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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."
Most cell phones have had at least small-scale games on board for years. Nothing advanced, but simple enough things that can keep you occupied during a really boring airport wait. Now, as the processing power increases and the color screens are more common, it's not surprising that the games are getting a little more attention. The new trend is the color screens and cameras, games were already on board.
as long as there is a market, there will be plain jane phones.
Sent from your iPad.
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.
There's really no other way for the cell phone companies to compete on price, they've pretty much hit the floor on pricing. Therefore, the price points are remaining the same, and the higher end model phones are simply moving to the lower price points.
Getting camera phones into consumer's hands, whether they really want them or not, is also the best hope the cell providers have to sell their data services. The cellular data structure is pretty much already in place at all of the wireless companies, but there aren't very many people using it. Camera phones are great ways to create a 1-megabyte file which then to get out of the phone requires use of the cell data network... notice that provider-subsidized cell phones never have a USB output through which the picture can travel?
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
Well I would say that Nextel, though they are starting to reach out to that pop culture market...is keeping that "phone that works" trend. Those things are tough...they do't have the damn extra bells and whistles that you don't need, and wherever they have coverage, service is great. I plan on sticking with them for awhile.
MY SECRET DIARIES
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.
It's simple really, I want to be able to plug into my phone and think the words, and they person calling me can hear them. Thats all I want, no camera, no games, I'd rather think talk than think how many times do I push 4 to get the letter captial 'I'.
I wouldn't bother anyone by needing to speak loudly in public. That is the most important thing of all. A cell phone that allows me to communicate, while extending the courtesy of silence to those around me. THAT is the killer feature I am waiting for.
AngrPeopleRule
"Science is about ego as much as it is about discovery and truth " - I said it, so sue me.
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!!!!
I am afraid I can't do that Dave
Help fight continental drift.
I beg to differ with you begging to differ.
Maybe in the US, but here in the UK it is almost impossible to buy a plain black and white basic phone.
Phone functionality works in 6 month cycles. What is high tier this year will be middle tier middle of next year and low tier at the end of the year.
6 months ago colour screens and polyphonic was middle tier, now even the most basic phone these days has them both. Next year the most basic phone will have a camera (and the high tier will also have cameras but be capable of pushing 2 megapixels)
Ever tried getting a phone that doesn't have SMS? You can't and in two years it'll be the same with the other bits of functionality you despise.
So yes, they are dominating. Just because you are holding back doesn't mean they aren't. But when yours bites the dust you'll realise that you'll have to move with the times.
Which may or may not be a good thing depending on your point of view.
Avantslash - View Slashdot cleanly on your mobile phone.
My cellphone up and died last month, and I went to replace it. I asked at a few other carriers how long it would take to get my number moved to their service, and when they were telling me anywhere from 15 minutes to 3 weeks, I went back to SprintPCS.
Unfortunately, they no longer carry the plain, simple phone style that I prefer. [I was using an LG 4NE1, and before that, a Touchpoint, and before that, one of the early Sony models].
They tried pushing a picture phone one me, and I didn't want it. I got stuck with a Samsung that I'm really unhappy with. It may look all slick with its color screen, and flip action, but it just doesn't deliver in terms of simple functionality that I used to have.
I only bought this particular model because it closed, so the buttons were protected, so I wouldn't call people accidentially when it presses against my keys. Unfortunately, I can't easily open it one handed, and with the screen on the inside, I have to open it to see who's calling.
I should've just dealt with not having a phone for a week or so, and have bought a replacement 4NE1 off of eBay.
Hell, even the ring tones are particularly annoying -- most likely, so you'll use the cool feature of downloading new, snazzy ringtones they can charge $2 each for. And of course, the $15/month service to be able to download the ringtones. But they don't even have The Liberty Bell March, so I can't get back my old one.
It all comes down to the basics of an product design -- the more features you put into something, the more likely it's going to break. I want a phone that makes phone calls, and has a way to store phone numbers. That's all I care about.
[And I'd like a service provider that doesn't make me wait 3 hrs, then tell me there's nothing they can do about the fact there's constant static on my new phone. Mind you, it took them all of 30 sec to tell me that, after they wasted 3 hrs to flash it to new firmware, which was NOT what I brought it in for]
Build it, and they will come^Hplain.
1. That camera has, most likely, a CMOS sensor (much, much slower than CCD, you can only take reasonable pictures in daylight)
2. Its cheap lens system makes you believe that you're in a different reality (i.e. all squares look round because of the radial distortion)
Integration of features is not bad, as long as you don't sacrifice quality.
The Raven
In some ways I agree with the author of this post. I mean, yes, it would be nice to have a camera on my phone (except that in all honesty, why would I use that camera when my digital camera is better), or instant messaging (except that keypad typing is really annoying, and thumb-boards are as well, and I'm not a JOT fan), and a web browser (if only I could really see what I was looking at), and fancy ringtones (my self-esteem is so low that I need some fancy song to play when my phone rings so everyone thinks I'm cool), and GPS (ok, so I actually like this feature), and a radio or mp3 player (except I can buy a better mp3 player or radio, a lot better)...
