What is the Future of Mobile Communications?
Posted by Chris Leckness on 01/17/08 in Rants
I can’t predict that, nor can anyone really. We can take guesses and look at market trends to get an idea, but hey, you never know.
What I do want to know is what direction are we going towards in convergence. It seemed that we were going towards integration of phone, PDA, and media player functions. This has been done, many are happy with this mix. We have cameras on most phones these days, but these cameras are bad for the most part. Lately, I have seen an increase in phones with killer cameras. Are we moving towards leaving the camera at home time?
I have the Nokia N95, I don’t use it, but that has nothing to do with the phone. It’s a superb phone, has killer add ons, and a wonderful camera. One of the best cameras that I have used on a phone. Recently I caught an article featuring a phone that looked like a camera 1st and phone 2nd.
So, what do we want. A camera/phone integration with a great camera? I don’t. I want a decent camera, or leave it off. It’s nice to have a “decent” one to catch that impulse snapshot, but I prefer toting around a big camera when I want to take great pictures.
What I do want, is something I have envisioned for a while. I want a phone that is more of a handsfree device. A phone that doubles as my Laptop, PDA, media player, and yes… a decent camera. The size could be about the size of an HTC Advantage. Instead of holding it up to my head, Throw it in the backpack and use a great quality Bluetooth headset.
So, which way do you think we are heading and which way do you want to see us move towards? What is the “put everything else down” integration you are after?
Written by Chris Leckness · Filed Under Rants
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I love my Advantage. Very small changes would make it perfect (like properly rendering Flash based web pages!)
I want a device that’s about the size of my PDA with all that functionality and generous screen real estate. Querty keyboard that slides out. 5mp+ camera, phone (of course), and mp3 etc player. Most of the time, especially during working hours, I’ll carry this. After all, I’ve got my purse and/or work docs etc with me anyway and I don’t mind putting a largish device up to my ear to use as a phone. I can use a bluetooth headset if I care.
Here’s the difference in what I want: when I go out in the evening or weekend, the phone/mp3 player (incl 1-2gig storage) will detach from the mother device so that I’m carrying around an absolutely minuscule and sexy bit of kit. The rest could stay in my desktop cradle. You wouldn’t be able to tell that it broke apart when it was together - think the almost invisibility and tight fitting of a great battery case.
I talked to Nokia a couple of years ago about this and the guy thought it was really cool when I described it but then he asked around and found out that they’d flirted with the idea for a while but it didn’t pan out. Sheesh, that would have got me to buy Nokia again, which I haven’t bought since my second phone 14 years ago. My last 5 have been SE, except for one foray into a Samsung that was just too sweet to resist (but too clunky for applications).
I’d pay good money for this kind of device as it would truly replace my separate PDA and phone. Smartphones are too large for tucking into pants pockets and if they’re small enough to do that, the screens just aren’t suitable for me.
Of course the phone styling would just inspire gadget lust and envy from everyone.