BlackBerry tried it before: in its final years, when it was still looking for a response to the onslaught of the iPhone and Android terminals, the Canadian brand explored phone formats that moved away from the conventional rectangular bar. The 2014 BlackBerry Passport had dimensions practically identical to those of a physical passport; I still keep mine. The format did not serve to save the brand, which ended up abandoning the terminal business, and for more than a decade no one has recovered it.

Satellites are all the rage.

A long-standing tradition at MWC was the Monday debate between the CEOs of the four major European telecommunications operators, whose added value was gender parity. This year, that tradition was broken: in the afternoon, Marc Murtra of Telefónica and Tim Höttges of Deutsche Telekom repeated their usual refrain, demanding better treatment from European regulators that would encourage consolidation into larger groups. According to Murtra, this is essential for the continent's sovereignty, because it's naive to believe that the US and China will provide us with their most advanced AI models in ten years' time. Höttges introduced a new element: he called on states to invest in digital services from the major European telecommunications companies. telecoms European companies, instead of opting for the easy route of contracting with American hyperscalers. Christel Heydemann (Orange) and Margherita Della Valle (Vodafone) met this morning, and Della Valle announced an alliance with Orange and Telefónica to jointly deploy satellite coverage capable of competing with Elon Musk's Starlink, which he announced this afternoon will begin operating. GSMA Intelligence says that 80% of mobile operators already have agreements with some satellite network to supplement service in areas without coverage.

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Samsung's Galaxy S25 Edge and Apple's iPhone Air boast the title of being the thinnest mainstream phones on the market today, and on paper they look like it: 5.8 millimeters for the former and 5.6 for the latter. However, these numbers are tricky, as they only count the main body and ignore the camera bumps that protrude from the back. Add these bumps together, and the Samsung measures 10.0 mm in total (5.8 + 4.2 mm for cameras) and the iPhone 11.3 (5.6 + 5.7 mm), both thicker than many mainstream phones. But who cares about reality when you have a catchy slogan?

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The market of the smartphones It's constantly under competition between manufacturers, who are looking for new ways to stand out. One trend that's emerging strongly is the creation of ever-thinner phones. This strategy doesn't respond to any explicit consumer demand, but rather is a deliberate tactic to establish a unique identity in a saturated landscape.

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