Finishing

When finishes are chosen and every-one has signed off, the factory line begins to churn. “We do a short production run of about 500 phones,” says Johnstone, “and use them heavily to gather feedback.” Choosing the finishes takes place in the AMOI paint studio, which has a massive digital wall of color swatches on painted plastic. “There are a hundred different shades and textures of black,” Johnstone says. “We went for a nice soft-touch black. The texture is crucial. It has to feel good in my hand.” The phone parts are painted in Shanghai and assembled by a pro-duction line in Xiamen on the outskirts of Shanghai. “Like with any mobile phone, there’s a ramp period in manufacturing,” says Johnstone. “You start off building a couple hundred a day, then it goes up to several thousand a day.” The first run has three color schemes: a Skype-colored blue and white, a youthful pink and white, and a more conservative black. “The iconic one is the white handset with blue highlights. When you see someone walking down the street with it, you say, Hey, that’s a Skypephone.”