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]

As more functions are built in to the mobile phone, by definition the interface gets more complex.

I call bullshit. I'm not sure what "definition" you're using, but a given interface does not have to become more complex as functions get added. As a matter of face, added features can simplify a given interface. I can't think of something specific atm, but I'm sure you can find an example or two in Cupertino somewhere.

I think the problem lies in the business model of the service providers rather than general ineptitude on the part of phone makers. I for one would be perfectly happy with a phone with a billion unnecessary gizmos, doodad, and whatnots, as long as there's a way to get them out of sight the minute they become intrusive. However, I think a lot of the clutter of most mobile phones comes from the exorbitant pay-out-the-ass-for-data plans that service providers are making a killing on. I doubt it would be difficult to design a phone interface that provides a "simple" mode that hides all unnecessary or obtrusive functions out of sight. But ask yourself the question, would it be as profitable?

Re:one would think?

[miro f]

my girlfriend's parents are looking at buying new mobile phones. One of the ones they are looking at contains (this is true, I'm not making it up):

Ability to print pictures
Adobe Photoshop
a Movie Editor

Although "just make calls" mobile phones still do exist (they're quite cheap, like the 3320, you wouldn't get one with a plan) I find that if I want a feature like bluetooth on my phone, I can't get it without including Adobe Photoshop in the deal.

I think this is proof that the human race is doomed

Re:one would think?

[Total_Wimp]

I love phones packed with as many features as can be packed. I've gotten a series of ever more complex cell phones and I've enjoyed each one more and more.

But guess what, you're right.

I'm not like everyone else. I've realized for a long time that the compromizes I'm willing to make for the features I want are not compromizes very many of my friends or family would be willing to make. I've gottent to the point that I won't even recommend a phone that I personally love if I think that the phone will be too frustrating to the person asking for the recommendation.

So here's the deal. Why can't you have your simple phone AND I have my complex phone? Is there any reason why one of these should be "better" as opposed to "better for you" or "better for me"? I applaud people making their oppinions known to cell phone providers and manufacturers so more simple phones will be offered. All I ask it that you don't tell them to stop offering phones with the great features I want. Really, we can coexist in peace.

TW

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?

[grotgrot]

Incidentally the "fewest dropped calls" thing is a spin on poor coverage. After all a call can't be dropped if you can't make it in the first place! I think one of the biggest problems is how the carriers nickel and dime their customers. For example Verizon Wireless have been trying to prevent getting camera images over a cable and forcing you to do it over the air (for a price). Similarly they arbitrarily remove Bluetooth functionality to prevent users from doing things that VZW can't get paid for each time.

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?

[tsa]

WTF??? I've always dreamt about Adobe Photoshop on my phone. Which model are you talking about? I want it! :-)

Re:one would think?

[iangoldby]

There are cell phones like this you know. I haven't researched the subject myself, except to say that I have a Motorola C115. It is tiny, it does voice calls and text messages, and if you only turn it on briefly once every few days or so, the battery lasts for more than six months (yes, really). I've had mine nearly a year now and only charged it twice.

Re:one would think?

[magicchex]

I share a family plan with my brother and mother. The base price is $60 for two lines, costing an additional $8 per additional line. This includes unlimited nights and weekends (which I believe start at 8 or 9 at night), and 1000 "anytime" minutes shared between the three of us. This also includes unlimited calling to T-mobile customers. My mother uses her phone mainly to speak with the two of us, so most of the anytime minutes are split between myself and my brother. This is plenty of anytime minutes and we have never gone over (if it happened, we would upgrade our plan). We also pay $10 a month for unlimited text and picture messaging on all three lines to or from anyone. The $10 price can be used for up to five lines (great deal, it used to cost $10 for 1000 messages on one line.). With the amount of text messaging my brother and I do, this is a fantastic deal (I had months when I used to go over my previous allotment of 1000 messages by quite alot). For my own line, I also pay $6 a month for unlimited data. This allows me to use Opera and Google Local (as well as any other data apps I would like) as often as I want. With the Opera browser, this allows me to basically do anything I would like online from my cell phone while Google Local integrates great with my service and has saved my ass more than once. I love Opera's customizable homepage too, for quick access to the sites and services I tend to visit and use from my cell phone. Outside of taxes, which amount to $1.23 per line and a per-account charge of $7.64, the only other charges are insurance charges ($6 for the only insured phone, through a 3rd party) or one-time fee charges (think 411, downloadable media, etc). Of course, with the unlimited data package, 411 is unnecessary, while the un-crippled state of my phone makes the included USB cord a much more attractive option for downloadable programs and content.

