How Not to Build a Cellphone

Jamie found an NYT story about a new t-mobile Shadow phone which starts off by talking about how Apple is changing the phone game by wrestling power from the carriers, and then discussing what could be a reasonable piece of hardware. And then how it is wrecked by software. The phone has wait screens, a task manager, odd error messages etc. Makes for an amusing read.

Comments

T-mobile designe something ? Not

[S3D]

It's not designed by T-mobile of cause (if it was sarcasm on the part of TFA, it was too veilded IMO) It was designed by HTC. It is in fact HTC Juno. As the HTC is a part of Google led Open Handset Alliance may be their next phones would fare better.

Not Classic - It's WM Standard

[Anonymous Coward]

Classic is touch, but no phone, Touch and phone is WM Pro. No touch and phone is WM Standard.

Classic is your regular PDA, albeit with a 624 MHz Marvel 310 processor, 128 MB of RAM, 320 MB or more of flash, CF and SDHC, 4" 480x640 ...

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/handheld/PC/1/storefronts/FB041AA%2523ABA

Pro is usually constrained (carriers, you know)

http://www.shopping.hp.com/product/handheld/Phone/1/storefronts/FA990AA%2523ABA

is small one (610). There is a larger one (910) not currently listed there.

Re:Mystifying

[Grey_14]

Most of those 'non-technical' people I've met don't know how the heck to get pictures off their phone, and wouldn't know where to start using a phone as a PDA, I'll admit I know at least one person who uses the mp3 player in his phone, but there are tons more who just use their ipod or whatever else.

Re:Mystifying

[p!ngu]

"I couldn't care less" --> literal.
"I could care less" --> sarcasm, or abbreviated form of "I could care less (but I don't know how)"

Now that's an ugly phone!

[Lachlan Hunt]

When I read this in the article:

The resulting phone is beautiful. Its aspirations to Appleness are evident immediately: there's the nearly buttonless façade, the huge black expanse of screen, the iPod-like control dial that both spins through lists and clicks at the four compass points...

It made me seriously question whether the photo shown along side was actually the phone they were talking about. That thing is seriously the ugliest phone I've seen in a long time and reminds me of something from the late '90s. Seriously, how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!

"A buttonless facade"??? What the? There are 7 buttons plus the wheel on the front, plus another 20 with the keyboard pulled out. Maybe I just don't understand what "buttonless" means these days".

Tried Nokia N800?

[Explo]

While N800 (or its recent successor, N810) isn't really called a PDA, I've found it a nice generic tool for browsing, reading emails, making some notes, listening music and other moderately lightweight tasks. While there isn't a default calendar application, I think some are available separately (I have very few meetings etc. myself, so I don't really need a calendar personally). With WLAN and Bluetooth connectivity, I can access net pretty much anywhere and the 800x480 screen is pretty good for most uses.

On the downside it could use a bit longer active use-time (~4h of continuous usage in worst case), but I suppose that's the price of a large high-quality color screen.

My Comments to his Suggestions

[DavidD_CA]

When you're finished looking at a text message, you should not have to open a menu to find the Delete command. When you're on a phone call, you should not have to open a menu to find the Speakerphone command. When you take a picture, you should not have to open a menu to find Send and Delete. WM6 allows you to hold down "D" for a second and the message deletes.

A cellphone should not have a Task Manager. You should never have to worry about quitting programs because you've used up too much memory. I see the Task Manager as a way to swap between different apps. I can look at Live Maps, then switch to my email, look something up, copy and paste it back into Live Maps, answer a call, and switch back to the map, etc. The Task Manager allows me to do this quickly.

A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. Mine seems to do that just fine, though I normally add my photos via Outlook and sync. Perhaps he is adding them to the SIM card which may not support that?

If the phone has a navigation wheel, the big, clickable center button should always mean "O.K." Always. It should never do nothing, even when there's an O.K. label over one of the tiny softkeys. This is most definitely a choice of TMobile, since they designed the hardware. My WM6 device (HTC TyTn II) has a scroll wheel which clicks in, selecting whatever I've selected. There's also two OK buttons on the device (side and front) which click OK.

When you're assigning a contact to one of the five "My Faves" slots, a T-Mobile calling plan that gives you unlimited calls to your five favorite numbers, three confirmation screens is two too many. That's T-Mobile's software, not WM6. The HTC homescreen program allows me to set my seven favorites with two clicks each.

If it takes four presses on the More button just to see everything in the Start menu -- and you provide no direct way to get to the first page from the last -- you need to redesign. This is as simple as rearranging your Start Menu shortcuts in the Windows directory. You can do this from the device or when ActiveSync'd. I agree that it should come "cleaner" from the manufacturer, but that's T-Mobile's fault.

A locking feature, which prevents the buttons from being pushed accidentally in a purse or pocket, is nice. But it should be optional. And one button press should suffice to unlock it; two in sequence is just annoying. This is all configurable in the control panel. On my TyTn II, I tap the power button to lock, and tap it again to unlock. I hold it down to shut down the phone.

