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

everything you need to know:

[yagu]

Everything you need to know starts in paragraph eighteen:

Unfortunately, after they did such a great job designing the hardware, T-Mobile's chief executive and his ex-Apple designer punted on the software. They equipped this phone with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6. As it turns out, that decision is just as much an impediment to the Shadow's greatness as AT&T exclusivity is to the iPhone.

And, this isn't even Microsoft's fault! It's T-Mobile's CEO who had the hubris to think he could design this thing just like Jobs. Not.

I think the article actually goes a little easy on the critique of the hardware. I doesn't break any ground. It has too many or too few buttons. The middle ground they took with the Blackberry licensed keyboard was just plain wrong. This phone is just a mess. Apple kinda pulled this feat off, designing a do-everything phone (I kinda disagree, btw), and now everybody else thinks they can do it too. They even think it's the right thing to do (it's not).

But, what were they thinking going with MS Mobile? Wth? Sheeesh... it even comes with a Task Monitor? Yeah, I'm gonna help my Dad with his new phone... "Bring up the Task Monitor... now click on the Processes tab. Now click on the CPU column twice. What's eating up the most CPU? ... That's the central processing unit.... ummm... Okay, now highlight the one eating up all the CPU and click the "End Process" button.... " Not.

Another place the article "gets it wrong" trying to be kind in his critique:

Now, there are certainly advantages to having Microsoft inside your phone. For example, this phone can open and edit (but not create) Microsoft Office documents.

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Bit of trivia, speaking of phones... Know what the little graphic on the Sprint logo stands for? Didn't think so. It represents a stop-motion pin dropping. Remember when Sprint's commercials were about phone call sound quality and how it was so good you could hear a pin drop? Didn't think so. Please, oh, please, let me hear the pin drop again!

Re:everything you need to know:

[m2943]

And, this isn't even Microsoft's fault!

According to the article, it is:

Unfortunately, after they did such a great job designing the hardware, T-Mobile's chief executive and his ex-Apple designer punted on the software. They equipped this phone with Microsoft's Windows Mobile 6. As it turns out, that decision is just as much an impediment to the Shadow's greatness as AT&T exclusivity is to the iPhone.

(The 20 key hardware is the same used by Blackberry and Sony, by the way, and generally works pretty well... certainly a lot better than T9.)

But, what were they thinking going with MS Mobile?

For the US market, what choice did they have? Apple, PalmOS, and Blackberry can't be licensed, Symbian is likely expensive and nearly as messy as Windows Mobile. And they didn't have the time and resources to do their own Linux-based system. So, for a smartphone like that, Windows Mobile is the obvious choice for companies like HTC and T-Mobile right now. You can't fault them for that.

With Android, of course, they do... let's hope that T-Mobile is smart and makes that choice. HTC (the maker of the Shadow) is already on board with Android...

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.

In the same vein

[mike260]

Joel Spolsky does an entertaining job of ripping another phone with poorly-designed software to pieces here.

Right, "wrestling power"

[Shihar]

...talking about how Apple is changing the phone game by wrestling power from the carriers... Right. Apple has certainly wrestled control away from the carriers. Now, instead of just paying the carrier blood money and selling our soul for two years, we get to pay both Apple AND the carrier... and still sell our soul away for two years. Maybe Nokia can compete with Apple by coming out with a phone where I need to sign a 5 year soul sucking deal with the hell (like AT&T, but more pleasant), have the phone chomp on my balls while it is in my pocket, eat my first born child, and get a direct hookup to my bank account from where it funnels money into everyone's pocket but my own.

Come on Google, buy the damn spectrum, open it up, and lets say fuck you to the ass pounding consumers are getting in the US cellular market.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[darjen]

Right. Apple has certainly wrestled control away from the carriers. Now, instead of just paying the carrier blood money and selling our soul for two years, we get to pay both Apple AND the carrier...

Haha, that was my exact response to that statement as well. Actually, I think there's a better chance of Nokia ending this madness than anyone. Their N800/N810 holds some great promise. I really wanted to like the N800 but it just wouldn't connect to the wifi at work. It's not exactly a phone, but I will be keeping a close eye on those devices. I would love to use one as a skype phone (and dump AT&T completely) if the wifi connectivity gets better. The N810 really does look like a great product, and it's completely open.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[sowth]

If you want to get google involved, you shouldn't ask them to "buy" a buch of spectrum and open it up. You should ask them to bri...oops...I mean "entice" (is that what the telecom companies call it today) the FCC to do their jobs and define standards with which the general public can fairly share the radio as the FCC should. Wasn't that their original stated purpose? I doubt it was to allow communications and entertainment companies to control how the spectrum is use, which more or less seems to be what they are doing today.

