← Second Chance

The handset

There’s a phone in your pocket

Tab, any time

An Android-style handset that opens over whatever you were doing. The home screen carries the time, the day, where you are and what you have left in the world, and a weather pill that is reading the actual sky — the icon walks from sun through partly cloudy, cloudy and rain to thunder as a storm builds, and the temperature and wind speed beside it are the ones outside your window.

Gogo Maps draws the estate around you and puts live markers on the things you care about: you, your house, your car, the ebike and the bus. Pick a saved place, hit navigate, and you get arrows and a spoken turn-by-turn from a satnav with a Midlands accent and opinions. It routes on the actual roads — through the ring road and over the bridges — not in a straight line.

Gopher Cabs is the one you use when you cannot face the walk. A destination list, a live map that zooms to fit the job, and a book-or-cancel bar. The car comes to where you actually are.

Very Local is the town's social feed, and it is where being seen becomes a mechanic rather than a mood. You can post, people react, and your neighbours post about you. The camera has a viewfinder and something behind it that quietly scores how well you framed the shot and what you put in it.

Whatsupp is how the messages reach you, and the internet button does what you would expect of a phone in a town this size.

Elsewhere in Oakhaven