Slashdot Mirror
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.
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
"THERE IS NO JUSTICE, THERE IS ONLY ME." -Death
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
And your carrier still hasn't done anything about it?!
What did the police say?
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.
=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-
Friends don't let friends enable ecmascript.
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
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.
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.
Matthew @ Bytemark Hosting