Opinionated comments on mobile phone industry news
|
All entries are written by Anders Borg, CEO and Consultant of Abiro, that has a long experience in strategic planning, developing embedded and Java software, usability aspects, and the mobile phone industry in general. You can also read the latest Mobile News entries on your phone via wap.abiro.com, and we provide many News Feeds from popular news services. For advertising and contribution queries, please use the feedback form. News feed (local) FeedBurner Feed
|
|
Tuesday, October 31, 2006
Carry only one device, not yet true
In-Stat claims many mobile phone users still carry around dedicated cameras (80%), music players (>50%) and PDAs (75%). Hopefully only when such gadgets are needed though.
My old 4 Mp digital camera is still much better than the one in e.g. the Sony Ericsson K800i, but even with that rationale 80% is still a very high figure. Using a cameraphone is nowadays very simple, so that doesn't sound like a show-stopper.
I fully understand the figure for music: Phones still can't compare when it comes to ease-of-use and amount of memory (when talking mainstream phones). Even so called music phones are in my opinion too hard to use, as music functions fight for attention with so much other functionality.
The most odd is the PDA/smartphone bit: If a customer buys a smartphone at all, why not select one so the PDA can be ditched? Frankly, most so called smartphones are not equal to a PDA (e.g. the Nokia N series, that don't have alphanumeric keypad nor a touch screen), which dillutes the smartphone term. Yet, there are good smartphones that can replace a PDA 1-to-1, like the Treo's, Sony Ericsson P and M series, Nokia E and 9xxx series etc.
There might also be other reasons altogether:
* Gadgets are purchased for status reasons. Photographing with the latest Canon or Nikon is way more status-inducing than using a lowly cameraphone.
* Consumers might not buy the phones for the mentioned features. Take e.g. any non-business Series 60 phone: It's considered a smartphone but most buy them as vanilla phones.
It will for sure become better over time, both in terms of capacity and hopefully also ease of use, which will put a dent in the statistics as well.
Study: for most, all-in-one phones aren't - Engadget Mobile
My old 4 Mp digital camera is still much better than the one in e.g. the Sony Ericsson K800i, but even with that rationale 80% is still a very high figure. Using a cameraphone is nowadays very simple, so that doesn't sound like a show-stopper.
I fully understand the figure for music: Phones still can't compare when it comes to ease-of-use and amount of memory (when talking mainstream phones). Even so called music phones are in my opinion too hard to use, as music functions fight for attention with so much other functionality.
The most odd is the PDA/smartphone bit: If a customer buys a smartphone at all, why not select one so the PDA can be ditched? Frankly, most so called smartphones are not equal to a PDA (e.g. the Nokia N series, that don't have alphanumeric keypad nor a touch screen), which dillutes the smartphone term. Yet, there are good smartphones that can replace a PDA 1-to-1, like the Treo's, Sony Ericsson P and M series, Nokia E and 9xxx series etc.
There might also be other reasons altogether:
* Gadgets are purchased for status reasons. Photographing with the latest Canon or Nikon is way more status-inducing than using a lowly cameraphone.
* Consumers might not buy the phones for the mentioned features. Take e.g. any non-business Series 60 phone: It's considered a smartphone but most buy them as vanilla phones.
It will for sure become better over time, both in terms of capacity and hopefully also ease of use, which will put a dent in the statistics as well.
Study: for most, all-in-one phones aren't - Engadget Mobile