If the FCC really was working for the public, wouldn't we have much more bandwidth for WiFi and on freqs which have longer range? Instead of having to share a small band nobody wants where microwave ovens interfere. We got screwed.

Re:Right, "wrestling power"

[recoiledsnake]

I just can't believe people still take Apple's side on this. The phone is not really open, you can't make your own ringtones from MP3s. You can't see the filesystem. Both of which you can even do with a MS WM phone. All iPhone got is Visual Voicemail from the carrier's side.

I am just going to repost what in a post below.

Lets do the math on Apple "wresting power" from the carriers. Carriers typically discount the phone from the retail unlocked price. For example, a HTC Mogul(a 3G phone with a ton of features) has a retail unlocked price of around $550. Sprint sells it for $300 with a 2 year contract. In fact, many companies deeply discount phones to such an extent that you can get $50 BACK with some phones(check on Amazon or Wirefly). The phone manufacturer makes a fixed profit and moves on.

But what did Apple do with the iPhone? It charges a hefty premium(note how they were able to drop $200 off the phone in just 2 months) and makes a nice profit with the price($400 now or whatever) and then makes about $450 MORE over two years from the $60 a month that AT&T charges the consumer who takes up the 2 yr contract. The user gets a nice phone, visual voicemail etc. in return, at a VERY HIGH premium.

After a ton of iPhone articles and about a hundered +5 insightful comments on Slashdot about how Apple will "change the game" and make it better for consumers, that is the bottomline. This is the real reason why Apple hates unlockers and not just because of exclusivity contract with AT&T. For every unlocker they potentially lose close to $400.

Apple did change the game of carriers ripping off customers and ushered in the golden era of carriers AND phone companies raping consumers. All this right under the noses of otherwise wise and intelligent people who seem to have been taken in by the "RDF.

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.

Article in a nutshell...

[diesel66]

Windows Mobile 6 == teh sux

This message brought to you by: Article in a Nutshell (TM)

Windows Mobile Classic

[MLopat]

In all fairness, his comments assume that all Windows Mobile 6 editions are created equally which isn't the case. On this phone, we're looking at Windows Mobile Classic, which is a phone only implementation (without touch screen/stylus interface). While I for one don't have the patience (and nor does the author of the article) to click through menu after menu on a cell phone, I have moved to an interface that I find pleasing to use -- Windows Mobile 6 Professional. Being able to directly interact with the screen on the phone is the same as adding a mouse to your desktop PC. Imagine if the author was given a copy of Windows XP and only a keyboard to navigate... can you imagine the complaints? So as sexy as he perceives the hardware to be, clearly it needs additional functionality to be the powerhouse that he's looking for.

Looking forward to him eating his words when he reviews the HP iPaq 910 with Windows Mobile 6 Professional.

Re:Windows Mobile Classic

[NMerriam]

He's not assuming anything about other versions of the software. He's saying the software on this phone sucks, which you seem to agree with. If MS released a version of XP without mouse support...that would suck, too. The existence of another version would not in any way invalidate the suckiness of the mouseless version. If the software is only good for touchscreen devices (which I would disagree with, it still sucks even on touchscreen devices), then it sounds like MS's big mistake was licensing it for use on non-touchscreen devices.

Why would he "eat his words" about a device he's never written about?

Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[Entropius]

I've never found one that's well-designed. They may exist, but I've never had or seen one.

What I want:

1) The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us. If I can't hear someone with the volume at max (usually when they're on a landline), the scale needs to go higher. My phone goes up to five; it should go up to eleven. It's a device whose principal function is the capture and transmission of sound, yet it has ONE thing you can control about the sound: inbound sound volume, in a limited range. This is ridiculous. This is stuff that could be included essentially for free, since it's all software that doesn't take much processing power. For instance, it'd be nice to have some sort of intelligent parametric EQ. Sometimes you get someone on the other end with a sucky headset and it'd be nice to be able to fix it yourself or have the phone do it for you.

2) The phone to tell me what the hell it's doing signal-wise. I've been standing on top of a mountain and looking over a canyon at a cell tower (~2 miles distant) and have no signal. Sometimes calls get dropped even though I have four "bars" of signal. Is it a SNR problem? The phone trying to do a tower swap and failing? Who the fuck knows? Give me frickin' iwconfig, please. It's like the Windows boot sequence. Either it works or it doesn't, and if it doesn't, who knows what went wrong. But Windows at least has Safe Mode...

