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Motorola To Cut 4,000 Jobs, Focus On High-End Devices
jfruh writes "Motorola Mobility is facing its first major public shakeup after its acquisition by Google and it's not pretty for many employees. The company will be laying off thousands of workers as it attempts to reorient itself away from feature phones and toward more profitable high-end devices."
Well lets hope they actually mean what they say, because their previous definition has basically gotten anyone in Europe with a Motorola phone laughed out of the room.
The interesting thing is what happens after the layoffs.
Is there a race to the bottom in the sense that if all handset makers abandon the low-end market to focus on higher-margin smartphones, competition will increasingly erode those margins?
FWIW if I were making smartphones, the overriding lesson I would take from the iPhone is "make just one model". It's high risk, but selling phones seems to be about marketing first and technology second, so putting all your marketing muscle behind one model doesn't seem like a bad idea.
According to TFA, they're shifting strategy to make fewer devices, which I hope will be better than the things they've been churning out.. I suppose this is Apple's strategy, which has certainly worked well for them.
Hopefully a smaller product range will also allow for better after-market support. My phone is an Atrix, and I liked the hardware, but the software support has been lacklustre to say the least.
I've made a couple posts in the past regarding how I don't think anyone has ever spent sufficient effort to make a genuinely good feature/dumb phone. Too much effort is put on super-monetization-- from proprietary versions of internet connectivity to downloading Java games, there's just too much bloat in even the simplest of modern phones.
Here's what I would want from a proper modern feature phone:
Hardware:
**A telephone with a particularly good speaker and receiver, speaker phone
**A slideout QWERTY keyboard
**An MP3/Ogg/etc. player with equalizer and 3.5mm jack
**A camera that focuses on image quality, not color mods
**Bluetooth
**micro-SD card slot
**Alarm clock with calendar
**Some standard ringers with the functionality to play a ringer from micro-SD
**Chargeable by micro-USB cord
**With all the weight saved, get a better/larger battery
**Minimal animation/graphics. No need to burn battery on things NO ONE cares about.
No web access, no pic sending, no games, no playing or recording video. Just Phone, text, camera, music, alarm, and long battery life. Something that just works and works for a long time.
Nokia destroyed low end for other players in global scale..
cheapest nokias are so cheap it's very hard to compete there. note that this was happening all last decade, siemens got ran to the ground.. sammys featurephones were in trouble most of the time. Motorola had an one off hit with the razr but that was their high point in featurephones.
if you can buy a 101 for twenty-thirty euros.. what's there to compete? it's a supply and least parts necessary game. it's still a big business though.
but you know what's funny? the smartphones we have today into which nobody has found any good features in couple of last years to tack on will be hundred bucks in couple of years. they're gonna have to come up with some really good gimmicks for the high end if they intend there to be a high end high margin market at all then.
world was created 5 seconds before this post as it is.
Yeah, and who wants one of those new Core i5 laptops, either. I want the good old days of a 386 with Windows 3.1!
GET OFF MY LAWN
Which is why I switched to a Nexus...pray tell, WHY does Moto not wanting me running a custom kernel that's not old and full of holes? I don't know, but the Droid2 was and will always be my last Moto phone until this changes.
You call all that a "dumb phone"? This is a dumb phone.
And even though is goes for about $60US, you can bet your ass that it has margins that would make even Apple drool.
Cheap price doesn't mean low margins.
Google has been partnering with Samsung and Asus for the Nexus brand. When will those partnerships come to and end as MOTO becomes fully Googled?
so you want a smartphone, that cant browse the web or install apps. this is a terrible idea.
You sir appear to need one of these
http://www.amazon.co.uk/Samsung-C3350-Solid-X-Cover-Mobile/dp/B006DV8G3S/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1344871586&sr=8-1
and if it has a slide out qwerty keyboard its considered a smart phone in my book. This is the only compromising point to your feature list. it does have the addition of being water proof and bounce proof.
A much more appropriate list for a good feature phone:
**A telephone with a particularly good speaker and receiver
FTFY
Add in metal lightweight casing, with some of that Gorilla glass, and I'll buy one.
Oh, and make that battery something that's a standard even years later. I'd go for less battery life, if I knew I could easily get a new one when it inevitably starts dying.
I agree. I also just want a phone that do well a single task: Phone calls.
I want a phone, not a useless toy.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Challenge accepted.
Windows 3.11 available separately.
Many Nokia phones have offered pretty much everything on your list since 2001 or so with the release of the Nokia 7650.
That is what Motorola makes. Their problem is that the people who want them already have them and will use them for a decade, buying new batteries for $20 as necessary.
Go green: turn off your refrigerator.
