Mobile Phone As Swiss Army Knife

It seems the latest popular way to describe the mobile phone of the future is to call it the wireless "Swiss Army Knife", since all the handset makers seem to be tacking on extra features so that the devices do a variety of different things. Of course, as per usual in the world of "but, wait... there's more!" not all of these combinations make sense. Often, in the rush to combine various features into a single device, the device makers guarantee that none of the features works particularly well. There are the obvious innovations (adding PDA/smartphone features), and then the less obvious ones, such as the mosquito repellent ringtone or the smoke detector mobile phone. In the end, though, it appears that the real advances will come from software and services - as that will allow the end-user to customize and configure their phones as they see fit. While some hardware modifications will make sense, they need to be in fairly high demand for it to be cost-efficient for the handset makers, and by offering more customizable applications and services, users can turn their own phones into the most valuable digital Swiss Army Knife for their own personal needs.
Hide this

Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.

Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.

While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.

–The Techdirt Team


Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread


  • identicon
    Evil Genius, 2 Feb 2004 @ 10:41am

    More literally...

    I would settle for a more literal interpretation of this. How about a bottle opener? Flashlight? Lighter? The Victorinox product dev guys seem to be sleeping on this one.

    link to this | view in chronology ]


Follow Techdirt
Essential Reading
Techdirt Deals
Report this ad  |  Hide Techdirt ads
Techdirt Insider Discord

The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...

Loading...
Recent Stories

This site, like most other sites on the web, uses cookies. For more information, see our privacy policy. Got it
Close

Email This

This feature is only available to registered users. Register or sign in to use it.