“I stopped using it. I’m giving it away. I’m back using my old mobile phone. I really feel so much better now that stopped using that phone. It feels like I have been freed from the yoke of oppression!”
Pretty strong words from my friend, the former user of a ‘smart’, sophisticated, big color-screen mobile phone. Well, how would you feel if your phone just “crashed”. Not even removing the battery and restarting the thing would bring it back to life!
“I’m giving it away,” my friend exclaimed. “But I can’t give it to a business person. It’s just too frustrating. I guess I’ll give it to my miserable 17-year-old niece. She likes cool gadgets,” he added.
My friend, obviously in an excited state, just kept going on about how bad his experience was with the phone that he got as a corporate gift. What got him started was my inquiry about why he wasn’t carrying his new phone with him.
Earlier the same day the was a similar situation at the office. On the desk of a colleague of mine, who just a few months ago was beaming happy about her new mobile, was a rudimentary looking species. “Where’s you cool new phone?” I asked. “I got rid of it. That phone was just horrible”.
Since when did mobile phones started crashing, having software bugs and become frustrating? Why are my friends talking about their phones in the same way they talk about their PCs? Well, hello??! Can’t you see that you phone is becoming a PC. It’s even becoming more than that.
My good old Nokia 6210, which I had for 3 years now, rarely ever gives me trouble. But then, it doesn’t have a camera, doesn’t open Word or Excel files, only has a small black and white screen and doesn’t even know what an MMS is.
“What the heck is an MMS anyway,” my friend asks. “I need my phone to make calls and send SMS. These are the main functions that should be the easiest to access.” He then went on to demonstrate to me how on his old phone he just had to press the SAME button 3 times to start a new message. “I can even do it without looking!” On his new (discarded) phone he had to go into a menu, choose between several types of message and make extra clicks just to start a new SMS.
Some whiz kid might be able to customize these new phones and be able to start a message with just one click. But my friend, a globe-trotting executive, neither has the time nor the patience to tinker around with his mobile phones (he always carries two).
As mobile phones try to be more than phones and turn into PCs, we really should not be surprised that all kinds of problems, glitches as well as user friendliness issues will emerge. Of course a lot of new function are useful to certain types of users. When you buy your next mobile phone Just make sure that making simple calls or sending an SMS doesn’t require a degree in computer science. Try before you buy.