I had this phone. It was called the LG enV3. It was awesome for everything you described, except the keyboard didn't slide out it folded out. The battery would readily last 3-4 days. It had good calendar features, chargeable by micro-USB, Bluetooth, etc. This thing was easily made 3 years ago.
Now, I have an iPhone and I am not looking back. Being able to VPN back into work and run SSH from my phone is like magic. It is called progress, brother!
Crap! I just kissed my karma good-bye.
Is there a race to the bottom in the sense that if all handset makers abandon the low-end market to focus on higher-margin smartphones, competition will increasingly erode those margins?
FWIW if I were making smartphones, the overriding lesson I would take from the iPhone is "make just one model". It's high risk, but selling phones seems to be about marketing first and technology second, so putting all your marketing muscle behind one model doesn't seem like a bad idea.
First of the "race to the bottom" is a phrase used by those promoting Apple to give the illusion that competing products are of inferior quality, due to Apple able to charge a massive mark-up to their inferior products. What really happens is good old competition, and price is just one of the things Apple competitors are able to compete on. Its why the same market has phones with Projectors; Game Pads; Waterproofing; Digital TV Receivers; With a massive array of different sized screens; CPU's and Memory, hitting several different price ranges. What in reality they compete on is "Value for Money".
HTC and Motorola are decreasing their product lines...and its not just to make the economies of producing less phone is cheaper. Its simply that the added value of having phones in their product lines that are too similar to other phones of theirs does not exist...in fact its damaging. The days of get more wall space in the shop from having more phones has gone.
As for learn from Apple, Ask yourself if the iPhone had Huawei, HTC, Sony, or in the context of the article Motorola on the cover of would any customers buy it.
A camera implies a color screen. A color screen implies games. A camera also implies video recording. I see your point, but leaving out video recording if it can take pictures, and leaving out simple games from ANY phone, is just stupid.
No problem, Homer.
1: Make one or two really good smartphones per year one of which should be of the "prime quality" status.
2: Do not ever lock up the boot loader. In fact make it easy for geeks to do whatever they want with the device.
3: Get rid of the so called MotoBlur or make it an option.
4: Make the phone a real beauty to look at. It should capture one's attention out of the box, i.e. by default. Google for some mock-up images. There are plenty.
5: Make it rugged that a small fall still leaves it working.
6: Make it easy for users to return defective devices, do not let the media define your product unless their definition is in your favor.
7: Advertise, advertise, advertise.
Congratulations you just described the Motorola Cliq or DEXT. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorola_Cliq ... googling ... http://www.google.co.uk/search?q=Cliq+2 woh it exists, if I need an upgrade (the DEXT works fine for me) thats what I want.
And with the latest CyanogenMod you can enjoy (as I do) Android 2.3
Never seen it but a Cliq 2 was announced,
Sorry... Meant to say iPhone 4.2
google bought motorola to protect samsung presumably.
I'm god, but it's a bit of a drag really...
I tend to agree. However, UI optimization has to be the key.
My wife is still using a 4 year old feature phone because the newer models are all inferior. Tasks she does often are buried in the menus (things like pull up contacts, send/read SMS, etc.). Stuff she doesn't care about is front-and-center, like browse the web, look for ringtones, and all that.
It seems like the newer devices are just designed to get people who don't have data plans to accidentally pull a kilobyte of data here or there so they can be charged through the noses.
Sure, feature phones are becoming a niche, but if you're going to make one at least make it user-centric, and not carrier-centric.
Google’s law firm of choice for intellectual property matters, Quinn Emmanuel, is also representing Samsung, Motorola, and HTC in litigation with Apple over patent infringement.
Apple are attacking Android publicly. I personally can only see Google supporting Samsung...and others. That was kind of the point of the Google acquiring Motorola in the first place.
No web access, no pic sending, no games, no playing or recording video.
No sales.
There was a story this weekend about google paying 50% wages to surviving partners/family for several years.
Unfortunately you represent a small portion(and least profitable) of the mobile consumer base. You can find dumb phones, but you aren't going to get a great selection anymore and its only going to get worse.
Blame the hipsters.
I'd like an alarm function too. But then, my ancient Cingular branded phones all have that.
I bought a motorola feature phone a couple of years ago, and it was a piece of crap. I bought it because it had an USB port for charging (and bought the wrong cable at a flea market). the keypad was incredibly bad, worse than toy phones for children. then it just died. they cut too many corners and a Nokia or Samsung feature phone was exponentially better. (the motorola F3 was nice a few years before though, ironically it was meant for the 3rd world and thus that one was high quality)
So how could AT&T continue to sell the 3GS as an entry-level smartphone after the 4S was introduced? Did Apple really overproduce that many units?
