The modern smartphone has become an indispensable tool of daily life, its familiar “slab” design refined to minimize cognitive load.

For something I handle hundreds of times a day, I want it to be unobtrusive — free from design gimmicks or unnecessary distractions.

In that sense, the “Cambrian Explosion” of early smartphone designs has undergone its own form of natural selection — a Cambrian decimation that left only the most functional forms to survive.