I know I've gone off on quite a tangent, but my point is that some of the optional features are VERY affordable and can be quite useful. Some fairly simple hacking allows me to customize my phone to quite an impressive extent, effectively hiding any features I personally don't use. For instance, voice recording and some very technical settings (the ones that only change when you change providers) don't even show up in my menu system while Opera and Google Local (of which I use one at least daily) are bound to a single click of one of the keypad keys.

It's interesting to note that a friend with the same phone that I own, but with Verizon service instead, had quite a different experience. The most revealing comparison was the fact that pressing the menu key on my phone would take less than a second to bring the menu up, while taking somewhere around 5 seconds to react on hers. This is not a fluke either, as I tested it on another example of the same phone with Verizon service and got the exact same results. I offered to "hack" her phone in an attempt to make it more useable and realized, one hour in, that Verizon crippled the phone to such an extent that it took about 6 hours to upgrade the firmware and settings and still have a fully-functional phone. This, as opposed to the 5 or 10 minute process with T-mobile service, involved an insane combination of flashing the phone with an Alltel package before doing a lengthy series of hex and seem edits. Any other method and the phone would become a paperweight. Verizon doesn't use sim cards either, so her phone isn't useable with other providers or with temporary sim cards in foreign countries. T-mobile not only uses sim cards, but will gladly unlock your phone for you after a couple months of service, allowing use with any other sim card (Whether it's your friend whose phone died or you buying a $20 sim card while abroad instead of paying $.75 or more a minute with your existing service).

Sorry for the Verizon rant in this discussion, but the last 3 years with T-mobile have been amazing compared to the 3.5 years prior to that with Verizon, who did their best to lie and cheat thei

Re:one would think?

[Clovert Agent]

Look at phone interfaces - they're definitely more complex. Just count the number of keypresses (or screens to progress through) to accomplish basic tasks - it's increasing all the time. But that's not real complexity: if you ignore irrelevant menu items then the interfaces aren't really more complex, just more clicky.

But I don't really mind that, because most of the phone interfaces have some sort of "favorites" list to get more quickly to common tasks.

What I do mind is that phone interfaces are becoming steadily less reliable. Interface crashes, slowdowns, sudden poweroffs - they're all now daily occurences, and it drives me nuts.

The obvious answer would be to buy a phone without all the glitzy features, and when I asked for one I was offered a Nokia model for "businessmen who just want a great phone without the gizmos". Uhuh. No camera, no music player...great. But also no Bluetooth. A business phone that I can't interface my PDA and laptop with for dialup? Give me a break - they obviously didn't want anyone to buy it.

No, I'm stuck with an endless succession of phones with more features than I want, shitty interfaces and steadily degrading reliability.

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.

Re:one would think?

[enjo13]

Unfortunately, this is not true. Particularly for the larger manufacturers (such as Nokia and Motorola). They employ large groups of human computer interaction experts that study, design, and test these interfaces. Its incredibly sophisticated in reality.

The problem here is two-fold. The biggest is the overall immaturity of the technology. Symbian has been around for quite awhile, but its base technology is incredibly poor. They've been very slow to embrace modern programming techniques, and the overall quality of their product is quite low. As a result, third party applications end up full of weird little work-arounds that further compromise their stability. This is made worse by requirements (by the symbian signing process) to work in low disk/low memory conditions properly which often destabilizes the OS even further, requiring even more cunning workarounds which inevitably lead to issues under non-standard use cases.