Easy: https://www.snapfon.com/index.php
My understanding was that Google was going to operate Motorola almost as an independent company so as to not step on the toes of their other OEMs. I would expect Motorola to have to go through the same selection process of Asus, Samsung and everybody else.
They can say that all they want but I don't really see how it would be possible. Google will have to compete directly with their partners at some level - there really is no way around that. Otherwise there was no point in buying Motorola Mobility unless they were just buying them for the patents and intend to shut down the manufacturing and design operations.
Smart phones are replacing your desktop, GPS, wallet, voting machine, library, personal assistant, etc.
It will get to the point wherr governments will supplement phones for the economic all ly disadvantaged, such as they are becoming de rigeur for membership in modern society
What you are asking for is like asking for a PC that only plays Pong
intellectual property law is philosophically incoherent. it is your moral duty to ignore it or sabotage it
Well lets hope they actually mean what they say, because their previous definition has basically gotten anyone in Europe with a Motorola phone laughed out of the room.
Europeans are such douchebags.
Apparently Google is getting rid of those who once joined a telecom behemoth to do some not so demanding tasks and never thought they would ever be challenged with a Google interview.
I have no idea why some people, especially tech people who have completely different demands compared to most users, actually imagine that it's worthwhile for a company to make a phone to cater to their esoteric demands. The time of the N900 is past, smartphones are mainstream now, not mini Linux computers for geeks (though you can turn your android phone into one to an extent).
Out of your requirements, only battery life matters to the average user.
Have you tried a Blackberry? I still fondly remember the keyboard of my Bold 9000, and the web browser was so awful that it would fit your requirements. Get a Blackberry Bold cheap off someone, and use it with a normal non-blackberry plan or pre paid. There were no superfluous animations. I am sure you can find an app that plays Ogg etc. It has MicroSD and Bluetooth. The battery life was better than current smartphones and you could get high capacity aftermarket batteries. Call quality was excellent.
The camera sucked though... Just buy a slim point and click with the money you save? Old Blackberry models must sell for peanuts these days..
A couple clients who are higher up in MMI told me about this just before the google buyout. I guess I can say something now?
This has been planned from the get-go, and it will weed out some inefficiency and bring in more of the "Google Culture" and clear out what most know is by-now pretty broken model at Motorola. On the whole, it sounds like a LOT of people are happy about this (from what I've heard). The people leaving will get some pretty good buyout packages, if I understand it right.
So, no need to panic. I'm interested in hearing other opinions, though.
-
Smartphones are not useless toys by any means. If you think that then I'm afraid your century has gone.
Just the opposite, actually. Samsung is running all the Android vendors under with their superior tech/manufacturing. Google wants to ensure a single company doesn't dominate the market, or they'd be out on their ear.
Patent suits are secondary and will be settled in a backroom deal eventually.
I had a Atrix, and ditched it for an N9 it was so bad. I love the N9 even though it's not as fancy as Android. Yesterday I was watching someone use MotoBlur at a party is it was still jarring after not seeing it for months. The degree of emotional response surprised even me, it wasn't my phone any longer yet I cringed, then felt sorry for the user.
On top of that, Motorola just had too many products to ever be able to support them right. How it takes over a year to port to ICS is beyond me, when may of the components are similar or the same to what they are using in ICS devices.
Slashdot's rate-of-post filter: Preventing you from posting too many great ideas at once.
While I do agree with you in theory, in practice, to 99% of smartphone owners, they are mostly-useless toys.
You forgot the foremost requirement of any feature phone: it has to be really, really cheap. With low margins, nobody's going to spend a lot of money coming up with new designs. The only way to profit is to pick a tried-and-true design and run with it.
I just can't fathom those who say "there are too many!!!! I can't choose!!!
They don't have enough time to evaluate all the options, including which one has enough of a user base around it that they'll be able to get support. Yet they don't trust the salesman's choice because they assume the ulterior motives considered typical of a salesman who gets paid on commission.
Then please let me nudge the goalposts a bit to add one more criterion that Nokia products have historically not met:
**Available in the United States, either as part of a contract or with a discount on the monthly bill for not taking a subsidized phone
Errrr, wait...
**A slideout QWERTY keyboard
I can remember feeling anxiety about the lack of a keyboards on smartphones. It took about a day after I got a good smartphone to stop caring. Now I can't imagine needing or wanting a keyboard and I'm happy to do without the extra bulk and things to break.
Try a good smartphone keyboard and get the hang of it. You'll find it better in every respect once you adapt.
That won't happen with any phone or carrier in the US because they need to compete on plan pricing.
Just take the free phone and be happy.
Even third world country have health care, look at China, Korea.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
You call this dumb phone? Seriously? QWERTY is for texting; MP3/Ogg is for music listening; a camera for picture. To me a dumb phone is telephone that makes voice call and maybe a call display.
