A friend of mine told me about his friend’s design project for a college class. It was a folding clamshell phone. The professor of the class went on a tirade about everything that was impractical or just flat out wrong about the design, and gave the student an F.
The student later went on to work for Motorola. His design became the StarTAC.
The professor adamantly refused to apologize for getting it so wrong, even as numerous companies rushed to make their own flip phone designs.
Edit: To the professor's credit, he was right about certain aspects of the design. The hinges of flip phones are prone to cracking and breaking from repeated use, and the cables connecting the two parts often fail after many cycles of opening and closing the phone. (Both of those things eventually happened to my StarTAC.) He was a very strict pragmatist when it came to product design, and dinged the student for a design that would eventually break from use. But he severely underestimated how many people would set those concerns aside for the sheer coolness factor.
The student later went on to work for Motorola. His design became the StarTAC.
The professor adamantly refused to apologize for getting it so wrong, even as numerous companies rushed to make their own flip phone designs.
Edit: To the professor's credit, he was right about certain aspects of the design. The hinges of flip phones are prone to cracking and breaking from repeated use, and the cables connecting the two parts often fail after many cycles of opening and closing the phone. (Both of those things eventually happened to my StarTAC.) He was a very strict pragmatist when it came to product design, and dinged the student for a design that would eventually break from use. But he severely underestimated how many people would set those concerns aside for the sheer coolness factor.