Why Dumbphones Still Dominate, For Now

Velcroman1 writes "Androids are awesome, iPhones impressive ... but dumbphones still dominate. Of the 234 million cell phone users in America last year, a dominating 73 percent own traditional (aka non-smart) devices, according to market researcher comScore. Despite their more popular mindshare, intelligent devices like the Apple iPhone and phones based on Google's Android operating system own barely a quarter of the market."

Comments

Smart people

[Kokuyo]

Some people are smart enough to realise (and have the restraint) that you don't need to be connected all the time; that it's actually healthier not to be.

Alas, I'm not one of them.

Re:Smart people

[DrgnDancer]

I carried a 10 pound $800 lap top on my vacation to Boston a couple of months ago. I also carried my iPhone. Guess which one got used, and which one isn't going with me next time. This isn't an advertisement for iPhone either, everything I did with it I could have done on an Android, Nokia, or WebOS device. Phone apps helped me navigate the subway system, find fun things to do, walk where I wanted to without getting lost, keep in touch with the people I was visiting if we had to separate (My wife is living up there and had to go in to work a few of the days I was up), keep in touch with the people taking care of my dog back home, use the web to look up some more information about some of the stuff I saw...

One of the advantages of phones over netbooks is precisely that they aren't "real" computers. No one writes an app for Windows or stock Linux that helps you find the nearest T-station. Why would they? How many people are going to be wandering around with a full computer trying to find a T-station? Lots of people use phones for it though, or at least I have to guess they do given the 7 or 8 apps I had to chose from. The thing is that there are very few things you can do on a full sized computers that you can't do on a phone. There are some things they can't really do: I wouldn't want to edit photography on a phone for sure; and other things are definitely a bit more trouble: SSH works on my phone, but it's not exactly a ton of fun to use. None the less they *can* do almost everything that a computer can do, and do it adequately for most purposes in an emergency. They can also do lots of things most computers can't which are really nice while on the move (GPS, apps which just make more sense for a purely portable platform, etc)

Just don't need one.

[ckblackm]

I use the phone to make calls and send texts. I don't have a need for the added features of the "smart" phone, and can't justify the extra expense for the new toy or it's higher cost data plan.

smart or dumb?

[cyfer2000]

“I have always wished that my computer would be as easy to use as my telephone. My wish has come true. I no longer know how to use my telephone.” - Bjarne Stroustrup, the designer and original implementer of C++

Re:preference != (smart || restraint)

[Buelldozer]

It's not the $20 up front that is "too expensive" it's the monthly reoccurring $20 (minimum!) that is ridiculous!

With Verizon and a new Smartphone under contract that number actually balloons to something like $40 PER MONTH PER LINE for JUST the data service!

So with four lines I'd have $160 for data, $80 for voice, and $20 for texting. Why, exactly, does my cell phone bill need to be $260 per month? Answer: It doesn't!

Oh, and without the data plan a smartphone is really no better than a dumb one. Maybe some better games and some additional PDA functionality but that's about it.

The simple truth is that until data prices come down smartphones are too expensive for many people to justify no matter how much they want them.