Curitel
Identity GA-400B

The Curitel Identity was a unique Linux-based fashion phone designed by a company called Wildseed (previously known as GitWit). It consisted of a base unit and “smart skins” with an integrated smart chip that configured the phone depending on the “skin” attached to the device. The SmartSkin concept extended to GameSkins and MusicSkins allowing the phone to be configured to offer specific music or gaming content together with ringtones, wallpaper, themes and other unique experiences when a different cover was clipped onto the phone. Wildseed hoped these skins could deliver higher margin accessory sales compared to basic clip-on covers that were popular at the time. At launch, the skins were priced at approximately $40 each and there were approximately 25 different variants available. The idea of using skins and chips to 'install' new features onto a phone when you turned it on was a great idea at a time when downloading any content to the phone over a cellular connection was extremely slow. The phone also shipped with three Java (J2ME) games: Fortune, Glowworm, and UForce. The phone also featured a capability called AirText which allowed the user to display text when waving the phone in the air. This was powered by eight bright LEDs at the top of the phone near the antenna.  A promotional picture of the Curitel Identity phone, when it was launched, is shown below: The first working prototype was showcased at the CTIA Wireless show in Orlando, Florida in March 2002 however the phone did not come to market until September 2004 when it was offered by US carrier Dobson/Cellular One. It was available with 23 smart skins. Wildseed, the company behind the SmartSkins concept also licenced the capability to be used on a Kyocera phone, codenamed Δ2 (Delta2) however it is unclear whether this ever came to market. In August 2005, Wildseed was acquired by AOL.