I think this person needs to understand what the difference is between WM6 and a company that has jacked it up. WM6 is not perfect, but the issues he's blasted here are either because of TMobile's implementation, or his lack of knowledge of the features of the OS.

Nokia 1100

[Dr_Barnowl]

This phone has a flashlight, a single bright white LED in the top of the casing.

It's the epitomy of minimalism, but it's the only phone I've seen with this sensible feature. Not a xenon tube that needs a battery guzzling capacitor to charge for each shot, either.

AHHHH!!!!!!!!

[NickCatal]

Geesh... All I want is a freaking phone that allows me to play music and videos (podcasts), install 3rd party apps, has 3G connectivity & wifi, has gmail and push-email support, syncs with an ical feed, has an IM client that works with all the major networks, allows me to teather my laptop via bluetooth to the phone, has A2DP, and a web browser that renders like a web browser should (WITH FLASH FOR CHRIST'S SAKE.) Make your own MP3/AAC ringtones. Oh, and it needs to be on more than one carrier.

And it needs to be, most importantly, a GOOD PHONE. With GOOD RECEPTION, SOUND QUALITY, AND DIALING SHOULD BE SUPER-SIMPLE!!

Photo and video opportunities so that you could upload to Youtube/Flickr/Facebook would be cool too, but I'm OK without having that.

How fucking hard is it to roll that out???? Seriously, how fucking hard?

Re:everything you need to know:

[DMoylan]

> Symbian is likely expensive

have to object to that.

http://www.allaboutsymbian.com/news/item/6203_204_million_Symbian_OS_handset.php

The average royalty per handset is now $4.80 (down from $5.20 last year following license fee reduction doesn't sound that expensive.

> nearly as messy

now this is personal opinion but you couldn't pay me to use windows mobile. i've seen every iteration in devices my boss buys and they all have problems that make them completely unusable. battery life, crashes, sync problems.

while symbian could be improved i have no problems using it every day since a nokia 3650 -> nokia n70 -> e61 -> e61i. the current phone e61i is used every day to

* take screenshots when away from my desk to look up errors when i get a chance.
* take pictures of a4 documents so i no longer need to locate a working photocopier for personal records.
* working on long emails that i get 2-3 times a year from a correspondent. 200k+ documents been worked on when on the bus amongst others.
* gmail application allows me to check email with or without wifi. bloody fantastic! i could get push email but i find the concept as annoying as sms.
* video spectacular crashes so that i can email them to the supplier who claims that what i'm reporting is impossible.
* notepad been used for every password username that comes my way. personal code used to encrypt the information before somebody points out that the builtin has none. mind you i know a symbian user who added a python wiki to his phone with encryption so could use that in the future if i really wanted.
* qreader for reading ebooks.
* web browser for when i need to check stuff out and about. i'm on a pay as you go contract so have to pay for every byte but sometimes a few k from google will give all the answers.
* spreadsheets for personal accounts.
* nokia maps for navigation
* still trying to learn python on the little bugger. i'll get there. i'll get there.
* planning on helping http://www.openstreetmap.org/ map out dublin by linking on a bt gps. will have to see how that goes.
* plugs in as a usb device to a pc or mac so have used it as a thumb drive when necessary.

for me the killer app is taking notes. was at a software conference at the start of the year. loads of people taking notes on laptops over 3 days. and hunting for power supplies at the end of every talk. the e61 (was before the e61i) was slower to type on but the battery lasted the 3 days with top ups from a battery powered charger at night. much more convenient.

if it were that messy i could get none of the above done. it does depend on what you use your phone for though.

Re:WM6

[SirJorgelOfBorgel]

I have to agree. I've been using Windows Mobile on the PocketPC for several phones now, it may not be perfect, but it's very nice. The TyTN II ofcourse at this time being the creme de la creme in WM phones (if the battery life was longer, there was a decent DDRaw driver and it had a VGA screen, I'd say the phone itself was perfect) I've seen the iPhone, I've played with it, and honestly, I don't see what the fuss is about. It's not a phone for serious business, it's a toy. A WM device gives you office productivity when you're mobile. As one of the founders of a tech start-up I can honestly say I could not do without it. Syncing all my outlook things with the phone, accessibility to my mail everywhere, tethering, GPS, GPRS/EDGE/UMTS/HSDPA, full QWERTY keyboard, if needed open office documents on the go, and when I want it is almost trivial to develop my own applications for it. I almost feel sorry to say this, but the only thing that comes even close to WM is Symbian. Symbian is a bit faster and energy efficient, but it just doesn't offer the same level of applications and compatibility. To :parent:, I've not had a lock-up on my Kaiser in a long time. Don't run Batti, tweak with KaiserTweak (shameless plug) and if you're feeling adventurous, go to xda-developers.com , get the HTC rom and throw away all your AT&T muck. (Chainfire @ XDA-Dev)

Re:OK, here

[Beltonius]

Because phones are tied to specific vendors/networks. These same vendors often restrict the software and hardware capabilities of their phones to encourage you to buy more services from them.