**With all the weight saved, get a better/larger battery
What weight savings? With a slideout keyboard, your so-called "dumb phone" (with high-quality camera, bluetooth, speakerphone, usb, and mp3/ogg playback!!!) will easily weight more than an iphone.
There are 0x40000000 types of people: those who understand 32-bit IEEE 754 floating point, and those who don't.
So what? China has health care, whoopdie freaking doo.
So do we genius.
And your point is?
Well, good for you! We're all so... um... proud? Of your hipster-fucktard attitude? Is that what you want? Do you need a gold star along with it, or what's it going to take to get you to just shut the fuck up, go buy your goddamned non-smartphone, and stop wasting our time in what is clearly a smartphone thread?
Mindless blather from an under 21 mouth breather.
Of course, you realize this is nowhere near being in the best interest of manufacturer. You're asking for a low priced phone (margins aside) that you'll buy today and use for 10+ years. It's much more in their interest to get you to upgrade every couple of years. Repeat customer.
I'm sure your answer to that would be "Screw 'em! I'm the customer! This is what I want!" However, I'm sure we're all aware that it doesn't work this way. There is always the other spectrum where they are simply losing overall sales because they don't provide you what you want. But I don't see that happening with phones much these days. Most people want the bling...
yvan eht nioj
Once it has all that, there's virtually no cost to adding the other stuff.
What I'd like to see is a basic phone with large buttons, a small basic screen for call display and a minimal phone book. Make it built like a tank, along the lines of the old AT&T rental phones.
A phone that is ONLY a phone.
~ a low user id is no indication I have a clue what I'm talking about.
All communist countries had health care. This is communism all about.
http://mises.org/daily/3650
I mean free health care. Free for all, all for free.
Free health care is a human right.
America is supposed to be a country of bail outs and free stuffs, as written in the Constitution. Where is it?
"Free" is supposed to be about free stuff, not freedom. This is the TRUE AMERICAN VALUES OF THE 21ST CENTURY.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
the overriding lesson I would take from the iPhone is "make just one model"...selling phones seems to be about marketing first and technology second.
Then you would have learned exactly the opposite lesson Apple has been teaching the industry.
Apple's success rests wholly on the skill they have at executing excellent technology. How else would they maintain market share against a vast array of competing devices, many cheaper? That only happens when customers are happy enough with a product to tell other people to buy it, and buy the device again themselves.
Marking doesn't enter into into long-term success, in can only initiate short-term buying flurries - the technological sophistication of the device itself is the determinant of long-term sales.
Your suggestion of making a small number of devices is a good one, but that is primarily because you can focus on more highly polishing those limited number of devices.
"There is more worth loving than we have strength to love." - Brian Jay Stanley
"This is communism all about."
No, it isn't. But answer me this, would you rather have brain surgery in Cuba or in New York?
Healthcare is not a right of man, it is a product and a service produced by man. Just like a house or a TV.
You have no right to a house. You have no right to MTV. You have no right to healthcare.
You have a right to earn money to purchase these things from other men.
That is all.
Whaaaaat?
Healthcare is not a right of man, see my below.
"America is supposed to be a country of bail outs and free stuffs, as written in the Constitution."
You have no idea what you are talking about. Read the Constitution and point to me where it says you get free shit from all the rich people.
Go ahead, we're all waiting.
Don't know about brain surgery, but I know if you are minority and have no health insurance they will give a rat ass about your health.
That is why more Americans have done organ transplants in places like Mexico or China, and most of them are minorities.
You either die by waiting in line behind the white or rich, or die by having a bad procedure. For the minorities. the choice are clear. It's all about risk taking.
New Economic Perspectives
What weight saved? To do all that you would need the same hardware as in a smartphone; the only difference would be in software.
(Well, I suppose since you didn't mention the screen in your requirements list, we could use a small monochrome segmented LCD of yore and save gobs of battery power. Good luck getting many buyers though.)
You are full of crap. Look up EMTALA.
BTW people are going to places like India and Mexico for procedure because they are less costly - why this is so is a complex topic. No one can argue that care in these places is better than we find here, in many places it is quite good, in most of them far inferior.
"waiting in line behind the white or rich"
And this gives truth to the lie, you really just want to take the rich guys shit, and you know it.
Healthcare is not a right of man no matter how you try and spin in. It is a product/service that must be provided by other men.
Are you so offended by the fact that this guy wants a plain phone. Are you that thin skinned that it upsets you? Is he supposed to be the one with issues?