3) A phone that doesn't fucking break. My old phone had a keypad that kept going bad. My new phone now thinks that there's a headset plugged into it when there's not. Sometimes it thinks I don't have a SIM card in it.

4) I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder!

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[NMerriam]

1) The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us.

God, yes. Every other audio device I own has a scale from "only dogs can hear it" up to "you're going to go deaf if you listen at this volume". There is no, NO reason this should not be the case on cell phones. Sure, it'll eat up battery a little faster if you crank it up all the time, but no worse than any of the other million battery-draining features you know for a FACT that 95% of the phone's users will never use. And listening to phone calls is the ONE feature you can be sure 95% of the customers WILL be using.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[owlstead]

"4) I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder!"

I do completely agree, but only if you substitute SIM cards by Micro-SD or something like that. SIM cards are common practice within the industry; you cannot just replace that by flash (imagine your phone breaking, you have enough experience with that it seems). Furthermore, they also act as a secure key store. Copying of SIM cards to gain access to your account is not something you want to see happening.

Re:Cell phones are pieces of shit.

[zlogic]

I hesitate to suggest this since they seem incapable of getting even simple things right, but replace SIM cards with SD cards (they're effectively a commodity now, $20 for 2GB). Poof, instant long-play pocket audio recorder! SIM cards are more than simply memory. They store a bunch of encryption keys; but the keys are NOT transferred into the phone and a lot of encryption is done on the SIM card, so technically it's a very simple processor. It's done so that someone doesn't steal your phone, clone the SIM card, assign any PIN they like and get "free" calls as well as a "free" phone.
Oh, and most modern phones (except really cheap ones) have an SD, miniSD or microSD slot.

The ability to turn the volume up or down in a wider scale than they give us. Most phones have a speakerphone mode that makes it really loud; turn it on but turn down the volume, this way it'll be louder than normal but not deafening.

The phone to tell me what the hell it's doing signal-wise. It may be anything, including the carrier. For example here in Russia most prepaid contracts (having a $5-$10 monthly ARPU) have a much lower priority and their calls are dropped or rejected if network load exceeding limits; they are also switched into half-duplex mode when bandwidth is needed for something more important. I think that "bars" are lowered if the signal is too noisy.

A phone that doesn't fucking break. My Siemens phone got chewed by a dog, its screen (the protective glass, not the display itself) now has a hole in it (because of the dog), the battery is dead because of awful handling (but still lasts a day or two), I opened it twice just to look inside and it was dropped a million times. Everything (except the battery) works perfectly! My new phone is a Sony Ericsson and I've never had any problems with it yet.

Re:No Design Experience

[caffeinemessiah]

then I realised the author has probably never had any real mobile OS design experience.

You don't need mobile OS design experience to figure out that a phone has a terrible user interface. While I agree that his comment on a two-button unlock sequence is uncalled for (why have a lock function that unlocks with a single, accidental keypress?), but other than that I think all his gripes are perfectly justified because they deal with the end-user experience.

Mystifying

[StarKruzr]

I'm still waiting for the phone that sounds and works like a phone.

Why does everyone say this as if it doesn't exist?

I suspect it is because they want their posts to sound as though they possess some real down-home 'Murrican wisdom. Jesus. How many counterexamples do I have to find? All of these are "phones that look and act like phones."

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Wrong! That's not an advantage, that's insane. At least, I can't remember the last time I was looking at my cellphone thinking, "Damn, I wish right now I could open up a Word document!", not even if one was attached to an e-mail.

Yesterday, when I got an email from my advisor. Thankfully, I had my iPhone at the ready and it was quite capable of opening the document. I was able to answer her question immediately and it made me look like I was really on top of things. I guess that makes me "insane."

Re:Mystifying

[Anonymous Coward]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?

Re:Mystifying

[EvilIdler]

Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop? You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy.
If the phone has wi-fi and a decent SSH client, I won't mind any PDA-ness. But I don't
ever feel the lack of a laptop, anyway, and just use the phone to be reachable :)

Re:Mystifying

[Beltonius]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?

Precisely. My phone is my link to the outside world (calls, text and tethering via bluetooth) but I take my pictures with my camera, keep track of appointments and contacts with my PDA (along with using it for GPS) and surf the web etc etc etc with my Thinkpad. My laptop can and will always provide a better internet experience than a device with a weaker processor, less storage space and a ~3" screen. Simple physics inhibit a great-quality set of optics in a reasonably sized phone, and stupid carrier lock-downs prevent most phones from really doing anything that useful. I also have a watch with a built in compass (helps when using my PDA to navigate around cities on foot).