The linux situation is just as bad right now. Motorola is currently using a hacked up version of QTopia at the interface level. Other manufacturers have taken Linux and run with it in their own direction (its not terribly clear what Nokia is planning with Maemo for example). Again, in many cases we have single purpose architecture (the controls and libraries are tested and verified against only a small set of use cases) which leads to more and more issues as these components interact in new ways.

The other big issue is the way phones are currently developed. Nokia (for example) is fragmented into several different 'phone groups', and each group is capable of making arbitrary changes to the base OS. The truly bad UI decisions are made at this level as they face pressure from timelines and mechanical issues. The original UI vision is often compromised for the sake of getting product out the door.

There is a bit of hope, however. Symbian recently released 9.1, and while manufacturers are quite late getting devices out (both Nokia and Sony Ericcson have announced devices at this point) all signs point to an improved experience with this new OS. I expect some more problems for the next 12-18 months as the new Kernel and security model are actually released to users. However, my experiences with this newer technology has been more positive than previous versions. I do question many of their decisions and frusturating problems remain. For example: they do use C++ exceptions now, just wrapped up in their own leave/trap mechanism which means throwing an arbitrary exception object actually brings the whole application down. However, the problems have largely been pushed up a level (the biggest issues seem to be in the UI layers at this point). At the same time, Trolltech seems to be close to bringing out QTopia 4.x which promises to be much more 'turn-key' for OEM's. Hopefully this will eliminate a lot of the Linux fragmentation and create some stability there.

At the same time, most OEM's have recognized the UI issues are going to a MUCH more 'platform-centric' approach in which phone groups must work within the bounds of the overall platform when customizing the OS for a specific phone. I think this will help greatly for future products and should help them to start getting their arms around the complexity of these new devices. I really do think consumers want higher end features, they just want it done in a more coherent (and less bulky) way.

iWon is slashdotted - here's another AP link

[tepples]

You may have a better chance of success in RTFA if you get it from Yahoo.com.

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.

Re:not surprising

[Linker3000]

Amen to all that - I have an Orange (UK) SmartPhone running Micro$oft's OS and some of the most fundamental tasks require so many menu clicks it's unbelievable:

Set the alarm: Start, 4 (settings), 9 (more), 3 (Date and Time), 4 x Scroll, Enter.

Compare this to my previous phone: 'Settings' button, Date and Time, Enter.

My old phone was also sensible enough to allow opt-out days on alarms so you could have a recurrent wake up for work days that didn't operate at weekends - now I get hit with a 6.30 alarm on Saturday and Sunday unless I remember to turn it off - and then I have to remember to turn it on again on Sunday night or be late for work!

On one occasion I used my old phone to record someone threatening me in the street (I didn't need to use it as the incident calmed down) all I had to do was covertly hold down one button. This is impossible on the new phone as you have to look at and navigate the menus:

Start...9 (More)...5 (Voice notes)...Record

Mind you, my new phone could have also recorded video of the incident:

Click camera button...Menu...Capture mode....2 (Video)...Capture

Not exactly subtle and the act of me staring and operating my phone during such a tese moment would probably have got me clobbered! In any case, the last time I tried to record some video for fun, the phone refused ('Insufficient memory') and I had to reboot it to free some RAM for the OS. Picture the scene..

Click...click...click...click...[Error]...Oh, wait Mr Thug, I need to reboot my phone, can you hang on for about 2 minutes and bear with me as I may need to take out the battery if the reboot hangs.

There was some speculation that Nokia are (or were considering) relaunching one of their more basic models (the 6310i) due to popular demand.

Wireless reception

[misleb]

What always annoyed me about the advances in mobile phone technology is that they never really improved reception. They add feature after feature. You can take and send photos. You can browse the internet, but you always manage to lose signal in the worst possible places. I used to live in a large metropolitan area and would regularly lose signal. I lived *inside* Chicago and I could barely get a signal in my own damn apartment. Is it because of the buildings? Maybe it'll never work right.

