design@Sun

Jen McGinn is an interaction designer in xDesign who is working to improve the user experience with software installation and registration. She has an MS in Human Factors in Information Design and works out of Sun's campus in Massachusetts.

Again, I have a question for you. I have tons of unused Sun swag to exchange for my favorite answers -- a Java gym bag, a Sun CD case, a Sun coffee mug, a desk clock, a laptop bag ... too much to list. Send me a great response to my question, and I'll let you pick.

Here's the thing ... we all have mobile devices: cell phones, laptops, PDAs, nav systems, pen tops, tablets, hand-held game consoles ... and they all provide some value to us. That value may be access to a resource, the ability to perform a new task, the ability to perform an old task in a new way or at a new location, entertainment, productivity, connection to our friends, immersion, or escape.

So in my mind ... I have a vision ... if I took all the functionality of all those disparate devices and combined it with all the benefit that I get from my non-portable devices (for example, my SunRay, my iMac, my cable box, and a Wii) I know what it would look like and what it would do for me. I imagine it every time I look at the iPhone. I want it not only to supplement the cadre of devices that I already have, I want my next mobile device to replace them. All of them.

But I realize that, along many axes, I am not in the majority. As desperately as I want an iPhone, I just refuse to buy one until it meets some of my other demands.

So my question to you is ... when you dream of the mobile device that you wish you had, how is it different from what is available now? Write me your answer in email: jenm at sun dot com.