Re:Mystifying

[rickb928]

Well, I do that. On my BlackBerry 7105t. Which is an old phone now in marketing terms.

Heck, I went out and got Google Maps, and an SSH client. People look at me like I'm clever when I drill down and tell them their house is the third light down, not the second. My co-workers aren't in awe any more when I reboot my web server, they are in awe when I can run a macro and suck up the latest patches. And keep them up to date on World Series score. And this is just a BlackBerry.

As soon as I begin wishing for a camera, I remember though, having all your devices in one leads to the inevitable 'all your devices are broken to you' scenario . I like being able to replace my phone, and then replace my camera, and not having to replace both.

ack.

Oh yea, and I open Word docs just fine. Even Excel and PDFs. Take THAT, Windows Mobile!

Re:Mystifying

[RattFink]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy.

So what? Quality is actually not all that important to the vast majority of the population as you make it out to be. The optics used in cell phone cameras are certainly a lot better then disposable cameras cheap plastic optics yet those cameras were extremely popular before, cameras on cell phones and the price of digital cameras bottomed out. They certainly aren't "professional" quality but very few cameras are.

Re:Mystifying

[AoT]

because he doesn't care enough to make the effort.

Re:Mystifying

[DeadDecoy]

Ya but for every one of you, there are ten non-technical people for whom the phone/pda/camera/laptop/mp3 player/blender/sink is good enough. For some people the utility of having a swiss-army-phone outweighs that of having a specialized device because they don't care about quality, just something that gets the job done.

Re:Mystifying

[Beltonius]

Oh, certainly. I'm not saying that I don't understand why someone wants their phone to do literally everything. It just bothers me that the minority of the populace that do want higher-quality electronics are basically being marginalized. Noone really makes PDA's anymore, except for HP, and their's are worse in every way than the ones Dell used to put out. Palm hasn't updated their line in upwards of a year and the only devices I've seen running WM6.0 have been smart-phones.

Re:Mystifying

[sowth]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because the vast majority of the time, in the best case, you end up with a device which is a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone, a mediocre PDA, and a mediocre laptop.

In fact, most of the time you get a really expensive device with a crappy camera which takes poor quality pictures and you have to select through several menus, so it takes longer to take a picture than even my crappy kodak C300 I got for christmas, which takes several seconds to start up from off to on. You get a crappy phone which works, but ends up being suboptimal for a phone. You get a crappy PDA, which is not only locked down so you can't run your own programs, but ends up being suboptimal for a PDA, especially if it only has a numberpad for input. Inputing alphabetic chars into the numberpad works, but you have to admit it is a pain in the ass. You get a "laptop", but again, your choice of software is locked down, and are you really going to call such a small device a "laptop"??? Usually the difference between a PDA and laptop is that the laptop comes with a full size screen and full size keyboard, the PDA a small screen and either a tiny keyboard or touch screen for input. Any reasonably small sized phone cannot be considered a laptop. Maybe if you could open it up and a bigger screen and keyboard fold out, but I don't see this happening on anything within a resonable price range. Maybe a pen and ink display may make it happen. How would you fit a fold out lcd into such a small space?

I would like to see a device which functions as a camera, phone, PDA, and laptop, and does all of them well. However, I doubt I will ever see one...within the next ten years anyway...

Re:Mystifying

[winwar]

"The optics used in cell phone cameras are certainly a lot better then disposable cameras cheap plastic optics yet those cameras were extremely popular before..."

Sorry, but the disposable cameras take better pictures than cell phones.

Re:Mystifying

[pjt33]

Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

No. I have no desire whatsoever to carry around a camera or a laptop. I carry around a phone (Nokia 3310 - a real "phone only" phone) and a PDA, and wouldn't want to trade them in for a single device. The only advantage I can see is that I would have a spare pocket, but when I weigh that against the disadvantages of being unable to speak on the phone and skim through my calendar at the same time, running down the battery on the combined device faster than on either of my current devices, and being vulnerable to a single accident, I come down on the side of standalones.

Re:Mystifying

[gforce811]

I could care less about taking pictures. Just a slight point here, but this phrase is so completely botched all the time, that I had to say something. I think what you meant to say was, "I couldn't care less about taking pictures." As in, your level of caring for taking pictures is so low already, that it could not get any lower. I think that is what confused the author of the other reply to your post. Either that, or he/she was just being cynical. Of course, maybe I am too.

Cheers. Oh, and if I'm wrong, please tell me so I may correct myself in the future.

