The Future of the Mobile Phone as a Technology Platform
Submitted by Taran on Thu, 09/04/2008 - 10:57
On the Digital Divide discussion list, the mobile phone versus PC discussion came up again. Despite how much I hate mobile phones (a funny thing considering how I have been involved with them), the truth is that I do not hate the phones themselves - I really hate are things that people do with them. That said, they are the technology platform that will make the most significant impact in the next 5 years. Why?
Quite simply, everyone has them. A few of us have noticed this and have said this in the past - and where once we might have been seen as a cult, we're mainstream religion: You can talk about the Ten Commandments of the PC, but we offer you the Sermon on the Mount from Users.
The argument can and has been made that the mobile phone will never replace the PC. This is not a great argument to have - instead, the discussion should be about what users need - and most users need something that they can walk around with and which does things that they find useful. A PC has uses if you're tied to a desktop or feel like lugging around something that doesn't fit very well on your belt or in your purse.
In discussion, I mentioned that the input for mobile devices - as well as the video - would need to be addressed. It appears that this is already being addressed for video as well as QWERTY keyboards for mobile phones. Granted, these things are not ideal at this time - but as manufacturers fill more and more user needs on a mobile phone, it becomes more and more of a mobile computing platform which will drive better input and output. Consider the Amazon Kindle
And the PC hasn't evolved much in the last 20 years. We're still using a QWERTY keyboard which was designed to slow down typists so that the mechanical keys of typewriters wouldn't stick together. We're using a mouse developed in the 1960s at Xerox PARC. Monitors have become smaller and more lightweight with LCD and plasma. And desktop computing's greatest change has been doing what they weren't originally designed for: the Internet, or communication across a network. Sure, things are getting better here and there - but the reality is that most of desktop computing is going toward web services and those web services can be used on... you guessed it... a mobile phone.
The processing power in most modern mobile phones makes it a great place to run applications - and the fact that solid state hard drives have become a reality further makes a case for the mobile phone, or mobile computing in general. The personal digital assistants, such as the Palm Pilot, also demonstrate the same thing. Is a Palm Pilot with mobile phone capability a PC or a mobile phone? It depends on how you market it.
A merging is happening. And in the context of the digital divide, that merging is subverting much of the bureaucratic stasis that reinforces the digital divide - policies on importing mobile phones are different from those of importing PCs. Add to this the fact that mobile phones are lighter and thus cheaper to ship, it gets even more lucrative. Corporations know this - they see the broader market of the mobile phone, enough so that Microsoft, Apple and (last but not least) Google are out there looking at the mobile phone's future. This is the largest market out there when it comes to computing - more people have mobile phones on the planet right now than PCs, and that trend is unlikely to change in the near future.
And the users? Education on PCs remains a problem, and may well become a problem with mobile phones as they become more complex - but let's not forget that manufacturers are learning from the PC revolution where more was not always better. In fact, so many choices available to users has long been seen as the reason that GNU/Linux hasn't had better penetration. As Douglas Adams is quoted:
We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.
And mobile phones work. Take a look around.
phone technology .... what works
I'm facing the problem of working technology now, also. I've almost mastered my old phone now... I can turn off the ringer without waking up anyone at the meeting now. I've learned to text and can access the web, and if I can figure all that out, the phone MUST be obsolete.
Our family maintains a phone for my mother-in-law because we want her to be able to keep in touch (she's 75). She keeps getting billed for text messages she doesn't know how to read or send... mostly just because she didn't know how to not send something. The texting capability is something that doesn't help her, and at best only irritates her.
The new phones do things it never occurred to me to want to do... not that I won't be delighted with some of the new features.... I betcha... but what I want is to be able to configure my phone (and service) to provide abilites that actually work for me.
I want a calendar... a secure one, that I can read while talking.
I would like a small spreadsheet, because that's my most comfortable way to organize new data.
If it were easy to use, a voice recorder would be good.
and the ability to use voice recognition so I could dictate to it!
I don't want a TV, movie player or MP3 player. They don't work for me.