I want a phone that does 3 tasks:
I want it to have an e-ink screen (max 2 lines of text; alphanumeric instead of bitmap is OK), 24-hour battery life, and be the same size and shape as a credit card (Ideally the same thickness too, but up to 5mm or so is OK).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
You want a telephone, not a pocket computer. No need to be a dick about it.
Good-bye
Good-bye Moto
The Christian Right is Neither (Christian nor right). See: Matthew 23, Matthew 25, Ezekiel 16:48-50
How can you prove when EMTALA is violated?
So one way you don't trust the government to regulate health care, and then you trust the government to enforce EMTALA for you?
Remember the USA is well known for the most racist criminal justice system in the world.
Who are you? Rich flithy Jew? I think so.
Twitter: @dainsanefh
Why the heck would you put a camera if you cannot send pics?!?
You want dump phone?
Drop music playback, camera and animation.
Its quite easy. You just appoint leadership to the Motorola division, and then Google deals with them for most purposes just like they would any other hardware manufacturer.
It's not easy because there is no credible way for Motorola to compete successfully without Motorola's competitors presuming Google is giving them a leg up. The only way they will believe it is if Motorola behaves incompetently. And it Motorola is behaving incompetently Google's shareholders can, will and should throw a fit. Either they compete successfully and piss off their OEMs or they compete badly and piss off their shareholders.
The simple fact is that Motorola cannot be the same as any other manufacturer even if they honestly try to be. Perception matters and Motorola's competitors would be fools to trust Google completely.
"Remember the USA is well known for the most racist criminal justice system in the world.
Who are you? Rich flithy Jew? I think so."
Ah yes the level of intellect of the left, you people should be *so* proud.
So you are a Jew hater huh? Nice. Please respond to the following (I am giggling with glee at the thought of you seething with rage reading the below):
1. Are you aware that the Disputed Territories never belonged to the “Palestinians” and only came into Israeli possession as a result of the 1967 six day war in which Egypt, Jordan, Syria, and Lebanon all massed forces at Israel’s border in order to “push the Jews into the sea”. The Arabs lost and Israel took control of the land. Do you agree that if the Koranimals don’t want to lose territory to Israel, then they shouldn’t start wars? Do you agree that there is justice that Israel, who as far back as 1948 has always sought peace with her far larger neighbors, should live in prosperity - making the desert bloom - while the residents of 19 adjacent Arab countries who are blessed with far more land as well as oil wealth live in their own feces?
2. Did you know that the “Palestinians” could have had their own country as far back as 1948 had they accepted the UN sponsored partition plan which gave Israel AND the Palestinians a countries of their own on land which Jews had lived on for thousands of years before Mohammed ever had a wet dream about virgins? The Arabs rejected the UN offer and went to war with the infant Israeli nation. The Arabs lost and have been whining about it ever since. Do you agree this is like a murderer who kills his parents and asks for special treatment since he is now an orphan?
3. Can you tell us ANY Arab country which offers Jews the right to be citizens, vote, own property, businesses, be a part of the government or have ANY of the rights which Israeli Arabs enjoy? Any Arab country which gives those rights to Christians? How about to other Arabs? Wouldn’t you just LOVE to be a citizen of Saudi Arabia, Sudan, Iran, or Syria?
4. Since as many Jews (approximately 850,000) were kicked out of Arab countries as were Arabs who left present day Israel (despite being literally begged to stay), why should Arabs be permitted to return to Israel if Jews aren’t allowed to set foot in Arab countries? Can you explain why Arabs can worship freely in Israel but Jews would certainly be hung from street lamps after having their intestines devoured by an Arab mob if they so much as entered an Arab country?
5. Israel resettled and absorbed all of the Jews from Arab countries who wished to become Israelis. Why haven’t any Arab countries offered to resettle Arabs who were displaced from Israel, leaving them to rot for 60 years in squalid refugee camps? And why are those refugee camps still there? Could it be that the billions of dollars that the UNWRA has sent there goes to terrorist groups like Hamas, Islamic Jihad, El Aqsa Martyrs Brigade, or Hezbollah? How did Yassir Arafat achieve his $300 million in wealth? Why aren’t these funds distributed for humanitarian use?
6. Did you know that the Arabs in the disputed territories (conquered by Israel in the 1967 war which was started by Arabs) and who are not Israelis already have two countries right now? And that they are called Egypt and Jordan?
7. If your complaint is about the security fence which Israel is finally building in the Disputed Territories, are you aware that it is built solely to keep the “brave” Arab terrorists out so that they can no longer self detonate on busses, in dining halls or pizzerias and kill Jewish grandmothers and schoolchildren? Why are the Arabs so brave when they target unarmed civilians but even when they outnumber their opponents they get their sandy asses kicked all the way to Mecca when they are faced with Jewish soldiers? Why do Arab soldiers make the French look like super heroes?