Re:Mystifying

[TheRaven64]

Because the vast majority of the time, in the best case, you end up with a device which is a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone, a mediocre PDA, and a mediocre laptop. Most of the time, if you don't go for a converged device, you end up with a mediocre camera, a mediocre phone and a mediocre PDA and you have to carry three mediocre devices around with you.

Yes, I still miss my Psion Series 3.

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)"

Re:Mystifying

[Ullteppe]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

A phone can never replace a proper camera, as you will never get the same quality and that really matters to anybody who cares about pictures. I can barely tolerate the quality I get out of my Sony camera, and it is pretty much the smallest available camera out there. It is still bigger than most cellphones. Optics take up space. If I know there will be something worth photographing, I bring my DSLR.

PDA: I'll agree with you on this one. I never found stand-alone PDAs useful. Too little storage space, too little screen, pretty much too little anything to stand a chance of replacing a laptop. And, these days a smartphone can pretty much do anything a PDA can.

Laptop: Essential. Ever tried modifying a document on a smartphone? Hah, I'll rather have my nails pulled out slowly with red-hot pliers, thanks. Even viewing a PDF document is an excersise in futility with the small screens. On the other hand, a laptop is too big and cumbersome (even if I carry a 12") to serve well as a portable game console or an MP3 player, so I carry a PSP and an iPod classic as well.

Convergence is pretty much twarted by two forces: the laws of physics and user interface concerns (ease-of-use, boot time, screen size, entry method etc.)

Re:Mystifying

[lattyware]

I think PDAs are being replaced by UMPCs - Things like the Asus EEEPC will offer far better performance (along with other advantages like the bigger screen), for about double the size of a PDA - not to mention the same, if not cheaper, price.

Re:Mystifying

[nEoN nOoDlE]

most of the time a mediocre gadget will do fine for the situation. Such as in a car accident when you need to take pictures of the damage but didn't bring your awesome $1000 digital SLR. Or you want to check your e-mail on an airplane trip, but don't want to take your laptop out of the case and then pay another 15 - 20 bucks so you could have wireless access at the terminal. I feel sorry for whoever is taking important family photos with a camera phone, but convergence is an overall good thing.

Re:Mystifying

[DECS]

Because the mobile network you're paying $1000 a year to use is only designed to provide minimal voice quality. Perhaps you should blame the provider, not the iPhone.

Of course, that's far less sensationalist and fashionable to complain about than whining that Apple delivered the future of mobile phones at a consumer price.

The Great Google gPhone Myth
Pundits have seized upon rumors of a new mobile phone product from Google as their golden ticket for bashing the iPhone. The "gPhone" is the perfect foil for fear-based rumormongers because it's a secret Google han't said much about publicly. That lets the wags blow it out of proportion and stretch it into an iPhone Killer. They're wrong, here's why.

Re:Mystifying

[1u3hr]

Moreover, why is ANYONE "against" convergence? Seriously? Do you really WANT to be carrying around a camera, a phone, a PDA, and a laptop?

Because I just want to cary around a phone. Because I would rather not pay for the other features and have them making the phone heavier, more expensive, more complex and fragile and shorter battery life. Because I don't have or want a PDA, and when I need a laptop, I want a full size keyboard and screen. I only want a camera when I'm on vacation.

If soemeone wants a screwdriver, don't force them to buy a Swiss Army knife.

Re:Mystifying

[Kyle_Katarn-(ISF)]

Well, I don't know about you, but "double size of a PDA" is far too big for me. I'm still using my Palm E2. Why? Because it fits rather nicely in my shirt pocket. Lots of the new PDAs I've looked at need a carry strap to be able to use while standing. If that's what you want, fine. But I want something smaller and lighter. Something that doesn't make my shirt pocket sag to my belt.

Oh, and on the "Just a cell phone" phone, I've had an LG VX3200 for more than 3 years now. It doesn't have a camera, web browser, email, games, etc. It has a phone, an alarm clock, and a calculator. That's it. It's a tri-mode phone (CDMA800/1900,AMPS) so it works anywhere. I have an extendable aftermarket antenna, and it gets reception just about anywhere. And I live in a very rural area. I'm on my third battery, so that should tell you good things about it's durability (And bad things about LG's batteries...). All in all a good phone that is just that: A good phone.

