Mobile phones are too complex

We all greatly appreciate the work that he and his colleagues put in but I strongly disagree.

Mobility is a feature, my PC has a budgeting app but the app on my G1 can go to the supermarket with me. Even if the desktop software is better the advantage of not having to wait til I get home to enter the information is valuable and makes it worth having.

Things like this aren't possible without a platform for people to build robust applications on. For this phones must stop being called phones and be called mobile devices, the phone is almost dead. The mobile computer with voice capabilities is here.

On a side note tho my G1 also has about 20mins battery life and similarly I don't have to strength to hold it much longer than that!

So I have to carry in my pocket separate dictaphone, compact (video) camera, Nintendo, GPS and of course mobile phone?

Most applications are sh*t and there's a gazillion of them. The problem is that each phone has different hardware and/or button layouts. Most Games and apps are not ready for that. The whole concept of touch-based phones is fundamentally flawed and none of the current phones are as fast as a Nokia 3310 used to be. Everything is heavy, sluggish and freezes when you try to operate it too fast. There's always a "gain some, loose some" situation when you get certain functionality with an android based OS but you loose on the speed of operation, you can also get an iphone where you'll generally get the speed of operation but you'll be locked in proprietary hell hole. And don't even mention the shitty Windows mobile which can't even rotate the screen or start the camera quickly.

Let's face it, the current OS/APP market is a load of BS and unfinished products that are not compatible with different handsets and are not cross-tested with other applications (as it's not physically possible).

I miss the good ol' days when a 3310 or 3210 had lightning-fast OS.

For me, it's not so much that they are too complex, but that they are unreliable. At several levels:
- flaky connectors. My previous Motorola phone had a knack for losing PSU or headset connexion at the slightest touch. Put it to charge, lay it down on the table, realize the day after at work that the f**ing thing didin't charge. Couldn(t listen to music or phone via the headset, either.
- buggy OS. My current Winmobile LG phone silently freezes daily. There's the aggravation of having to reboot (which takes longer than my desktop PC), and above all of missed calls.
- terrible ergonomics. It's not so much that there are too many features, but that they are so hard to access. Anyone who has a WinMob phone will know what I'm talking about: the thing really is desgined for keyboard+mouse. iPhone users won't though... nice one :-)

If there's a problem it's the UI - my crackberry serves me well and although it has many features (most of which I don't even use) the calendar, contact and combined SMS/email/MSN etc inbox is lovely. Even the slow internet is worth its weight in gold especially for google maps... and it's all in my pocket!

The trick would be to do several things right in a clear, concise and efficient way. Something crackberry seems quite good at.

So far I haven't found a use for flash video, youtube, media players and the like (other than setting an mp3 ringtone) so... maybe that's the complex bit that isn't needed.... for me.

Different folks, different strokes. People want different features and functionality - mobile providers know this and produce a range of models - some of which are very complex... but you wanted that... right?

Martin Cooper has nailed it in one. The more functions you add to something the less well it does all those functions. A mobile phone should be able to make and receive calls well. End of.

Everything else is just scope creep.

If you want a reliable, light, battery efficient mobile phone then don't load the thing down with a gazillion pointless gizmos. Very simple, really.

The more complex a gadget becomes the less efficient it becomes at its core functionality. Is that really too difficult to understand?

And who is forcing anyone to carry around a dictaphone, compact (video) camera, Nintendo and GPS in addition to a mobile phone? Not me, pal. If you want to burden yourself with all that crap, that's your call. Don't force your choices on me.

A mobile phone is a mobile phone. If you want a mobile computer with phone capabilities, that's your problem. Trying to proclaim the death of the mobile phone when you want the entire contents of your office in your arse pocket would be funny if it wasn't so sad.

Everyone in my home has a smartphone and I use two (personal/business) yet the only things any of us use the phones for are calling, contacts, calendar and messaging.

A simple phone will do all that.......

"THE INVENTOR of the mobile phone, Martin Cooper"

As far as I know Mr Cooper was the creator of the first _handheld_ mobile phone. The worlds first mobile phone system was created by Ragnar Berglund and Sture Lauhrén in the late 50s. It had five mobile car phones in the Stockholm area.

A child could run my iphone easily.

Which is why my new phone, which arrives today, is a Nokia E51-2 - yes, the rare model *WITHOUT* a camera.

Why Nokia discontinued it, I do *NOT* know - I only won it on eBay after a frenzied bidding war that went to nearly twice what the thing cost new from Nokia (fortunately, it was new, sealed, unbranded, etc. Just twice the price...) I'll be pleased when I get home and finally migrate from my old Nokia 6100...

Apparently lots of business types would give their third timeshare in Tuscany for a phone they don't have to give up to Security, simply because it has an on-board camera. What I can say without a shred of doubt, though, is that Nokia did not profit, since the new E52 is not available without a camera.

Sometimes, less is more!

I remember an article in Practical Wireless in the 1960's which showed pics of cellphone aerials mounted high on street corner buildings in London.
So the principle cannot be ascribed to Mr Cooper.

Press buttons and talk to people. That's all I want or need from a mobile phone^H^H^H^H^H thing. OK, occasionally I check the time on it but that's about all. The screen's too small to watch videos on, the cameras are cr@p (no surprise there, considering the size of the lens and the fixed focus), and I have enough internal mental resources not to need constant entertainment in the form of tinny music or games I grew out of at age 8.
Mobile internet is completely unsatisfactory, due to the postage-stamp sized screen, lack of power to run a GUI and no credible alternative to a mouse, keyboard or other form of input device.

He's obviously not looking at the Nokia N900. He would probably realize how wrong he is if he got to use one.

but then, what would
Stewart Meagher
have to do?

"No worries ma'am, I am an iPhone owner. Perhaps you've seen me played on TV."

Is an App for that, eh?

to buy such - gadget-laden phone? There are many light, energy-efficient mobiles

Currently we seem to want to fit everything onto a phone. If phones were only used for making calls then we would have probably got them to much more advanced levels (ear implants etc) but instead the manufacturers spend too long thinking of how many megapixels the camera should be and how many mp3's will fit on it.

Remember the boom box? that took muscle and a nice shoulder to tote around. wonder why kids are fat today? i dont.

im surprised they dont have it setup so all they have to do is blink.

give em an i.v. and a blinky gadget and soon we will have human bowling balls.

...he's talking about iPhony

It will boils down to market requirements. see which mobil makers are willing to put their $$$ and resources into producing a basic phone with just the call feature ? and you will have the answer yourselves