I say screw all the stupid features. Just give me a phone that just works everywhere. I couldn't care less if it can take pictures, browse the web, or download movie trailers.

-matthew

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.

Re:I've been griping about this for years...

[Tim Browse]

I even wrote in my blog about this last year.

And your carrier still hasn't done anything about it?!

What did the police say?

Re:That's cuz all the simple phones are in......

[Arker]

It is a rip off here in the US, yes. Unbelievable.

In Europe, you can get decent deals, however. Your prepaid service has a good shelf life, unlike here where you simply MUST buy more minutes every month or they cut you off. You don't get charged for receiving calls (caller pays) and in fact with the service I had you actually got a (very) small kickback when someone called you. The prices were reasonable, and I would prepay roughly $60 and not need to worry about it again for 6 months.

When I came back to the US, I went to try and get service and it was an absolute nightmare. They don't want to just sell you bloody phone service, they want to give you a 'free' (read paid for by you, in the fine print, of course) phone that was loaded with all this crap I don't care about, making it far more complex than it needs to be, they want you to pay at least $60-75 every month, and they're very pushy about it. Even after politing refusing this over and over again and finally getting the simple phone service that I wanted, it's $20 a pop, there are connection fees and charges for receiving calls and every sneaky hidden gotcha in the book. That $20 lasts me barely a week, so when all the crap is added up it turns out to be TWELVE times as expensive as the service I was used to. And on top of that, of course, coverage SUCKS. And when I'm in an area with no coverage at all for a few weeks, I come back, and find that my prepaid phone, with a positive balance, has been turned off - apparently because one is required to add money every month whether you're using it or not, or else you lose it.

This was with T-Mobile, who were reputed to have by far the best coverage in the area I was in, by the way. If the others are worse, I don't understand how they stay in business at all.

So I've just packed my phone away. The cellular companies in this company, apparently, aren't interested in offering simple telephone service at a reasonable price. Until they are, I am not interested in them.

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.

Americans pay way too much for cell phone service

[wenchmagnet]

I live in Pakistan and celular access is really cheap here. All carriers offer free incoming calls and free incoming SMS. A couple also offer small kickbacks on recieved calls.

What really rocks though is that you can buy a cheap Nokia phone for less than US$100 up-front, stick a pre-paid card into it (about US$ 2) which has about 60 minutes of airtime in it and when that runs out, your incoming calls/sms keep coming in for another FIVE years (Telenor Pakistan). The most ripoff carrier (Mobilink) here still gives you about six months of free incoming before you need to recharge your phone.

On my pre-paid connection, for about US $4.00 I get about 40 mins outgoing calls to other networks, twice that for my own network. The call rates are also flat across the country so it doesnt matter where I am, the same rates apply. I know the US is a heck of a lot larger, geographically, but in this day and age with the level of connectivity the US has, it should not be such a big issue - the internet does it already! Oh and this US$4.00 lasts about 25 mins if I call the US from my cell phone in Pakistan.

My parents recently went to India for a family visit and told me that its even cheaper there.

BTW, the world's largest WiMax deployment has been signed off on between Motorola and Wateen telecom in Pakistan - we should be getting WiMax across the country soon too!

All thanks to competition, deregulation and some solid support from the Musharraf government.

No it's not! Why are we always stuck with v1.0?

[mattbee]

Sorry, as a gadget lover I've seen tons of phones come close to being fantastically useful as the grandparent poster describes. However the problem is *always* in the frigging software. There is always some stupid bug (or six) which stops a phone fulfilling its advertised potential, but the manufacturer doesn't give a toss about fixing any of them because they're busy redesigning the next model (or six) with completely different interfaces, e.g. my Nokia 9500, bought March 2005. Hooray! A phone, web browser, email client and remote SSH terminal with 80x24 screen! Wi-fi support at home! Amazing! Except that:

