What Should a Phone Really Do?
Back in the 1980’s Reagan was president, the Russians were the enemy, and the Colecovision was the state of the art gaming system. One of the key pieces of consumer electronics was the digital watch. While they all could tell time, quite accurately, manufacturers kept coming up with additional features to pack into the time pieces. Common ones included stopwatches, alarms, hourly chimes, and countdown timers. Later on, we got calculators, and even temperature readouts. What happened to digital watches now? They have fallen off the radar as there is very little innovation, and no new features. I’m guessing that at least some consumers simply got overwhelmed with a watch that does too many things, and really just wanted it to tell time.
While the “buy once” model of watches is far different that the current “perpetual pay” prices of cell phones, I do see a parallel. No matter what else the smartest phone will do, it really needs to do one core feature well- make and receive phone calls. The rest is all gravy, and matters little in the end to the vast majority of users.
Many phones come with all kind of extra capabilities these days. Phone cameras are commonplace. Downloadable game capable phones seem to be everywhere. So called smartphones that combine in elements of a PDA make up a significant minority of the mobile phone market. The latest trend in phones is to combine them with music players to play your mp3’s, or better yet, to be able to download music tracks to the phone so that the carriers get a piece of the action. There are even phones that combine navigation tech into them, using cell towers as a terrestrial based GPS system.
This now brings us up to speed with the present. For the last few months, the iPhone has been all the rage. Perhaps that is the understatement of the year. One electronic brick to enable us to have phone, PDA, iPod, and more all at our fingertips. As electronics mature, is this iPhone the next device in the evolution as we seek even more mobile and longer lasting computer power?
Not so fast. While teenagers use all of these next generation phone features, most folks I know don’t even know their phones can do this. Take me for example. I don’t have a camera phone. I’ve never sent a text message, downloaded a game, or even a ringtone. If I want to use the internet on the go, I wouldn’t use my cell phone, I turn to a laptop, or my Palm which uses the more affordable WiFi. If that is not available, then no internet is what I accept.
The iPhone is also tied to one carrier- Cingular (which is being renamed as AT&T, again). I have a two year contract to T-Mobile, and I wouldn’t pay the outrageous early termination fee ($300!!!) to be able to sign up with Cingular to get the iPhone, or any other phone. While I’m sure the Apple faithful will line up to get one of these, I’m not sure the masses will run to it in droves.
I suppose I’m just not that eager to have the elusive “Swiss Army Knife of Electronics” that has been talked about for so long. I have two digital cameras, a PDA, a GPS, and an mp3 player or two. Oh yeah, and a cell phone. I’m happy to have all of this separate because I can’t use all of it simultaneously anyway. As each needs to be upgraded, I can do so on a separate schedule without worrying about a contract and some early termination fee, buying the best product for me in each category.
In the end, I really only use my cell phone for phone calls, and nothing else (I really have to concentrate to even retrieve my voicemail). I’m suspecting outside of a few “electronic fashionable” teens, and some “gotta have it” businessmen that the masses will not flock to a $600 phone that requires a new cell phone contract.
I surely will go check it out when the iPhone debuts. I’m also quite sure that I don’t need to own one. Time will tell how many others think their phone only needs to make phone calls. If I were Nokia or Motorola, I’d focus on a small phone, with a ridiculously long battery life, and make it easy to dial with large and clear raised buttons. With our aging demographic in the US, this is more the phone of the future as far as I’m concerned.
--Jonas
While the “buy once” model of watches is far different that the current “perpetual pay” prices of cell phones, I do see a parallel. No matter what else the smartest phone will do, it really needs to do one core feature well- make and receive phone calls. The rest is all gravy, and matters little in the end to the vast majority of users.
Many phones come with all kind of extra capabilities these days. Phone cameras are commonplace. Downloadable game capable phones seem to be everywhere. So called smartphones that combine in elements of a PDA make up a significant minority of the mobile phone market. The latest trend in phones is to combine them with music players to play your mp3’s, or better yet, to be able to download music tracks to the phone so that the carriers get a piece of the action. There are even phones that combine navigation tech into them, using cell towers as a terrestrial based GPS system.
This now brings us up to speed with the present. For the last few months, the iPhone has been all the rage. Perhaps that is the understatement of the year. One electronic brick to enable us to have phone, PDA, iPod, and more all at our fingertips. As electronics mature, is this iPhone the next device in the evolution as we seek even more mobile and longer lasting computer power?Not so fast. While teenagers use all of these next generation phone features, most folks I know don’t even know their phones can do this. Take me for example. I don’t have a camera phone. I’ve never sent a text message, downloaded a game, or even a ringtone. If I want to use the internet on the go, I wouldn’t use my cell phone, I turn to a laptop, or my Palm which uses the more affordable WiFi. If that is not available, then no internet is what I accept.
The iPhone is also tied to one carrier- Cingular (which is being renamed as AT&T, again). I have a two year contract to T-Mobile, and I wouldn’t pay the outrageous early termination fee ($300!!!) to be able to sign up with Cingular to get the iPhone, or any other phone. While I’m sure the Apple faithful will line up to get one of these, I’m not sure the masses will run to it in droves.
I suppose I’m just not that eager to have the elusive “Swiss Army Knife of Electronics” that has been talked about for so long. I have two digital cameras, a PDA, a GPS, and an mp3 player or two. Oh yeah, and a cell phone. I’m happy to have all of this separate because I can’t use all of it simultaneously anyway. As each needs to be upgraded, I can do so on a separate schedule without worrying about a contract and some early termination fee, buying the best product for me in each category.
In the end, I really only use my cell phone for phone calls, and nothing else (I really have to concentrate to even retrieve my voicemail). I’m suspecting outside of a few “electronic fashionable” teens, and some “gotta have it” businessmen that the masses will not flock to a $600 phone that requires a new cell phone contract.
I surely will go check it out when the iPhone debuts. I’m also quite sure that I don’t need to own one. Time will tell how many others think their phone only needs to make phone calls. If I were Nokia or Motorola, I’d focus on a small phone, with a ridiculously long battery life, and make it easy to dial with large and clear raised buttons. With our aging demographic in the US, this is more the phone of the future as far as I’m concerned.
--Jonas
posted by digitaldoc at 9:26 PM
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