1465: xkcd Phone 2

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xkcd Phone 2

Title text: Washable, though only once.

Explanation

This is a followup to https://xkcd.com/1363/, which debuted the original xkcd Phone. Like xkcd Phone 1, this comic continues to parody modern smartphone advertisement by imitating a promotional image for a fictional phone. Like the previous XKCD Phone, the comic touts a variety of features which are either pointless, misleading, or physically impossible.

Going clockwise from the bottom left:

• Auto-Rotating Case: Phones often feature an auto-rotating display (to treat the phone as portrait or landscape), but this is useless.
• OS by Stackoverflow®: Stackoverflow.com is a public question/answer forum for programmers, indicating that the operating system of the XKCD Phone 2 was developed by anonymous internet volunteers rather than by a professional development team.
• 3D Materials: As all real materials are 3-dimensional, which is a given.
• Scroll lock:
• Coin slot: In most phones, this would be the charging port. Payphones have coin slots.
• Bug drawer: This is most likely the cover for other ports, though looks like a small drawer, capable of only holding bug-sized items. Possibly a joke on software bugs, which would, being virtual rather than physical, easily fit inside this area.

Transcript

This transcript is incomplete. Please help editing it! Thanks.

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Discussion

I think the "Waterproof (interior only)" is related to a so-called joke that I first heard from a smart-ass salesman years ago in a camera store when I was considering a certain camera. "Is it waterproof?" I asked. "Oh yes," he replied, "once water gets into it, it will never come out again!" --RenniePet (talk) 08:05, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Can you unify the transcription and description? Since the transcript starts from the top left, while description starts from bottom left. 17jiangz1 (talk) 09:43, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I have made http://www.xkcd.ga and http://www.xkcd.tk both forward to http://www.explainxkcd.com. Is this ok?17jiangz1 (talk) 08:47, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

The acronym for Stack Overflow is an anagram for the acronym of Operating System. Nothing huge, but still mildly interesting. -- Jghgjb (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Could the StackOverflow part also hint at StackSort and http://xkcd.com/1185/ ? Pinkishu (talk) 14:58, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

No. StackOverflow is a really popular site for programmers and such. It's propbably to be expected that it has been mentioned multiple times here. Also, StackSort (or sorting in general) doesn't make much sense in this context. -- 141.101.104.13 23:02, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

I think they meant that the OS could be built in a manner similar to the StackSort, taking various snippets of phone-os code and putting them together. 108.162.216.69 02:44, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

OK, that might be possible. -- 141.101.104.11 13:31, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Stackoverflow is named after the error in Java that occurs when the Java virtual machine's stack memory is exceeded. This is generally caused by a serious memory leak or an infinite recursion has occurred. Definitely not an attractive feature in an OS. Also, since Android runs using Java on the Davek virtual machine, it does actually throw stack overflow errors on occasion. -- -- Sam (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

Stack overflows have existed in computing from the first stack-based machines, which were invented back before the inventors of Java were probably born! OK, small exaggeration - maybe. First date I can see in this Wikipedia article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stack_machine is 1961. --RenniePet (talk) 13:51, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

I am thinking the "Fitbit fitness evaluator" is fully meta. That is it is meant to monitor/ asses the digital 'health/fitness' status of your human health/fitness monitoring device. Iggynelix (talk) 18:10, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

A phone for your other hand®–reads like the phone is capable of being operated by your non-dominant hand, leaving your dominant hand free for–er, other activities... Laverock (talk) 19:02, 26 December 2014 (UTC)

Such as using the XKCD Phone model 1, of course! (You do have two ears, as well as two hands, don't you?) --RenniePet (talk) 01:27, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

"Okay Google" is not the name of the virtual assistant, it's the catchphrase that it responds to. Google's version of Siri is called "Google Now." 188.114.106.29 08:03, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

Googleable

The iPad is not googleable. No, the other one. No, the other one. --108.162.231.28 03:18, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

3D materials could be a reference to 3D printed materials. Sebastian --108.162.254.152 12:47, 27 December 2014 (UTC)

'3D Materials' could be meant to indicate that the phone is not made out of graphene. 'Density control' could be hooked up to an air compressor, allowing the phone to slightly control its density by compressing/decompressing ambient air, while 'Volume' controls the speaker (a useful thing to have, when it's always on). 'Auto-Rotating case' might indicate that it has some sort of gyroscope or reaction wheel system to allow it to control its orientation. 'Washable, though only once' might mean it has some sort of expendable water-resistant protection or coating (only on the inside, of course) that is worn off after a single washing. 'Over 350 Pixels Per Screen' only sets a lower limit on pixel count. The actual count may be anywhere from 351 to several billion or more, so it may actually be a selling point, although a poorly advertised one. 199.27.128.117 08:46, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Also, the 'Ribbed' feature may be a solution to problems caused by the previous hardware's frictionless exterior.199.27.128.117 08:52, 28 December 2014 (UTC)

Can someone explain or provide a link to an explanation for pokedex in this context. I know what a pokedex is but is this a Randellism for smartphones?--Sww1235 (talk) 07:03, 29 December 2014 (UTC)

Maybe this helps: 1288 -- 141.101.105.213 20:30, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

This is still missing an explanation for "A phone for your other hand(R)". Is that a reference to something? (Also, I practically screamed with laughter when I read "OS by StackOverflow". :) 173.245.54.217 16:24, 30 December 2014 (UTC)

I believe the ribbed part is an upgrade from the first xkcd phone, which were frictionless 141.101.104.101 (talk) (please sign your comments with ~~~~)

"Volume and density control" might refer to the phrases from the advertisement of the hair styling products. 108.162.238.165 05:26, 3 January 2015 (UTC)

"Googleable" actually is a legitimate feature of a product. For example, if you have ever worked with the configuration management software "Chef", you'll know that it's notoriously difficult to Google documentation for it because many of its components and related pieces of software follow a naming convention that usually returns results related to actually cooking food (e.g. "Chef", "Knife", "cookbook", etc.). 199.27.128.197 16:54, 20 January 2015 (UTC)

Do not hike in places where wolves exist, or have been reintroduced. 173.245.50.73 06:37, 1 March 2015 (UTC)

Edited a bit in the "Cries if lost" section to clarify it a bit, instead of "saying hi when lit" (implying the phone says hi when it's lit on fire) to "saying hi when exposed to light". 173.245.54.45 05:46, 8 February 2016 (UTC)

Amusing joke attributes of this phone! I especially like "Washable, tho only once". Reminds me of the eleventh maxim of maximally effective merceraries: "11. Everything is air-droppable at least once." and "32. Anything is amphibious if you can get it back out of the water" SirAdrian (talk) 08:49, 13 November 2018 (UTC)