• the IMAP email client is hopelessly broken, crashing at the slightest provocation (changing folders mostly!)
• the web browser, for all its other limitations, doesn't do gradual page rendering (well it tries, but effectively it doesn't), and freezes the phone up while rendering a long page. Not good when you have a 14Kb GPRS connection;
• the terminal works well (cough, third party software) but is hamstrung by the phone's refusal to change connection types if the first one you pick doesn't work. You have a 10 minute timeout or something so that if a wi-fi connection doesn't work, you can't immediately switch to GPRS without going for a cup of tea first.
• (unforgivably, for Nokia, at least) if you missed a call and want to see who it was, you press "last call log" from the front panel and it takes 10-20 seconds of "Reading log..." on the screen before it shows you. A list of numbers! That's all I'm asking for! Totally maddening.
• No reset mechanism except taking the battery out. Because it will never crash, oh no. Especially not in the middle of a busy street when you're trying to make a call and then have to find a quiet place to take the f--king thing to pieces...

Now under normal circumstances, well, yeah you get bugs in software, we'll get them fixed! Except that you don't with phones. I had three firmware upgrades to that phone and none of those issues were solved. So I never really used it for email or web browsing unless I had a lot of time & patience, and it was very important to try to get a particular piece of info (still it was quicker calling the train times information line than trying to use the web site).

But really there was nothing wrong with the hardware -- I could see that the phone could do everything that it advertised, but Nokia were on to greener pastures now that this phone was out of the door. All it would need (in any other software market) would be a programmer or two, 2-3 months and some willing "power user" beta testers to hammer out these stupid bugs. I mean god forbid they actually try to make a device with a market lifespan of more than about 12 months, with, you know, a user community and long term support plans. But just a bit more love on the software after release would make a huge difference.

After a couple of terrible months with an HTC Universal (lots of problems but the biggest one is that it's impossible to answer an incoming call more than about 20% of the time! Great testing guys!), like an idiot I'll have a Nokia E61 on order soon. Maybe that'll work better :-)

So no I don't believe phone "convergence" is a myth when the phone manufacturers get so darned close. It's their unwillingness to go the extra mile after the phone has been released and tested on a large scale which causes people to damn their gadget-phones as white elephants.

The "features" usually have strings attached!

[King_TJ]

I think many consumers would be more accepting/willing to tackle a learning curve to use advanced features of their phones if providers quit trying to use them all cash "cash cows".

I've been using PDA phones for years, and after my Treo 650 just got run over by a car after it fell off my belt-clip in a parking lot at work, I finally decided "Screw it!" and went with a regular phone instead. I got the new Motorola Razr V3c, thinking the thin shape would be a nice break from carrying around "brick-like" boxes as phones.

The biggest shock I got was when I first went through the Razr's menus and realized practically *everything* was a "subscription-based" download. Want your phone to be able to play a game? Navigate through the "e-store" applet and pick one out that can be played 1 day at a time for 99 cents, or played for "flat rate" of $4.99 per month! Uh... wow.... I'm used to just grabbing some freeware or shareware Palm app and hotsyncing into my phone and being done with it.

Then you get to things like emailing photos to other cellphone users. Ok, sounds like it might be cool, once in a while.... but WAIT! Did I sign up for that "unlimited photo-email" package on my plan? If not, I'm gonna get billed some ridiculous price for each little picture that gets sent out! Maybe I'll just ignore that feature after all.....

Oh yeah... they said the Razr was compatible with AOL instant messenger! Ok, where's that in the menus? Oh... darn. Not there! You have to download it and once again, PAY for it. Well, ok... I can live with spending another $7 or $8 to have that on my phone. But NO, it's yet another thing you pay by the month to keep using on the phone! Grr.... forget it! I'll just use it as a *phone* then and forget all the other stuff. I'll go broke trying to play with all of it!

GSM phones don't sync the time...

[YesIAmAScript]

At least in the US.

They keep time perfectly, because TDMA (GSM) is built around dividing time into precise parts. Also, in most areas, they'll even adjust the time when daylight savings occurs. But they don't actually sync the time.

So, on GSM in the US, if you set your phone 5 mins fast, it'll stay 5 mins fast forever.

CDMA (Cingular/Verizon) do sync the time. You just turn your phone on and it picks up the time from the service.