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Plain Cell Phones Fading Away?
An anonymous reader writes "According to this Reuters article plain old vanilla cell phones are fading away in the US. Instead, the author claims, (after quoting some 'expert' from this company) that phones with fancy features (cameras, games, etc.) are starting to dominate. I beg to differ - one of the few things stopping me from purchasing a phone is the fact that I do not want to pay for hundreds of features that I will never use. All I want is an address book and a way to make calls."
Happy Trails,
Erick
http://www.busyweather.com/
I would say that with Bluetooth, cell phones should get less stuff on them. I had a friend said that with Bluetooth a cell phone can just be relegated to a communication conduit. Ideally the cell phone can be made smaller and just stay in the pocket. Or even put in a palm pilot that does not have an ear piece or mouth piece. And have it come with a Bluetooth head set.
If you work for the Department of Defense on a military installation, you are not allowed to bring a camera phone onto the facility. A friend of mine did, and they fired him on the spot.
Here in Boston the most common phone I see is the cheap motorola phones that you get for $40 with a Verizon contract. Before that it was the cheap ?samsung phone that you got with the Sprint contract.
maybe that's just those of us who aren't into the bling factor.
My wife and I both got cell phones about a year ago. Hers was the fancy, bonus-cash-off color screen fold-open phone, mine was the standard, free-with-plan Motorola 120e. At the time, I thought I was being nice by letting her have the color phone. While she still likes it, I'm quite glad I let her have it, as the 120e is the perfect 'plain vanilla' phone for me. It's got a basic feature list--datebook, phonebook, and such--has a simple, monochrome screen, a powerful backlight (it comes in quite handy in blackouts,) and a nice design. It's absolutely bulletproof--it has gouges on the casing from where I've dropped, crushed, and scraped it, but it still works perfectly. It can last for days without needing a charge, and the call quality is just fine.
By contrast, the hinge on my wife's phone wiggles and feels somewhat flimsy, it's lucky to go for 36 hours without running out of juice, all the neat 'features' just end up costing money if you want to use them, and frankly, it doesn't get any better reception or sound quality than my phone does. Yeah, she can play Tetris on it, but honestly, I don't feel like I'm missing out on much.
For a good little "I just want to talk on it" phone, I'd recommend the 120e...
Obliteracy: Words with explosions
Holy moly, the day that a cell phone manufacturer comes out with the ability to export/import your address book as an XML document is the day I get a new cell phone. I'm with the author of the blurb. I need a phone to call people, and to store the contact info for those I call. That's it. And it'd sure 'nuff be nice to be able to import/export that info into/out of my system.
I could give a rat turd about cameras and ring tones.
Our company has banned cellphones and PDAs with cameras inside the workplace for secutiry reasons. They have also banned wireless network devices. Whenever someone orders a new laptop the admin has to disable the wireless network card before turning it over to the user.
"God fights on the side with the best artillery." - Napoleon, Marshal of France - speaking truth to power
If I remember correctly, it was released in 1997. It cost me an arm and a leg (my first cell phone ever) but it's still working. Somehow it reminds me of my HP 48SX calculator.
My only gripe with it is that when it's cold (-10 C) outside, the display doesn't refresh properly. Other than that, it's in a perfect working condition.
The owls are not what they seem
Nah, there are just no alternatives anymore. Go out and look for just a cell phone, they all have PDA features, color LCD screens, IM and eMail and stuff.
It's more like a forced up-selling, you really dont have the choice.
My company just handed out a round of new phones not too long ago that are so bloated with features they're borderline useless as a phone. They run PalmOS, and I've had it crash with a fatal exception just by trying to answer it when it was ringing.
I don't need no instructions to know how to rock!!!!
phones with fancy features (cameras, games, etc.) are starting to dominate.
Well great then! I think this is fantastic. Think about all of the places that cameras aren't allowed, for example movie theaters. Now think about how many jackasses who leave their phone on and have it ring during the movie.
This will have the benefit of making phones more and more difficult to bring into public places, since cameras aren't allowed in those places. In my opinion, all the better. I hate cell phones, I dislike even having one (I only do because of work), and I'm all for any "features" that cause a backlash against them.
Cell phones are now already banned from strip clubs, certain concert venues are pushing against them, etc. This is a great thing in my opinion.
Nope. We're getting close to the point that a low-level cell phone will have a color display and enough computing power to play Pac-Man.
386 computers are still useful, but you won't find anybody selling new 386 chips anymore. They're outdated, and it's cheaper to just take a 1 GHz chip and barely use it than to try to find working old parts...