Re:Mystifying

[MobileTatsu-NJG]

"Because they want a good quality camera, phone, PDA, laptop, etc. not a all-in-one gadget with a mediocre everything?"

a.) A phone with all that doesn't prevent them from buying a camera, pda, laptop, etc.

b.) If all you have is your phone... and let's be serious, nobody's going everywhere carrying a phone, pda, laptop, camera, video camera, psp, etc.... then a cell phone picture is infinitely better than a 0 x 0 picture. A slow net connection on a small screen is better than a 0kbps connection on a non-existent laptop. 320 by 240 heavily compressed video is better than 0 x 0 video at 0 kbps. And so on. If the phone doesn't suit you, hey, that's fine, no problemo. It makes sense not to buy it. But multiplying the value of a phone by 0 because dedicated hardware that costs a great deal more is better...? No, that's not a sensical decision. That hardware's only useful when you have it with you.

Re:Mystifying

[fractoid]

You can't fit great optics in the size of a typical mobile phone, so the camera is a toy. False dichotomy, sorry. The camera in my phone has tiny optics, matched to a 2MP CCD, and creates noticeably worse images than my 5MP standalone camera. However, my phone is always on me, has very low form factor, and 99% of the time the images I can take with it are just as useful as if I'd taken my much bulkier camera with me as well. I wouldn't publish them in a magazine, say, but for looking through weekend snaps on my computer, my phone is just as good and, as it's always on me, is a clear winner in terms of practicality.

Re:No Design Experience

[badasscat]

What "necessity" is there to require two button presses? This sounds like pre-iPhone thinking. Not that I'm a huge fan of the iPhone, but one thing it has done is forced people to rethink both what's practical and what's "necessary" in a phone.

I had a Siemens candy-bar style phone about 5 years ago that only required one button press to unlock. I mention that it was a candy bar because that means its buttons were unprotected, and I walked around with it in my pocket. Never once did I unlock it by mistake. All it takes is a combination of the right resistance on the buttons and requiring a certain length of a button press (1-2 seconds) in order to successfully unlock it.

People have a tendency to get tunnel vision, and to get locked in to a certain way of thinking (no pun intended) just because "that's the way it's done". This is probably why, after 5 earlier iterations, Windows Mobile still requires going into a menu to hit "delete" on a text message. The one thing I will give Steve Jobs credit for is looking at things like this and saying "why does it have to be done this way?" If there's no good answer, he throws everything out and starts over.

That kind of questioning needs to be done at every level of every single product design. You can't just continuously carry things over from iteration to iteration without any justification as to why.

"wresting power from the carriers"?

[Thaelon]

I fail to see how "wresting power from the carriers" is a bad thing. They do evil things with it. Two year contracts with "early termination fees". Phones locked into their service. Phones with software or hardware they've deliberately crippled (Verizon I'm looking at you). Phones that have had a nice GUI replaced with their branded crap. Charging absurd prices for downloads. Padding HTTP headers with data so you use more of their outrageously overpriced data plans. I could go on and on. But if you ask me, the more power the phones wrest from the carriers, the better off we'll be.

Re:"wresting power from the carriers"?

[recoiledsnake]

Uhh what? Lets do the math on Apple "wresting power" from the carriers. Carriers typically discount the phone from the retail unlocked price. For example, a HTC Mogul(a 3G phone with a ton of features) has a retail unlocked price of around $550. Sprint sells it for $300 with a 2 year contract. In fact, many companies deeply discount phones to such an extent that you can get $50 BACK with some phones(check on Amazon or Wirefly). The phone manufacturer makes a fixed profit and moves on.

But what did Apple do with the iPhone? It charges a hefty premium(note how they were able to drop $200 off the phone in just 2 months) and makes a nice profit with the price($400 now or whatever) and then makes about $450 MORE over two years from the $60 a month that AT&T charges the consumer who takes up the 2 yr contract. The user gets a nice phone, visual voicemail etc. in return, at a VERY HIGH premium.

After a ton of iPhone articles and about a hundered +5 insightful comments on Slashdot about how Apple will "change the game" and make it better for consumers, that is the bottomline. This is the real reason why Apple hates unlockers and not just because of exclusivity contract with AT&T. For every unlocker they potentially lose close to $400.

Apple did change the game of carriers ripping off customers and ushered in the golden era of carriers AND phone companies raping consumers. All this right under the noses of otherwise wise and intelligent people who seem to have been taken in by the "RDF. Apple did change the game of just the

How not to icon the cellphone.

[140Mandak262Jamuna]

Whats up with that ancient brick like thing with an antenna sticking out being used as an icon for cellphones in slashdot. Jeez can't they get a more recent pic? If not iPhone at least something from the stone age like razr or a clamshell? They are still using that fossil from Jurassic!

Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[Da_Biz]

Frankly, Windows Mobile 6 is a mess. Common features require an infinitude of taps and clicks, and the ones you need most are buried in menus. Apparently the Windows Mobile 6 team learned absolutely nothing from Windows Mobile 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5.

