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.
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.
And your carrier still hasn't done anything about it?!
What did the police say?
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