As many of you know, I recently renamed my Smartphones Show to The Phones Show, reflecting the fact that feature phones were becoming smarter and smartphones were often mis-named anyway. I also had in the back of my mind that I wanted my show to appeal to wider cross-section of humanity, reaching out from the geek world to the Mr and Mrs Average on the High Street.
Well, that was the plan, anyway. It may be that I might as well not have bothered. Three data points for you to consider with me:
- Having felt very pleased that Rafe and I had managed to get Samsung i8510s (INNOV8s) ahead of the mainstream, with both units having firmware that clearly still needed work, for early review, it was rather galling to be ambling down the High Street of a rather third rate UK town a few weeks ago and see several phone shop window adverts offering this technological flagship, the i8510 for free on contract, with immediate availability!
What on earth would the average High Street phone buyer want with something this advanced? No doubt they'll be attracted by the bullet point feature of the 8 megapixel camera, but will they make even the slightest use of it? Do they really need 8mp? What about the focussing in video mode or the Wi-Fi or GPS?
Is there any point in AAS reviewing cutting edge hardware when you can just go and play in your local High Street? [ok, a rhetorical question, but you get my drift]
- Out of curiosity, I handed both my 'iPhone' (actually the iPod Touch) and a review Samsung 'Tocco' (an iPhone clone) to a tech-savvy teenager who happened to be in the house. I wanted her opinion on the two devices. After ten minutes playing, she pronounced that she didn't really like either and found the iPhone 'too confusing'.
As someone in the IT industry, where the iPhone is considered by all to be the paragon of usability at the expense of absolute functionality, this came as something of a shock. The very limited Tocco was reckoned to be 'simpler' to use and preferred. Gulp.
[And, somewhat tellingly, when she caught sight of my N95, she recognised the interface and said that this looked much more familiar.... 8-) ]
- I glanced across at a casual acquaintance and saw they were using the Nokia N95 8GB. "Great phone", I said, "in fact, currently the best in the world". "Oh, I'm not really interested in phones" was the reply. This just happened to be the device that came with his new contract. The fact that he was using one of the most highly miniaturised pieces of high tech electronics in the world for just voice calls and the odd text didn't seem at all out of place to him.
I reckon I use my N95 8GB for around 40 different things (and I could list them, given half a chance) - and even then I'm not really pushing the envelope. And here was someone owning the best phone in the world and using it as if it were the lowliest. Utterly dispiriting and demoralising.
The goal of the smartphone industry over the last year has been to make its devices more approachable and accessible to the common man. All very laudable but I'm not sure the common man really wants the things a smartphone can offer.
[The following paragraph has been censored by Rafe on account of Steve being a tech-snob and obviously a bit depressed as well.... you may not want to read it...]
What about keeping the word 'smartphone' after all, but using a different definition. A smartphone should be for people who are smart. And they should make users really appreciate what they're taking home before letting them walk out of the shop. There should be a sticker over the likes of the N95, the 6120 Classic, and, yes, even the Apple iPhone, with a 'This Phone Is Really A Computer - It Can Do As Much As Your PC And Deserves Your Respect' legend.
So 'smartphones' and appreciation of them is 'geeky'? So actually using them for their intended purpose is 'geeky'? Well, in that case I'm a geek and proud of it.
Steve Litchfield, All About Symbian, 30 Sep 2008
PS. One other encounter was interesting, although not quite falling into the same theme. Another close friend had, against my advice (I'd said to buy an N95), gone and bought a LG Viewty. When asked why, she said that the N95 looked too 'chunky' and she wanted something more feminine. I aked her how she was getting on. "I don't like it at all. The ringing volume is too low, the screen keeps doing things I don't want it to and I can't read it properly outdoors." - Why do people not listen??!