8. Please explain why you are so concerne
I couldn't wait when the constitution is revoked and the day when a new flag is flying over Washington. And then we get to wipe out you kosher ass and fill the Mississippi river with your kosher blood. We gentiles then finally inherit the earth.
The U.S. needs a million James Holmes to show how fuck up the constitution is. Rule by man, not by law.
Ah yes the level of intellect of the left, you people should be *so* proud.
that's still way too much unecessary crap. camera, mp3 player, sd-card slot, custom ring tones? you're confused, sonny boy, this is a god-dammned phone! keyboard for texting ok, because writing a sentence is better than wasting time yapping.no graphics at all are needed, a 4x25 line text display is plenty
Hey, do you have bi-polar disorder? I am as Republican as you are, and I am Pro-Palestinian and have a swastika tattoo on my chest! You don't support Israel when you are right wing!
Imagine a world where . . .
Given any thought to doing voice-overs for movie trailers? There's an opening.
No web access, no pic sending, no games, no playing or recording video. Just Phone, text, camera, music, alarm, and long battery life. Something that just works and works for a long time.
Why does a feature phone even need a camera for? My grandma doesn't use the camera.
Make the numbers really big, so that she can dial a number, without having first to ask her grandson. And please, just forget the qwerty keyboard and the mp3 player. She just needs a working cell phone, not a freaking jukebox.
Thanks for the phone reference. In regards to the iPhone (or any smartphone), the saying goes, "I couldn't find a purpose for the iPhone until I had one. Now I can't live without it."
That's not something I want. I don't want to VPN to work or check work emails when I'm out of the office. When I'm not at work, it's my time. I simply want a phone with communication with the people I choose to put in my circle with the bonus of not having to carry an MP3 player or camera with me. (Those things fold very easily into the same device.)
Smartphones are really cool and sometimes I ask people to do things on their smartphones (like look up restaurant reviews), but I feel that having SO MUCH information at my fingers would just reduce the amount of actual life I'm living. They're distractions from the people and places around their users and help to prevent people from using some very useful simple skills... like wayfinding.
I agree completely. I was holding onto a feature phone that was 3.5 years old because it was no longer available and everything else either requires a data plan or is touchscreen (which means I can't change tracks with the device in my pockets). I ended up "upgrading" to the touchscreen dumbphone. I'm not particularly happy with it, but that's what you have to do when you drop the phone down concrete stairs. =\
And that's a damn fine point about the kilobyte-temptation.
Motofone f3, just about.
Great another fucking apple wannabe, except they're only going to sell their over priced chinese slave made hardware to billionaires?
Welcome to the end of civilization. America is dead. The days of Kings and Slaves are back.
I think my taste (and others of similar taste) is as such because we've had certain life experiences to make us more cautious about adopting certain kinds of technology. I, for one, don't want to pay for a data plan that I would do my damnedest not to use.
I actually like using paper maps on the road (not GPS).
I don't want to read email when I should be spending time paying attention to the people and places around me.
I don't care if someone gave the eatery a 1-star rating on Yelp because the waitress only gave him one refill of coffee, I want to try their waffles.
I don't want to "check-in", tweet, read others' tweets, or anything of the sort.
And I still have 4 computers rigged to 2 monitors and a projector on a home network an an NAS. I still troubleshoot computers *for fun*. I just know that unplugging is good for me.
I saw this mentioned earlier, not sure about the phone book. http://tech.slashdot.org/comments.pl?sid=3045235&cid=40973969
I actually like the tactile response of buttons. I almost put on the list that I want a button-based system (not touchscreen). Buttons allow me to do stuff on a phone without having to look at the phone (such as speed dialing or changing MP3 tracks).
But there's cost to the user. Modern feature phones are made to do whatever they can to get you to either buy a data plan you will not be able to use well enough or to get you to transfer data without a data plan and thus pay out the nose for 600KB of transfer.
I, too, would like a phone like the one you describe. It would be the only one I would give a child. ;)
Samsung is dominate the market - heck, Samsung is even made all Google phone and tablet.
Google better bow down to Samsung - hail Samsung - the overlord
That is what Motorola makes
No, that's what Motorola MADE. I have one and love it, great camera/video, keyboard, internet, email, ms pac man, qwerty keyboard, all in a phone that fits in my pants pocket. Exactly what I need. However, it's broken, and I can't get a replacement. I'll have to drive 100 miles to St Louis to get it repaired :(
Free Martian Whores!
You do not understand where I'm getting at... My problem is that if I want a quality phone (long battery life, sound quality, good engineering, etc.), I will be forced to buy a smartphone. Except that the "extras" in a smartphone are expensive and practically useless for those who simply want to make phone calls but do not want a cheapo chinese junk.