It seems that the usable selection of cellphones available is pretty much dictated by the companies who provide service to them. Anyone can buy an old-style phone off eBay, but to use it the service companies have to allow the phone to be programmed to their networks. When the business pressure of the users of any given phone style is outweighed by the cost and hassle of providing service to those phones (i.e. when current technology progresses to the point where old-style phones get too old and their technology is difficult to remain backwards-compliant with), the providers will, one by one, stop letting the phones be used. Of course, there may remain niche markets for old tech phones in areas where larger numbers of their users live (and maybe willing to pay a premium for the service?).
At one point in my life, I purposely went out to purchase the geekiest watch I could find. That thing transferred phone numbers from my computer just by holding it up to the computer screen, and it was like wearing a hocky puck. I came to hate the thing, and have taken to purchasing the plainest watch I can find. One with actual hands, and a mechanical date function.
One of the things that I never understood about email clients was why they insisted on trying to store all of the contact information about a person. Who sends things to a snail mail address from an email client? Attempting to keep these things synched with your regular contact manager (like a PDA) is silly because I never try to send email from my PDA, and I have three times as many email addresses as I have real world address and phone number sets.
Inappropriately added functionality usually just makes a device more difficult to use, or at least distracts from its primary function. I have a PDA for my addresses; I don't need them on my cell phone. I don't want to have to whip out an entire PDA every time I make a call. The games are cute, but they just drain the batteries more quickly. The only unusual feature that I actually use on my cell phone is the Direct Connect, which I consider to be a logical extension. Everything else is a waste of electronics, a waste of my time, and a waste of the energy it takes to lug the thing around.
Wake up - the future is arriving faster than you think.
I remember reading an article a couple of years ago about games on cellphones. The author claimed that the manufactures are putting games on the phones so the buttons wear out faster. Worn out buttons = need a new phone sooner.
so:
1. Make a phone with games.
2. User wears out buttons faster.
3. ?
4. Profit!
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Tech News, Reviews and Tutorials
"When the phones with the features are as cheap as the plain jane phones, then they will replace them." My cell phone, which has capabilities for Internet Access (if I chose to put it on my plan) and a handful of games, and a calculator, and probably some other stuff I don't even know how to use, came free with my cheapskate call plan. When you can get these extra unnecessary features without paying a dime for them, there's no reason not to get one if the part you want works.
Member of Orkut? Annoyed with spam?
Where I work, cameras are strictly prohibited, and basically under no circumstances can I ever bring one inside the building - and a camera phone would be much worse.
That being said, they are wary of even plain old vanilla cell phones and PDA's, though you can get those cleared with a little paperwork. Bottom line - I will probably never buy a phone that has a camera built in, and quite frankly think that it is really just kind of a gimmicky thing that will probably be used for more bad purposes than good, but that may just be the cynic in me.
Quite frankly, I wish bluetooth was more prominent in cell phones - I would definitely use that a lot more - and not just for internet access, just syncing contacts and content - and a lot of stuff that doesn't fit on my SIM card that I may want to easily transport between phones. I have a hard time believing they can put a camera on a cell phone for a substantially different cost than putting BT hardware.
When I purchased a new phone about 6 months ago, one of the features I was looking for was a phone WITHOUT a camera. The problem was, that all of the high end(ie small) phones had cameras built in. I finally found one, but this is going to be a problem for many employers/employees. Where I interned last summer (a major defense contractor), cameras of any kind were not allowed on site. This means that if I had purchased a camera phone I would not have been able to take it to work with me. Many people were already starting to bring camera phones to work, and this was last summer. This is where the problem for the employer begins. Does the employer fire an employee that brings a camera phone to work? In the case of defense contractors this can get really ugly, because the company can get in big trouble if they find out that there are unauthorized camera going to and leaving the plant site every day. This puts the employee and the employer in a bind because it is very reasonable for an employee to want to bring a cell phone with him to work, but even if they leave it in their car while they are working, if it is a camera phone it is still illegal.
So I recently had the opportunity to get a new cell phone (Read: My old Motorola StarTac got busted.) I went out and did a little shopping. Not only did I find out that there was no compelling reason for me to upgrade, but that the new phones actually got a worse signal than my "old" StarTac. So I tell the counter person that I just want a new StarTac. Thankfully, they still make these, and I was able to get one. And the reason I think this article is BS...is that he told me that, STILL, the old clamshell StarTacs are their best-selling phones. I think I got mine over 6 years back. That says alot. I can't see myself getting a new cell phone until they combine a fully-functional PDA and a cell phone into one, and sell it at a cheap price. And that's only because I've been needing a PDA recently, but hate carrying more than one electronic gadget.
