Going Into Mobile Phone Feature Shock?
from the too-much dept
While I think there's plenty of potential for some of the cool new mobile phones that are coming out these days, I'm still aware of the fact that I'm an early adopter type, who likes to play around with gadgets. It's important to remember that not everyone is like that, and many folks looking at these new phones with all sorts of funky additional features are taking a step back and saying "hey, I just want to make phone calls." All the companies pushing these new feature filled phones need to remember that there's more than just the early adopter audience out there. While it seems that people seem to adopt new features by social osmosis (you've had the phone for a while, your friends are text messaging, so you try it out...), the feature set isn't really that big of a selling point for many people, and it may be a long time before that mentality shifts.
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Exactly
I would think that a phone company could make a pretty good market by advertising a line of phones as high quality, yet simple and easy. It seems that with all electronics products the only way to get "simple and easy" is to go to the low end manufacturers who sell crap to people who buy solely based on price. Some people want a reduced feature set but are willing to pay more for better quality.
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Consumer confusion
Has anyone noticed that this appears to be a trend in ALL consumer appliances today ? How many times have you been over @ a friends and had a hard time trying to simply heat something up in their microwave ? Or tried to turn on their home entertainment center ( TV ) and had to ask for assistance ?
I seriously take into consideration how " user friendly " a device is before buying it now days. If I cannot use the BASIC features without reading the owners manual I won't buy the item.
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No Subject Given
My desired feature set for a phone is basicly my aging Startac phone with a few choice new features. I am a gearhead and I do like new features, but I don't care about some of the features features.
The annoying part is that the combination of features I want -- generally having 1x-rtt 2.5g data and bluetooth -- aren't available. Maddening.
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Well maybe *one* feature
And y'know, a camera would also be cool if it was easy to e-mail the pictures. And... and...
You see how this gets started. Ask 1,000 people and if each suggests just one or two it-would-be-cool features you end up with a phone with more computing power than the Apollo program and a 200-page manual. Blech.
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Re: Well maybe *one* feature
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Re: Well maybe *one* feature
It really is as simple as that.
Besides, even the most retarded phone users have adjusted to caller ID and preprogrammed #'s.
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