And finally, consider that I live in a country where these "extras" are considered luxury, and therefore I am forced to pay four times more than you would pay for the same phone.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
It depends on who uses it. In my case all I would do on a smartphone I do on a desktop or a notebook, with a large advantage. The phone I really only use to make calls and do not need it to check emails and also run Crysis on then.
Religion: The greatest weapon of mass destruction of all time
Leaving out games wouldn't be stupid if the phone had a non-bitmap display (e.g., alphanumeric or 7-segment).
"[Regarding the 'cloud,'] ownership was what made America different than Russia." -- Woz
along with the layoffs, the moto HQ is moving from the suburbs to downtown chicago. The way it was played here it seemed like a sop to hizzoner Rahm Emmanuel. I know a couple people who work there (and do NOT know at this point if they're among those being let go) and they indicate not many of the folks working there are happy about it (but the high level suits are). Its going to be a very expensive and crappy commute for them, plus chicago charges a head tax on employees (though maybe Moto got a deal on that...)
Sucks.
Well there's certainly something dumb in that post but it isn't the phone.
"Those who would sacrifice essential liberties for a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." - BenF
You continue to be incredibly presumptuous about how no one needs stuff you don't need.
Many people tend to travel outside their city or even country sometimes, I have no idea how many paper maps you carry around. And GPS helps to figure out where you are, which isn't always that easy with paper maps, especially when you're in a less populated area.
Some people's jobs depend on being able to read emails as soon as possible, not everyone checks their phone all the time for frivolous reasons.
Some of us actually wander outside our neck of the woods, where you may not know where you can get waffles, some information is better than non.
Twitter recently helped me get news when there was a massive power breakdown in my area. Before the news outlets. It has its uses.
You're a funny new breed, someone who grew up with technology, but looks down on people using technology just because they have it easier than you did, and don't need to run their own servers to host a few files, for example. Some kind of neo-luddite. No one is going to make an intentionally crippled phone for you. Just get a Blackberry and turn off the data and GPS if you want. Or ask the Amish what phones they use.
Isn't it great how all the Job Creators of RomneyHood and the Refucklicans are always creating jobs. Trickle-Down? Yeah, right. More like, "Piss On". Go Team!
I don't think I ever, in any of my posts in regards to this article, suggested that anyone else should be limited by my preferences. There are plenty of people like me, but I never suggested that everyone was.
I never said YOU shouldn't have access to a smarphone or cellular internet access.
*I* just don't want my multifunction device to be a source of accidental charges ("To use this function, you will have to connect to internet..."), have the batter drained by functions that I find unnecessary, and to still have sub-par function for touted features (like media players).
They've lost money in 14 of the last 16 quarters. A reduction in the number of devices being developed (they did 27 new phones last year) and a move away from low end devices both mean that less people and locations (they are cutting ~30 locations) are necessary. According to the article, those being let go are being given generous severance packages.
The move to high end devices should not be surprising to anyone in the US, but might surprise Europeans, who are used to paying full cost out of pocket for phones, rather than getting a new one issued to you each time you re-up on a 2 year contract, as is done in the U.S..
In general, low end phones are largely fungible commodities, meaning substiting one for another has low or no marginal costs. Staying in the down market is why Nokia is getting beaten in total phones shipped by Samsung these days. See this article from April:
http://www.asymco.com/2012/04/12/how-samsung-beat-nokia/
I have to disagree. I'm 8 months in with my Galaxy Nexus and I still don't have a good feel for the software keyboard. I have improved to not awful with it, but I'd still prefer a slideout keyboard.
Would you like a pony with that?
Fairly inevitable and if done well a good move, though a comeback is going to be really hard. Motorola believed it could compete on hardware differentiation and sweetheart deals (backed by exclusive features) with the networks. Thus completely missing the move towards the phone becoming a platform to run smart software and how that needs to tie into a rich eco-system of software services. And that pretty much needs a focus on software, third party software developers and a unified platform they didn't have.
Maybe if they can come up with something really innovative in terms of software they might survive. But it's so weird to remember it wasn't that long ago they saw their only competition as Nokia and believes they were on track to be number 1. Woops.
I also remember Padmasree Warrior (Motorola's cheap technology officer) explaining that the iPhone would never catch on because it's too hard to dial while driving. With technical leadership like that...
"I feel that having SO MUCH information at my fingers would just reduce the amount of actual life I'm living."
That is your problem, not the phone's. What you're saying is that you would like all that a smartphone offers, but you can't control your own implulses in such a way that it won't impact you when you want to have a life.
Instead, you bum off other people's smartphones.
