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Consumers Look For More Utilitarian Cellphones
hdtv writes "The Associated Press has an article about new generation of US consumers, who shun the mobile devices packed with features in favor of simpler devices that get the job done. One would think that as cell phones evolve into cameras, e-mail readers, Web browser and music players, mobile users would be happy with the device that fulfills their digital needs, but according to AP, 'a J.D. Power & Associates survey last year found consumer satisfaction with their mobile devices has declined since 2003, with some of the largest drops linked to user interface for Internet and e-mail services.'"
From the slashdot summary:
I, for one, don't think that. I also don't know why one would think that.
There reasons one actually might think otherwise is nicely laid out in the article... As more functions are built in to the mobile phone, by definition the interface gets more complex.
Heck, the desktop metaphor on the PC, ostensibly a device dedicated to the computing experience hasn't come close to perfection. And now the mobile phone industry is foisting increasingly complex devices with ever decreasing reliability on the naive public. And the embedded OS for some of these includes the not-yet-perfected-desktop-metaphor! WTF? It's nice to see there is starting to be some backlash.
Aside from the increasing complexity/decreasing reliability debacle, the mobile phone consortium should never be forgiven for abandoning what they ostensibly started out to provide: mobile phone service. I hate using a cell phone, and I can't stand talking to someone on a cell phone, and I can still easily tell.
It's an interesting industry when one of the advertising campaigns includes the boast: "fewest dropped calls of any mobile phone service". It kind of drives home what the mobile phone industry has failed most at, yet they continue to drive forward with other unnecessary and no more mature offerings.
Part of effective marketing is convincing people they want something they don't really need, or convincing people they need something they don't really want. The mobile phone industry sure has come close to perfecting that.
I don't hold out much hope, I've been using cell phones now for over ten years -- the service has declined, the quality has gotten worse, and somehow the mobile providers couldn't seem to be more proud. I'm glad they're not running airlines.
The main reason why I have a mobile is so that people can contact me while I'm on the go.
Anything else is extra and I probably don't need it. However, it does contribute to making the phone harder to use, easier to break (less reliable), and more expensive. Why would I want a device with everything in it as a cell phone when all I'm supposed to do is talk with it?
After all, if I want all the extra features, I'd probably go with a PDA anyways. A cell phone only does the job half decently, and the features are just things that I can accidently use and incur a higher phone bill. It's not easy to use all of them, and it just makes it harder to just simply dial a number and go.
Rather be carrying a compact digital camera, a real MP3 player, a real PDA if I really want all those features. After all, those do a way better job at it.
I've heard many people (including my mother, who is what normal people would call a geek) complain that interfaces are getting too complicated on newer cell phone models. Users are often required to press several buttons and navigate poorly designed menus to perform basic functions like searching an address book. Also, all the silly gadgets they're building into phones these days have a tendency to drain batteries rather quickly. Phones seem to be getting worse and worse at performing the tasks of, well, a phone. My latest flipphone has 3 IM clients, a camera, a few Java apps and tons of other random crap on it, but my old Nokia candybar model was actually better at the main tasks of a cell phone: making and receiving phone calls. Part of the reason why these new features aren't leading to higher customer satisfaction is the plethora of other digital devices many people now have. As not only cell phones but also music players (iPods in particular), sub-notebook computers, hell, even graphing calculators demonstrate, it's pretty trivial to build a whole lot of features into any device; however, most people only need one calendar, one address book, one music player, one camera and so forth. When every digital device tries to do everything, it just gets annoying. I've never used most of the functions on my cell, and neither have a lot of others. I'd rather have a phone that could do nothing but calls and text messages, but performed these tasks well, than my current model, which seems like the bastard child of a phone, a PDA and a camera.
I picked a Motorola V180 for the following features:
- great battery life (easily a week with regular use)
- colour screen
- small screen on the outer shell
- cheap (a few generations behind)
- NO CAMERA (so there'd be fewer objections to its presence on client sites)
It seems to be as good a flip phone as you can get without having a camera.
I am familiar with the Cingular voice mail service you are describing. If you press '7' one too many times, immediately press '*' (I think; the friendly computer voice tells you if you stay on the line) to undelete the message you just deleted. Don't hang up or press any other buttons, because you only have that one shot at undeletion.
I'm sorry you weren't familiar with this at the time, and I hope this helps in the future.
By the way, I'd be suspicious if a phone company implemented a "feature" that involves routinely keeping backup copies of all its customers' deleted voice mails indefinitely. Is that really what you want?
vi ~/.emacs # I'm probably going to Hell for this.
Why can't I buy a device that has freakin' everything? I'm serious, too.
I want it to be a phone first, PDA second, and all the extras right after that. I want MP3s, FM radio, a decent camera (not a 5MP Nikon, but certainly not the crappy one I have now), bluetooth, WiFi, VoIP, and Windows Mobile 5.