Ok, so maybe these features sound nice to begin with, but in all honesty, when your camera isn't that high quality (and yes, some are going to argue that they get GREAT pictures from their phone, thank you, I work in a publications department, lets compare your phones digital camera to our 10,000$+ digicams), your screen isn't big enough to really do that much, and the phone uses a keypad for text entry, is it really worth all that extra money?
In my opinion, not really...
I'd like one or two 'special features' but in all honesty, all I really want is a phone, an address book (and maybe a planner, if my phone can sync to my computer), really great battery life, and a good signal wherever I go. beyond that, there isn't much I want. I see how it's great that all these devices can come together (eliminate pocket bulge today!) but you end up with one somewhat mediocre device in the end.
I've been considering getting a combo pda/phone for a while, but the cost is just to high compared to the quality, and then when I see that most of them have internal (think ipod) batteries, and I know how fast I go through cellphone batteries, I can see myself being stranded somewhere without a charge when I might really need my cellphone, or worse, killing the battery from overuse over a few months (In the last 7 months I've logged 296 hours on my current cellphone)
[Something witty and intelligent should have appeared here.]
{Traicovn}
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.
I thought the whole POINT of the cameras was to get people used to them so they could be used for spying, detective work, etc.
Like the stereotype of the japanese tourist with the camera. They were ALL OVER the US starting soon after WWII, taking pictures of everything.
Turns out it wasn't just that one of the first non-junk manufacturing industries they got going was mass-produced cameras. A lot of it was industrial espionage. They went back and cloned auto plants, cerial factories, etc. right down to the layout of the machines.
(That's why it's so much harder to get tours of manufacturing plants these days. Kelloggs, for instance, used to give plant tours all the time. Was a regular tourist attraction. But they stopped them entirely after the Japanese cloned the rice crispies machine.)
Bantam Dominique roosters crow a four-note song. Once you've heard it as "Happy BIRTHday" you can't NOT hear it that way
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.
Which often results in products that suck, of course, cause the work that makes for a really good product is usually subtle, or even invisible. Which means you can't sell it. So you concentrate on crap that actually makes your product less useful. You might call it the Copeland Effect.
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.
...never assume that your preferences are the market's preferences. I simply want a plain phone too. And I think phones will lots of gadgets will dominate. That's not a contradiction. That is simply a realization that I'm probably not average. Why I buy AMD and think Intel will still dominate the mass market too.
Same with that incredibly cool geeky tech gadget - it might be a hit on slashdot, lots of support. And when you try selling it to Joe Average, it's a flop. Or the other way around. I know there are lots of products which I'd never buy, that are still huge hits. Maybe it's not for your market segment. Maybe it's not for you in specific. Neither of that may matter, though.
Kjella
Live today, because you never know what tomorrow brings
To be honest, to me this smacks of Luddism; the additional features you bemoan clearly don't add to the cost of the phones, as the 'baseline' phone price hasn't increased in the past 3-5 years - in fact, it's decreased. I don't know of any phones on the market which do not have "an addressbook and a way to make calls", so the argument is basically pointless.
On the flip side of the argument, I've been using a Sony Ericsson P900 since it came out (and the P800 before that) - it's at the other end of the spectrum to the type of phone you describe, having a full-function PDA, Web browser and camera included - and it's been a total revelation. Having instant Web access wherever you are is astoundingly useful, and applications which make specific use of this feature are starting to appear - for example, I use a nifty little program which downloads the weather forecasts and exchange rates every day (or on demand), so that these data are always available to me. Until you try it, you won't think it's any great shakes, but once you have, you won't go back...
In short: the additional features aren't useless. If you don't want to use them, don't use them, but most people will get utility from them. And they're not adding to the cost of the phones; the increased sales of new models lead to economies of scale which bring down the cost of all phones. Win-win.
People don't realize, and it's not really documented, but *any* nokia phone with a IR/BlueT/serial connection will export the addresses in a XML format. check it out.
It's better to be the foot on the boot than the face on the pavement. ~~ tkx Kadin2048
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
Yes, of course. The Rice Crispies machine. A simple set of photos of the outside allows them to clone it. Here's a roll of film I took of my car. Make a fuel injected 4-cyclinder DOHC engine now, please.
Oh, you can't? Hmmm. Funny.
--
Internet Explorer (n): Another bug -- that is, a feature that can't be turned off -- in Windows.
The US Government, including the US Military buys tens (if not hundreds) of thousands of cell phones (and various other consumer-grade communications devices) for its personnel & civil servants every year. And due to security restrictions, and rules regarding communications devices within restricted work spaces (or even restricted compunds), phones with cameras, voice recorders, 'walkie-talkies', and any other features which can be utilized to physically - or even virtually - transport data/information (including SBU [Sensitive But Unclassified] and FOUO [For Official Use Only]) are strictly and unequivocally verboten . Some spaces forbid even carrying your phone into it, even if it is turned off - and irrespective of what features it has! Therefore, there will always be a market for "one-trick pony" cell phones. I highly doubt that the manufacturers would shoot themselves in their collective foot and obviate probably one of their biggest customers world wide. And it's a fairly safe assumption that other world governments/militaries have similar restrictions for their personnel's use of phones as well. So, unless they come up with a way for the government(s) to permanently 'lock out' those features that could be construed as "security risks", I can't see the simple 'entry level' cell phone/communicator going away any time soon.
Regards
- Que profuturus est maeror causa sententia Caelestis
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