Tag Archives: Ryan Smalley

A smartphone gaming controller that morphs to your gaming needs

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As we enter the age of limitless, ‘anywhere’ gaming, the Alpha Gamepad increases that sense of freedom with a full-feature controller designed to morph around your smartphone. The gamepad comes with a design that splits right through the middle, going from a traditional controller to something more Nintendo Switch-like. The Alpha sports a smartphone mount that acts as the pivot for this swiveling action, allowing it to be used in two ways – as a controller with the smartphone in front of it, and as a controller with the smartphone between it. Either way, the Alpha helps further the idea of being able to game freely on your mobile device, and with its fully equipped design (featuring dual shoulder buttons, dual joysticks, a D-pad, and action keys), it turns powerful gaming portable. That edgy cyberpunk-ish vibe is just a bonus!

Designer: Ryan Smalley (Modality)

Microsoft Surface Book 4 concept bridges the gap between the laptop and the 2019 iPad Pro

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If there was one standout feature from Apple’s iPad Pro announcement video at the beginning of this year, it was the magical keyboard case the tablet came with. The keyboard case (which came with a trackpad too) allowed the iPad to float off the surface, almost like an iMac, giving you a better-than-laptop physical experience… however that experience didn’t necessarily translate to the operating system.

With the Surface Book 4 concept from Ryan Smalley, that tiny gap gets bridged by successfully filling the void between netbooks and tablets. The Surface Book 4 concept comes with a laptop-inspired design, but factors in a second hinge that lets the screen float off the tabletop surface the device is kept on. The screen can be used conventionally, like a laptop, and can be height and angle-adjusted to give you the best viewing angle you need. Just like the iPad Pro, the Surface Book 4 packs a touchscreen, while also permanently being attached to a keyboard and trackpad… and here’s what makes it special – that good old Windows OS that gives you the right desktop experience that you need, unlike the iPad, which relies on a more rigid tablet OS and the App Store. Oh, the Surface Book 4 also packs multiple ports, an audio jack, and even a card reader for good measure!

Designer: Ryan Smalley

The Alpha Ergo is a simple, modern Keyboard that you can ergonomically adjust

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While we have Taika Waititi slamming Apple’s keyboards just moments after winning his Oscar award, here’s a simple wireless concept that does something none of Apple’s products do… It adjusts to your needs.

Meet the Alpha Ergo, a wireless keyboard with a unique design that allows it to alternate between regular and split-keyboard layouts. This unique swiveling action allows you to adjust your keyboard’s design for more ergonomic typing, but that isn’t all. The Alpha Ergo’s seemingly large hinge element also serves as an interface with a touchscreen and dial giving you wide variety of extra functions. You can use the dial and screen to change in-program settings, toggle through options, switch between active apps, or assign pretty much any action to the controls based on which program in. The dial could work as a scope-zoom in a game, or as a volume knob in Spotify, or even a brightness/contrast control in Photoshop. Plus, the hinge’s form does the keyboard a service by propping it up as a slight angle, giving you a better keyboard that’s comfortable, adjustable, and is fitted with everything a power-user is looking for. The only caveat is a missing number pad.

Designer: Ryan Smalley

The Windows OS is perfect for gadgets with folding displays

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Think about it. We’ve been using Windows with large screens almost all our life. It still remains the most popular desktop/laptop OS, used by people of all ages, and even though Google’s ChromeOS and Apple’s MacOS are strong contenders, there’s a certain framework that Windows uses that’s universal. A start button and taskbar at the bottom, files and folders appearing as windows that can be minimized and maximized, and a screen that’s conducive to power-usage and multitasking. Windows is the perfect big-screen OS for small or large jobs, and for complicated work as well as basic web browsing.

When you think of folding phones, the first use case that comes to mind is multitasking… a feature that mobile OS’s haven’t really enabled well enough. I still don’t know how to use apps in split-screen in Android, and even though I sort of know my way around iOS, I rarely see myself multitasking, even on my iPad. On my laptop, it happens without me even thinking or knowing. I’ve got Chrome open, but also a folder open in the background, a notes app on my desktop, and photoshop minimized, ready to be used. The estate provided by a large screen just makes things easier, and the Windows OS really enables this in a way that’s so easy to use, it gets taken for granted.

Now when you look at Microsoft’s vision of a folding phone, like the Surface Note concept shown below (also referred to as Project Andromeda by Microsoft), you’ll instantly realize that it’s running Windows (albeit in tablet mode), rather than a mobile OS built for screens no larger than 6 inches. The OS replicates the familiar desktop experience that actually makes a large screen useful. Fold the Surface Note in half when you need a phone (the OS is still perfectly useful), and open it into its larger format to use multiple apps together. The process feels incredibly natural, given how familiar we are with the Windows OS, and the larger screen’s functionality is further extended with the presence of the Surface Stylus. The stylus is even allowed to be carried ‘inside’ the Surface by simply wedging it in like a bookmark (although I’d probably be very concerned about damaging that display). Microsoft still seems to be working on developing their super-secret folding gadget, although people HAVE discovered several patents online. Personally, this could honestly be a pretty big deal for Microsoft. Whether you like it or not, they’ve had the monopoly on large-screen operating-systems meant for power-users all along. Android and iOS may be at a genuine disadvantage here, because their OS wasn’t developed for full-featured multitasking… Windows for desktop and tablet, on the other hand, has. If they can manage to deliver on a device that allows you to carry that large-screen (and its world of functionality) in your pocket, that’s just an incredible win for the company, and the OS!

Designer: Ryan Smalley