Is that too much to ask?
-David
Why would I want a device with everything in it as a cell phone when all I'm supposed to do is talk with it?
Cell phone companies can't charge you for sending text messages if all your mobile phone does is make phone calls. They can't charge you for downloading ring tones and wallpapers if your phone doesn't have those features. They can't charge you for uploading photos if your phone doesn't have a camera, and they can't charge you for downloading songs or email if your phone isn't also a music player and email reader.
Cell phone companies want your phones to be feature rich so they can charge you for using those features. They'd much rather give you a phone that costs $50 more than forfeit all the money they won't get from you not using the 'premium' services if they gave you a $50 cheaper phone with limited features instead.
paintball
Oh it would be so tempting for the cell phone manufacturer to make and sell simple, reliable high quality cell phones that just get the job done. But the customer, when offered the choice between feature-packed phone and a simple, robust cell phone, for some odd reason selects the one with most features.
Simple cell phones need to be really cheap for people to buy them. Cheap meas low profit margins and compromises in manufacturing process.
It's amazing, we have so much technology here in the US, but it's all tied up in the hands of the most shortsighted, stupid, and greedy SOBs that ever walked the earth.
Read the article for a little insight into their minds. It's unthinkable that they could simply provide a service and take a steady profit. Their revenues HAVE to climb every quarter, and they're in a tizzy because the customers aren't cooperating by happily coughing up more money every month for more crap that no one wants.
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Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
So here's the deal. Why can't you have your simple phone AND I have my complex phone?
If the cost of providing all of those features and bandwith for your complex phone needs to be subsidized by all the simple phone users, then how is that just? Maybe there would be enough bandwidth and fewer dropped calls if people weren't sending photos and playing music and surfing the web and phones were simply being used as phones.
The real reason, which the article and other posts haven't hit on for the dissatisfaction is this. Early adopters of cell phones, were business users who had a business need. Then came the technology users followed by the gadget people. Now, the remaining 60% of the market is everyday people, like your parents and grandparents who aren't into text messaging, surfing the web, downloading whatever and all of the "new" features being crammed into today's cell phones (or if they do these things, they don't do them on cell phones). What does this segment of the market want? Reliable, inexpensive no-frills cell phone service -- just like they had with their land-lines.
So, sure, we can have it both ways. Provide the no-frills options to those who want it with phones at $29.99 and 1000 minutes of calls for $29.99/month but if you want high speed internet, that's another $59.99/month. Want to watch cable on your phone, sure $39.99/month (HBO would be an extra $10/month) camera-phones, well the cost of your phone just went up another $30, etc, etc.
The problem is, the current pricing model spreads the infrastructure cost over everyone the same, simple user to complex user, so in effect, the simple user subsidizes the complex user.
I really don't like my cell phone. Too many features I never use, and lacking in what I'd really want. I just want a phone that does the simple things. A phone that sounds clear and doesn't drop calls. A phone that keeps its charge for a long time. That's pretty much it.
I hate text messaging, and I make up a story that I don't know how to read them. I can figure it out, I just refuse to communicate that way. If you want to talk to me, call me. If I'm not there, leave a message. I'd much rather say my phone doesn't support text messaging.
What I would pay for is a phone that looks nice. That is, a phone that doesn't look like some cheap plastic toy.
Give me duribility and reliability, and I'd have no problem dropping a few hundred bucks on a phone. I don't want a camera, I don't want to play video games, I don't want to surf the web . . I just want a phone.
The Internet is generally stupid
It's true I tell you, feller at work's next door neighbour read it in the paper.
Actually, it is federal law that dictates cell numbers come from the same pool as landline numbers. This is from back when Faxes first came out, the idea is that you didn't want an exchange that was solely fax numbers, because then people will just fax their advertisements to every number in that exchange. Now, while there are still abuse arguments, people generally don't want callers to know if they're calling a cheap prepaid cell vs a regular landline.
And now that number portability is law, there is no chance we'll ever go to a segregated system. For all the Europeans who claim our cell-owner-pays system is messed up, number portability is the one major choice they'll never have -- here in the USA if you get mad at your phone company, you can buy a cell phone and take your phone number. If you get mad at your cell phone company, you can take the number to a landline. And none of your friends or customers have to be inconvenienced with new numbers or figuring out what they'll have to pay for the phone call.
Recursive: Adj. See Recursive.
Here, the FCC said "let the marketplace decide"... and we have lots of big networks, but little interoperability between them and changine networks isn't a matter of changing a SIM, generally, it's a matter of buying a new phone. So as a Cingular GSM user, if I can't access Cingular I'm standing next to a Nextel PCS cell, I'm still screwed... and changing networks because I like their prices better generally means buy a new phone... the idea behind this from the industry POV is to REDUCE marketplace competitiveness by making it expensive to change networks.
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