Things I use on my Smartphone that I turn off when I get home: GPS, Network Tools, Browser, G+/FB notifications, XKCD Viewer (yes!), NoteEverything, Gmail, Gtalk, Gvoice, Calendar, Maps, Phonebook, SoundHound, and finally, Speedometer (car's not accurate).
Guess what, those things are valuable and yet I am able to turn it all off when I get home. I plug my phone in, and walk away. It takes discipline, but not much effort.
Agent K: A *person* is smart. People are dumb, stupid, panicky animals, and you know it.
That's not true. They hired HTC too.
Your model will likely the most probable outcome.
But not for the drawbacks you're citing. None of them pose any problem even with current day technology(*).
No, this model will be used simply because it means that every thing goes through "the cloud". And benefits everyone (except you, the end users) :
- OS maker and/or carrier get to charge for a cloud storage server
- carrier and service provider get to charge for bandwidth
- Cloud storage operator gets a nice collection of big data on which they can go totally Facebook and mine for everything they can until their marketing department dies of multiple-orgasm-over-exhaustion.
- The RIAA, MPAA, DRM-makers and friends will just be happy to have a nice Cloud server farm to which to send all their take-down notice and an easy way to remotely kill your device/content.
- Government will strongly appreciate to have a single stop to go to get any info they might need for continuing raping everyone's privacy, just for their paranoid satisfaction.
or even:
- Script Kiddie will have a nice surface attack to make your life miserable
- Hackers will have a single place to go to steal industrial-, financial- or other valuable secrets.
- Security firms will have even more snake oil to sell that magically repels leaks and breaches.
See? Everybody is going to enjoy if you start syncing everything over the cloud.
(*) Let's see:
1. When main device changes (in your example, the smartphone), all of your "docks" do not need to change.
Yes, we know that you've been badly burned by Apple's upcoming change of connector. Sorry for insisting, but the rest of us have repeatedly warned against lock ins into proprietary connector. Meanwhile we used standards (micro USB, MHL, micro HDMI, phone jacks, etc.) or even wireless links (WiFi, Bluetooth... or even including wireless charging in Palm Pre's case).
2. High-power devices can stay high-power and low-power devices can stay low. Using your phone to edit high-def video would be murderous.
Except if the dock itself contains some extra processing power. A big discrete GFX card accessible over a PCIe link from the dock (and something like thunderbolt to provide the necessary bandwith out of the device), for exemple. It's already been done for laptops: There are PCIe external enclosure with PCIe links coming from the express card port.
Worst case: the portable device, while charging, could even go into some "dumb mode" and only work as a storage, while the bulk of the work is done on the big muscles available in the desktop.
In a way, that's how PDA have worked before the cloud became the latest craze, back in the days of early Palm Pilot devices (when on your desktop, you use either Palm's Desktop software or even your Outlook installation, while on the go, you use the punny on board 68k CPU and black-and-white low res screen, and sync between both over the serial connection).
3. App and device manufacturers don't need to try and shoehorn their mobile OS and apps into a Desktop and vice versa.
Or simply use dual-mode device: current experiments from Canonical have 1 single Linux kernel, but Android running while the device is in the pocket, and full scale Ubuntu while the device is dock to a real set of keyboard/mouse/screen. With correct communication between the too.
To each type of situation its interface, and let just the "one-size-fit-all" approach of Windows 8 die.
4. Not everyone in your household needs to own a "main device", and all of your devices are available to use at the same time.
In this case, the "main device" is a phone of which currently already every member of most households have. Including the kids. Except the pets, maybe. (I'm sure someone in Apple's Marketing department is trying to find a way to make owning iDevices even fashionable for dogs).
Expect complex DRM limitation not letting you use all the device at the same time anyway, or at least not without rebuying 10 license for everything you own already. (As a consolation, the Linux kernel at least is free and doesn't require a per-CPU license).
"Sufficiently advanced satire is indistinguishable from reality." - [Tips: 1DrYakQDKCQ6y52z6QbnkxHXAocMZJE61o ]
more like survivors pension
Agreed
Motofone F3, been my only phone for 6 years, new from Motorola.
You'll pay more for these today on fleabay than I did buying direct from the Moto site.
I'm too big for a pony. But, hey, I'm pretty sure I could resell it for more than the phone... so sure!
Frankly I understand what the parent was talking about - it's a very specific feature set that he needs but not the internet/app stuff. About 4-5 years ago, I wanted an advance phone that has good/solid outlook calendar and contact sync., other than Windows Mobile 5.0, there's not much (I thought SDA would do it but boy is it ever slow), but then these Nokia feature phones were just all into those stupid games and ring tones that I don't need...etc.
And newer BlackBerry models have everything you listed *plus* one of the best mobile browsers available, and some nice cameras too.