Imagine, if you will, that you're on holiday. It's a medium-sized town you're in, with a small business district, residential areas and a lovely, sprawling cobbled area full of local shops selling all sorts. The birds are singing about how sunny it is, and you can hear waves in the distance somewhere.
You're idly window-shopping in the local shops bit. Except...something's different from yesterday. Yesterday you could see through the windows and read the signs above the shops. Now all the windows are blacked-out and there are no signs. All the doors are locked, and as you walk around it's clear every building in the town is the same. You ask a passing policeman what's going on and he gives you a phone book consisting just of numbers and postcodes. He also hands you the most beautiful phone you've ever seen. As you use it, its colour changes in impossible swirls and patterns. It also has a very pleasing melodic beeping sound as you dial, with a different tone for each number.
It turns out you have to dial numbers in the book and ask whoever answers where they are. Most people are in similar apartments in town. Someone tells you they have a pet shop. A few are office buildings. As you continue to dial using the stunning phone, you notice the buildings around you start to unlock their doors and you can see through the windows, and the phone miraculously gives you directions.
After a while you start realising that the businesses are generally in a couple of postcodes, people's houses in a few others, and the shops are in a couple more. You get an idea what sort of building it's likely to be by the postcode in the book. You dial for hours, enjoying the process of using the phone (although that's getting a bit boring now as it takes too long for what is often just someone's home number). Once or twice you get a cake shop or a museum, and decide to pop in for a look around and a bite to eat. Once, in your hundreds of calls, you get a beautiful little church which is a joy to walk around for a few minutes. Once you get someone's house but it's a house on the side of a hill overlooking a sandy cove, so you walk (a long way) up there - but are rewarded with a STUNNING view, which you take in for a few minutes before moving on.
*******
See, that might be an exaggeration and not borne out by the beta or the real thing. But this is what I'm afraid it will be like.
You're idly window-shopping in the local shops bit. Except...something's different from yesterday. Yesterday you could see through the windows and read the signs above the shops. Now all the windows are blacked-out and there are no signs. All the doors are locked, and as you walk around it's clear every building in the town is the same. You ask a passing policeman what's going on and he gives you a phone book consisting just of numbers and postcodes. He also hands you the most beautiful phone you've ever seen. As you use it, its colour changes in impossible swirls and patterns. It also has a very pleasing melodic beeping sound as you dial, with a different tone for each number.
It turns out you have to dial numbers in the book and ask whoever answers where they are. Most people are in similar apartments in town. Someone tells you they have a pet shop. A few are office buildings. As you continue to dial using the stunning phone, you notice the buildings around you start to unlock their doors and you can see through the windows, and the phone miraculously gives you directions.
After a while you start realising that the businesses are generally in a couple of postcodes, people's houses in a few others, and the shops are in a couple more. You get an idea what sort of building it's likely to be by the postcode in the book. You dial for hours, enjoying the process of using the phone (although that's getting a bit boring now as it takes too long for what is often just someone's home number). Once or twice you get a cake shop or a museum, and decide to pop in for a look around and a bite to eat. Once, in your hundreds of calls, you get a beautiful little church which is a joy to walk around for a few minutes. Once you get someone's house but it's a house on the side of a hill overlooking a sandy cove, so you walk (a long way) up there - but are rewarded with a STUNNING view, which you take in for a few minutes before moving on.
*******
See, that might be an exaggeration and not borne out by the beta or the real thing. But this is what I'm afraid it will be like.
