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.'"

Comments

one would think?

[yagu]

From the slashdot summary:

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.'"

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.

Re:one would think?

[mattmacf]

I think you are confusing functions and features. Certainly features such as voice activated calling (when it works) make a phone easier to use. Functions, on the otherhand, quite often make it more complicated to use... especially if you want to make them easy to access along side other functions.

Meh, I think the distinction between functions and features is a semantic one at best. What makes voice activated calling any more of a feature than a function? I realize that adding either can easily lead to UI clutter, but it doesn't necessarily have to. I mention Apple because they seem to do the best job at keeping a UI clean and simple without sacrificing utility. While I'm not sure this is the best example, compare iTunes with something like Windows Media Player. Here we see something that has more features/functions and yet is subjectively much easier to use.

My point is, a phone can make phone calls and store numbers AND include other features without adding to the clutter. The problem is, if these "features" (taking and sending pictures, downloading games and ringtones, etc.) aren't IN YOUR FACE, Joe Sixpack probably isn't going to use them as much as the telcos would like. Like I said, I'm sure a "simple" mode for cell phones would be trivial to implement. Something that strips unnecessary menu items and limits the phone to its essential tasks.

The problem is, if I'm a telco, and your phone makes it easy for my profit margin^W^Wcustomers to disregard or ignore all the flashy widgets I'm trying to sell, I'm not going to bundle your cell phone in any of my contracts. The sad truth is, ultimately, it's not about you getting a solid reliable phone that does the bare minimum. It's about the service providers fattening their wallets and milking you for every penny they can get.

Re:one would think?

[xiphoris]

Some well-put points. I think the problem is that instead of listening to consumers, they're trying to tell us what we need. Or perhaps they're just listening primarily to the MySpace crowd -- I don't know.

FTA: 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

See, that's the thing. I don't have any digital needs that I want satisfied by a mobile device besides text messaging. And the phone companies seem to think that charging $0.10 per message is still reasonable somehow.

I think the first phone company to start worrying about its customer's needs will be the Google of the phone companies. I mean, seriously, you hear stories about phone companies disabling features on phones they give to customers, such as uploading pictures to one's computer, so as to require them to purchase proprietary services that send the pictures to one's email through the phone network. Sigh. They just don't get it.

Re:one would think?

[Tim C]

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.

I never fail to be amazed at the state of the mobile industry in the US, at least as portrayed on sites like this one.

I live in the UK, and I can't remember the last time I had a dropped mobile call that wasn't directly attributed to completely losing phone signal (which at least for me, only ever happens when going underground on the Tube). Add to that some of the ridiculous pricing schemes that seem to be in effect (do you really still pay to *receive* calls?) and it's little wonder that everyons seems so pissed about things.

For a country that (rightly) prides itself on its innovation and technical advancement, you don't half seem to have some things completely wrong...

Re:one would think?

[Dance_Dance_Karnov]

england = 50352 sq miles USA = 3537441 sq miles...a little harder to cover.

Re:one would think?

[garylian]

Bingo!

I hate cell phones, too. But, I work from home, so I made a cell phone be my work phone, so I could run little errands during the day without interrupting my work, since I do technical support for an application. So, it is a necessary evil, and a godsend to a new parent when they want to make those quick shopping runs without the spouse and baby.

However, if you look at these phones, I can't help but see a nice parallel relationship to PDAs.

How many people do you know that bought a PDA, and walked around like they were important simply because they had it? PDAs became a status symbol to the tech crowd and the tech geek wannabes. From what I saw, over 75% of those that had a PDA didn't come close to needing one, but they pulled one out during meetings to make themselves look important.

The cell phone has become the same thing, especially to today's young crowd. They simply HAVE to have one, and the more features it has, the cooler they are. Remember (if you are old enough) when the pager stopped being a drug dealer's friend, and became a status symbol? Remember how girls started coming up with stupid page numbers to indicate things, like 143 being "I love you"? Well, today's young people can't live without text messaging and a camera, plus internet access and 50 different downloaded ringtones.

Lets look at some of the features on today's phones.

Text messaging: I've only met one person over the age of 35 who used this. It seems to have the sole purpose of sending messages silently without tipping off teachers/administrators in a school setting. Apparently, passing a piece of paper with a hand-written note is too lame. Really, why pay extra to spend all that time "typing" that message in when you could say it in a few seconds? Oh, yeah... These kids burn too many minutes, and can't get to the point and end the conversation.

Camera phone: If this is the best you can do for taking pictures, dear god are you hopeless. While the newer camera phones do produce better images than a webcam from a few years ago, those pictures are mostly stuck on your phone, unless you want to pay to transfer the file. Me, I'll stick with my real camera.

Email/Internet: Ok, just another fancy way to hit kids up for silent messaging and stuff they really don't need. This isn't Blackberry, it's cheesy AOL/Yahoo! or whatever. And the amount of spam that tends to get through those accounts makes it worthless.

So, to sum it all up, today's cell phone makers have targetted one audience, teenage girls. The problem is, they don't really make nice cell phones for the rest of us that just want a cell phone that can store numbers and speed dial them.

Man, do I miss my last cell phone, that did just that! But, it started to lose reception because they were cutting back the signals for older digital models, so I had to upgrade. My new cell has a camera in it, and it is too easy to activate, impairing with my scrolling through numbers backwards. The only reason I got it was because all the simple "I'm a phone with only phone and phone # memory" phones were pieces of crap, or cost 3x more than the Nokia I got.

So, let some phone maker come up with a nicely made phone that is just a phone for the non teenage girl crowd, PLEASE?!?!

Re:one would think?

[h4rm0ny]

I too just want my phone to be a phone and I have an old Siemans model. I will upgrade my phone for one feature and one feature only - when they produce a mobile that I can throw at a wall and drop in the bath without it getting damaged.

I got hassled by a phone salesman last month as I walked down the street and his face visibly fell when I pulled out my phone and showed him what I used. I despise the [UK] marketing campaign that asks: "Ashamed of your mobile?" No, actually.

Just A Phone

[excelblue]

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.

not surprising

[solistus]

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.

My uncool, simple phone

[sunwukong]

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.

Cingular has an undelete command for this case

[linuxrocks123]

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?

I'm the Opposite

[DavidD_CA]

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?

Re:I'm the Opposite

[DingerX]

Yes, yes it is too much to ask. Convergence is a myth, get over it.

What you want is a tablet PC with a GSM card and a bluetooth headset.

It has nothing to do with what you want.

[raehl]

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.