I wholeheartedly agree: I received a low-end HP PDA years ago for Christmas. Windows Mobile worked so poorly that I didn't even bother to get the thing replaced on warranty when it broke within two months (battery couldn't hold a charge to save its life).

I already miss the 'antiquated' Palm OS that ran on my Treo. The article was nice enough to bring up a couple of my favorite reasons as to why...

First of all, a cellphone should not display a "wait" cursor. Ever. And definitely not almost every time you change screens, as on the Shadow.

One of my favorites: I run a nearly stock version of WM6 on my HTC Mogul phone, with the only additions being the free version of Epocrates and an SPB Diary application. My phone has a more-than-adequate CPU, yet still lags while switching screens.

Do I need to "wipe and load" my phone to make it run faster? Sheesh.

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.

Amen! I also love how the phone has a knack for running out of memory right when an important call comes in. There's nothing more frustrating than a ringing phone that won't show me the phone screen and where the buttons suddenly don't work.

Re:Windows Mobile is the Achilles Heel

[julesh]

Amen! I also love how the phone has a knack for running out of memory right when an important call comes in. There's nothing more frustrating than a ringing phone that won't show me the phone screen and where the buttons suddenly don't work.

This is one of the brilliant things about PalmOS: you can write a program that will run on it _without using any memory at runtime_. Because it can run programs straight off flash, without having to load them into RAM.

OK, so PalmOS has/had a lot of problems, but why are mobile operating systems still being developed that treat their flash devices as if they were just a disk...?

What an idiot reviewer...

[Xenious]

I have an iPhone, I also have a windows mobile 6 smartphone. I use one as a wifi ipod and the other as my communications tool. Why? Cause the iphone doesn't sync up with my corporate exchange server and push email to me from it. It's just a tool and as much as I love my iphone I have to use the other to get the functionality of the tool I need. For what its worth I think WM6 is pretty decent and I can work without a laptop and have access to my corporate address list, email, contacts, office documents anywhere I've got reception. not bad.

Where the t-mob shadow really sucks is the half azz keyboard. ;)

Re:Comment on the keyboard lock

[ledow]

Err... the early Philips (C12/Savvy) phones ALL had this - they were the first real phone that BT (back then Cellnet -> BTCellnet-> O2) released when mobiles started taking off. Trying to dial 999 or 112 was given as the reason - pressing 1 or 9 would undo the key-lock.

And yes, it was incredibly dumb. And more than once I nearly dialled random 4-5 digit numbers because it had activated in my pocket. It wasn't the only model to suffer from it, though. And I shouldn't think many modern phones emulate this "feature".

How about another opinion?

[gurulegend]

Matthew Miller from ZDNet's The Mobile Gadgeteer: http://blogs.zdnet.com/mobile-gadgeteer/?p=679

This is basically a blow-by-blow refutation of Pogue's article. Enjoy.

Re:No Design Experience

[DingerX]

Yes, I had a siemens candy-bar phone with a one-press unlock. In the eight months it lasted before its power circuit broke, I recall numerous instances of arriving at work (after walking for 30 minutes) to find the boss expecting me, as he'd already been talking to my pants.

Steve Jobs didn't do diddly here. The basic design principle is: If you have a mechanical sliding lock, cool. Otherwise, you have to use buttons, and if you use buttons, use more than one. Because a "phone lock" that regularly unlocks in a situation where uncommanded forces are applied to the keyboard is no lock, but a nuisance.

Re:No Design Experience

[jandrese]

Two button presses have a very good reason for existing. A single button is not sufficient when you're trying to protect against accidental presses. Even if you don't have a problem with it personally it is a problem. Making the buttons difficult to press is a terrible solution too, since it means wearing your fingers out to solve the accidental press problem.

Personally, I find the two button press option to be a pretty good solution in the case where your only controls are buttons. The op mentions how Apple came up with a new method to solve it, but apparently fails to realize that Apple was forced to come up with something like that on account of having only a single button on the phone. Frankly, the button press and finger motion on the iPhone seems like more effort than the two button press the op is complaining about. The article's author is dead wrong about two button presses being too many however, but I agree with him on pretty much all of his other points.

Buh?

[ilikejam]

"A cellphone should auto-format phone numbers with parentheses and hyphens when you enter them in the address book. When the cursor is in a number box, like ZIP code, the keyboard should automatically start typing numbers. The owner should not have to press the alternate-symbols key."
I, for one, don't want hyphens or parentheses in my phone numbers, and my zip code starts with a G, so I wouldn't want my keyboard to type numbers in my zip code field.