No matter what kind of interface it has, I need to be able to tell it with big clumsey fingers what I want it to do. Let me remove the buttons that aim and fire the missles... I won't be needing those.
I hear you...
I have a calendar and organizer on my phone that are invaluable to me. A spreadsheet WOULD be nice, and I expect that will come.
I agree about the TV and movie player. The MP3 player could be useful for me (all my music is now burned to MP3), but then battery life would be something of an issue for me... as well as the fact that I probably wouldn't answer my phone when I'm in my MP3 zone. ;-)
One stop communications
What do you mean "you hate the things people do with them"? I thought the whole point of the phone was that they contain more and more features enabling us to just have the one item as opposed to 3 or 4 as was previously the case. I use mine as a diary, notebook, reminders / alarms, online updates (twitter) MP3 player, occasionally as a camera and video and of course as a phone and oh yes to keep youngsters occupied during long car journeys and end the endless "how long before we get there" questions.
No, that's fine. :-)
My problem is when they call and say nothing of substance, or are talking on their phones while in a crowded area (or especially when talking to someone, such as a cashier!). The 400 Watt ringtones, too, are annoying.
I don't mind people having fun with technology - as long as it doesn't interfere with others. The person physically in front of you, in my honest opinion, should be more important than a disembodied person - except in very rare situations.
Frankly, most people are just plain rude when it comes to mobile phone use. I typically walk off when someone starts chattering on a mobile phone in the middle of a discussion. If they don't value their privacy, I'll value my peace of mind and go elsewhere. Simple like that.
On an amusing note, can you remember how easy it was to spot a mad vagrant based on whether they were talking or shouting at themselves? Enter the Bluetooth earpiece. I often wonder what would happen should lightning strike one of those little things... ;-)
There's a time and place for things. Somewhere, somehow, a lot of people never learned about that.
Need/Want and where to draw the line?
Nice post, Taran. Anytime I see an article on functionality vs. superfluity I begin to wonder if it's just a battle of the generations. My younger friends INSIST that having a distinct ringtone is vital. You absolutely MUST have music playing for the caller to listen to. Separate ringtones for each caller is necessity. Each makes me cringe. These, they claim, are indicative of your originality. I protest that it indicates you shelled out 4$ to have 3 seconds of Soulja Boy blaring inaudibly. Annoying people around you.
Look at Facebook. It's 'necessary' to have tons of applications to let people know exactly how you feel about them. The people who tell me this are those that want to send me e-beers, but generally don't respond to messages.
Taking all this and linking it to the above poster, I wonder if technology is 'bringing us together' in all the ways people say. Seems to me it's making us more distant and passive aggressive. Most of these bells and whistles seem to be distractions that give people another opportunity not to interact. Uh, and they still can't hold a charge.
I confess, I'm addicted to
I confess, I'm addicted to mobile phones, hey, I've even put up a blog about it but like it or not, mobile phones are here to stay. In fact, more and more people are foregoing landlines in favor of mobile phones. I for one don't always use my mobile phone for calls. I hate lugging a big laptop and even the Macbook air is still big for me so I'm dependent on my mobile as an all-in-one device. @ Taran, windows mobile based device have built-in spreadsheet and word applications. It's nice that I can edit a document or take all my word documents with me literally on my pocket.
@ubob, like I told Taran, windows mobile devices already have built-in spreadsheet applications, spend a few more dollars over at handango.com and you can probably find a voice recognition software. What else is there to add? You already have mobile phones with TV, in some countries, you can use your mobile phone as a wallet and pay for stuff, in Japan, you can even take a picture of an item you want and then your mobile phone will do your shopping for you.
The future is already here. But coming from a mobile phone addict if you ask me what else do I want from my mobile phone? Well, there are already 8 megapixel mobiles and in Japan, they can already stream HD TV on their mobile phones, what I'd like to see is for mobile phones to have the ability to capture HD videos. If they can add that to my Samsung Omnia, then I probably won't be changing mobiles every quarter.
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