When I got back from working in London, I was looking for a new carrier that had some of the features I had seen in while I was over there, namely SMS and WAP.
How stupid and pointless is SMS? I mean, really, all I need is a phone to make calls with. I don't need silly doo-dads like text messages! It's a phone! I just need to use it to call people!
Yet, text messages have completely penetrated American culture (as they had in London). Conversations have overhead. "Hi, how are you, how's the weather, how are the kids [INSERT REASON FOR CALL HERE] Well I should be going, have a great day, yeah we really should go skiing some time, okay, I'll call you next week, have a great week, blah blah blah". Text messages, on the other hand, are concise. "I got tickets to the superbowl, yay me". And if the recipient is away from her phone? Fine, she'll get it whenever.
And, thus, almost everyone who bought their phone "just to have a phone to make calls on" and conceded to having text message capability has really enjoyed the text capability. A couple months ago, my father got his very first mobile phone and was sending me text messages within a week.
WAP hasn't taken off as strongly in the United States, probably because it costs an extra couple of bucks (and, thus, unlike text messages can be averted). However, those who did break down and pay the extra couple of bucks think it's the best thing since sliced bread. If, for some God-awful reason, I have to be away from televisions on Sunday, I can get the football scores immediately. Just 45 or so minutes ago, I checked the weekend weather and ski reports at lunch.
So why are we so averse to technology (or techno-creep)? I constantly hear even technophiles saying "I don't need my phone to do that". Get with it: YOU DO NEED YOUR PHONE TO DO THAT, YOU JUST DON'T KNOW IT YET!
Most of the "new mobile phone technology" has been alive and kicking in Europe, the UK, Asia, and Africa for years before coming to the antiquated United States. It has all been tested in those climates. It is all successful technology before it reaches the United States.
Which brings us to the latest debacle. Camera phones. Camera phones have seen wild success in the UK. As they caught on, the Brits found new uses for them and just continued until millions and millions of images were flying through the clouds over London.
Personally, I'm just waiting for my contract to expire so I can get the best and brightest camera phone out there. I already know I can use it to take pictures of the goofy things I see every day and send them to my friends. It also allows me to have a cheap digicam on my person at all times. Sure, it's only 640x480, but all I usually want is a "look, it's me on top of Mt. Everest! Hi mom!" for the ole' website. I'm not shooting weddings.
Whoever said necesity is the mother of invention is dead wrong. Invention is the mother of creativity.
:wq
Some people have sensitive ears and get really agitated if you play part of a melody, building up to a final note that resolves the scale, and then don't play it. (Like Cartman having to sing Come Sail Away if he hears part of it) I absolutely hate when people choose a song ring tone and answer half-way thru. It's precisely why I use a regular ring tone instead of a song.
If that's all you wanted, you wouldn't need it to play music. Just lots of different sounding tones are enough, like "beep beep beep" versus "warble warble" versus "Beep Bop Beep Bop" versus "buzz buzz", and so on. The pretentiousness kicks in when it's "the 1812 Overture" versus "Bethoven's Fifth" versus "The Monty Python lumberjack song." The ring tone, if you are changing it for the sake of sounding unique, should communicate its instinctiveness immediately, within the first few notes. Waiting several measures shouldn't be needed.)
My cellphone has a way to just type in the notes by hand (for example: 2c4f5c1a1b1e, or something like that to mean this note, this long, in this octave, then this note, this long, in this octave, etc" (I don't remember the exact code scheme). All I do is enter gibberish that fits the syntax, without even thinking about what it will sound like. Then, I listen to it. It sounds like crap, but I know unmistakably that it's mine, and it serves it's function, and I don't feel tempted to wait to hear out the whole song.)
Don't label something "offtopic" unless you know the topic well enough to tell what's on topic.
I was at a game development conference a while back aimed at small/portable game platforms. One of the talks I attended went into the expected growth of the phone gaming market, and what types of games are the most popular (and why).
One of the important facts that came out is that most people who buy a phone that can download and play games will eventually do it, even if they didn't know or care about the ability to do so when they bought the phone.
It was also mentioned that the major carriers are aware of this, and plan to start only selling phones that support downloadable games and ringtones. They all those additional $1 and $2 purchases.
I also found it interesting that one of the best selling (and most consistant) games is hangman. It was strongly pointed out at the conference that most of the phone game market does NOT consist of traditional gamers, and their interests to do lay in the same things.
PS:
I recently bought a new phone with bluetooth. I didn't want the camera, but couldn't get the rest of the stuff I wanted without it.
Since then I've used it quite a bit, and not for the reasons you expect. For example, it's a really great way to entertain a 5 year old at a restaurant.
plus-good, double-plus-good