’s Windows 95 onto the smartphone, bringing a desktop experience to a handheld device. The screen isn’t a touchscreen (the history isn’t THAT alternative), but it does feature a trackball at its base that you can use to navigate through the phone’s OS, with left and right click buttons right below it. (I wonder how one would type on this thing)

The WinPhone 95 phone does a shoutout to all the connector technologies of the past. It has what I assume is a 12v DC port for charging, boasts of not one but TWO jacks on the top (for your mic, and your headphones), and even has a, wait for it, VGA port for a display, and a Parallel port for a printer! Why would you need a printer or an external display, you say? Well, that’s because the WinPhone 95 phone packs a 1.2 megapixel camera on its back, making it arguably the first cellphone to have a camera on it… you know, if it existed. Also armed with a big, clunky, adorable volume switch, a turbo and hard-reset button, and even your Power and CPU LEDs (remember the two blinky lights on your desktop?), the WinPhone 95 is a great look at a phone that never happened and never even was on Microsoft’s agenda… but it’s worth imagining. What if the WinPhone 95 phone DID exist. How would that influence the future of smartphones. Would we see Java and Symbian? Or Android and iOS? Or would Microsoft be the reigning king of all operating systems??

Designer: Henrique Perticarati

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A Phone that Probably Won’t Have Updates

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The smartphone market has always been a tough battle, not for the faint-hearted. Microsoft has never been the strongest in that battle, unfortunately – with the Microsoft Kin and not to mention the partnership with Nokia. Microsoft has fallen on some hard luck with the smartphone battle and failed various times to make a dent in the market, overly dominated by Android and iOS – more importantly, Samsung and Apple.

An interesting and unique perspective of – what would a Windows phone have been like if Microsoft made one that ran its wildly popular Windows 95 operating system? – was recently asked, and answered by UI/UX designer Henrique Perticarati. In order to complement the operating system, Perticarati gave the smartphone a familiar beige plastic, identical to those of the 80’s. The WinPhone 95 has a chunky and awkward brick aesthetic which is evidently the antithesis to today’s rectangular slab of metal in smartphones today. The WinPhone 95 humorously gives way to a small trackball in at the front for navigating through the Windows 95 interface.

The WinPhone 95 pokes fun at the nostalgic attributes of Windows 95 with features like the ‘music library with CD quality audio’ or the fact that the WinPhone 95 has no USB-C or HDMI outputs, just good old parallel and VGA outputs for connecting all of your peripherals. Maybe this might give Microsoft the big win they’ve been looking for all these years?

Designer: Henrique Perticarati

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1.2 Megapixel photos with Sony Mavica Lens.

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Browse the web with Internet Explorer.

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Listen to your music library with CD quality audio in Windows Media Player.

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Multi task with the MS trackball. As you’ve always wished to.

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