"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."
Sort of defeats the purpose of locking the keyboard if it can be unlocked with an accidental keypress.

"...looking stunning in your hand..."
Uhh, what? Are phones in the US really that ugly that this plain-at-best handset is judged stunning?

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".

Re:No Design Experience

[phoenix_rizzen]

My original cell phone, a Panasonic TX-220, had a single-keypress lock function. However, it required holding down the lock key for 2 seconds to enable or disable (with an auto-enable after 10 seconds feature). Never had it accidentally lock or unlock on me, and I found it to be a lot more usable than the "top-left button, then bottom-left button" process to un/lock my current phone.

Don't dismiss a single-key lock process because you can't think of a way to make it work. :) It's been done before, it's been done well, and lots of us really miss it.

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.

Re:No Design Experience

[Ardeaem]

I was actually taking this article to heart until I read this paragraph, then I realised the author has probably never had any real mobile OS design experience. There are a lot of things wrong with WM6, but I'd like to see an article written by someone with a little more consideration for mobile design necessities. Your post says everything that is wrong with modern interface design. Designers should design things to be used by people without design experience. If you need design experience to evaluate a product, you haven't designed the interface right. The ultimate (and only) judge of a good interface is whether the target audience finds it a successful interface. The target audience is rarely people with mobile interface design.

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.

Re:My Comments to his Suggestions

[GarfBond]

I can go out and buy an iPhone, Nokia, or whatever, or I can buy this. Why should I care whether it's a WM6 problem or a t-mob problem? It should be usable out of the box.

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.

Apple Copied LG, Which Copied Samsung

[meehawl]

how could anyone possibly look at that phone and think it's even remotely inspired by the iPhone/iPod?!

Agreed, Nokia's phones are usually based on the Nokia "look" more than anything else. But there is a whole new wave of big-screen phones emerging based on trends coming out of Korea. The first one of these was a few mutant Samsungs, which begat the LG Prada, which Apple then lifted for its own phone design. Compare and contrast.

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:How exactly?

[DECS]

Like a moth to the flame, I am attracted to your flamboyant sparks.

Yes, the iPhone's design does relate a lot to being from Apple.

But no, Apple didn't "lock the phone," it opened up a standards-based web API that is in many respects better than anything on existing smartphones. The iPhone is also only 4 months old, and Apple has promised additional access in an SDK later this winter. Saying Apple locked the phone for development is ignorant. Saying Apple locked the phone to a single provider ignores the reality that all US phones are locked to one of two network technologies that inherently limits which provider you can chose.

Home activation through iTunes is a lot more consumer friendly than forcing the user to go to a phone store and wait for some dude to poke around on it for an hour, or deal with an online bait and switch as I suffered when I bought a Palm Treo from Amazon using Sprint, and ended up getting cheated out of promised rebates from Amazon while Sprint unilaterally changed my contract and then insisted the contract I'd originally bought wasn't something they offered any more.

No OTA updates for what, your calendar? Email updates OTA, and you can listen to audio and watch real video OTA, without paying and ARM AND LEG for Windows Media based rip-off video from Verizon/Sprint/AT&T garbage services.

Apple didn't brick phones; it warned users that if they modified their baseband or device firmware, that installing additional updates might be a problem. That is ALWAYS the case any time you hack at firmware.

What is a "real keyboard," a chicklet panel that slides out, making the phone an inch and a half thick, or a micro keypad that requires typing with your thumbnail? I've used a variety of "real" keyboards on mobiles, and have to say I'm typing much faster on the iPhone. I'd like arrow keys and a way to copy and paste text around, but the keyboard is fast, simple and very usable, and also gives me a very large screen I can use to play online games, watch movies, or browse the web. Those are all things a tiny screen paired with tiny keys can't do well.

What You Expected, What You Got: RoughlyDrafted Fact Checking
Ten Myths of Mac OS X Leopard: 10 Leopard is a Vista Knockoff!

One size fits all

[Sanat]

Whenever I see a device that tries to be "Everything" I am taken back to the 60's to McNamara and his desire to have an airplane that had "commonality" and could serve as the "end all".

The F111 was designed to be both a fighter and a bomber. It was too heavy to land on carriers and could not carry the required equipment and payloads required by the Navy... did not even have gatlin guns on it for a while, and it was too small to carry a large payload and the range was too short to be an effective bomber.

So is the T-mobile a F111 or can these problems be worked out?

This is a time for the designer to eat his/her pride and make it work... if that is possible. It wasn't possible with the F111 and the T-mobile remains to be seen.

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.