Phones and the Internet
Maybe I'm just a curmudgeon, but I have real trouble with the whole Mobile Web idea, at least as far as phones go. Why? For a couple of very simple reasons:
- Tiny Screens - ever tried to read a largish amount of text on a phone? It sucks. A lot.
- Tiny Fonts - see the first point, above
- Typing - Ever tried to enter more than a trivial amount of text on a phone? Sure, it can be done... but it gets very, very tiresome
Yes, I know that lots of people use SMS. I'm completely convinced that most of them will be crippled with carpal tunnel in a few years too. The problem is one of form factor - you want a device small enough to stow in a pocket - and that means that the keyboard will either be tiny (read: painful), or non-existant (i.e., a telephone touchpad - more painful).
John Batelle is all excited about mashups that involve phones. IMHO, the phone is by and large a read-only device. And it pretty much sucks as a read-only device too, unless the amount of text returned is small. Searching for movie listings or restaurants? Useful. Doing serious work? Not so much.
Comments
read only covers a lot of ground
[Gustaf Erikson] December 31, 2005 19:08:45.914
I can agree that for general-purpose internet use, phones are non-optimal. But for some stuff, they rock. On my Series 60 Nokia, there are 3 things I use on the net:
- bloglines mobile
- gmail mobile
- IRC
The first 2 are read-only. The second is less so, but it's just a cheaper more effective way of sending messages. Do it enough and you can t9 as fast as you can type :-)Could I just talk to someone?
[Jim Thompson] January 1, 2006 10:37:31.487
The most revolutionary thing that could happen to cell phones is to be able to RELIABLY call and talk to someone.
solved problem in the EU
[Gustaf Erikson] January 1, 2006 15:00:26.057
Talk quality is an essentially solved problem in the EU. Europe is much smaller and more densely populated than the US, so unless you live in tbe boondocks or in the mountains you can almost always get a good signal. I imagine that's true for Japan too. For me, my phone is a great commuting device. I can browse blogs and chat with friends on the subway. If I was to communicate by car, other things would be more important -- I'd probably gravitate more towards an audio device like an ipod.
Europe & USa
[Johan] January 2, 2006 2:25:24.751
Gustaf, Europe is actually bigger than the US. Europe *is* more densely populated (about 500 million versus 300 million). In the US reception is also good according to your definition (populated areas), it's just that our boondocks are much larger...
Boon docks vs. the City
[Jim Thompson] January 2, 2006 12:31:18.944
I usually have the most problems with my cell phone in densely populated urban areas when driving. When you get handed off to another tower that is too busy you will get dropped. I understand that Europe has different cell phone technology and supposedly superior to ours in the US. I just think that cell phone companies in the US are in a rush to add on all these features to gloss over the fact that their networks are unstable, they have poor coverage and poor signal quality. JR -- I'm like you I have little interest in surfing the web on my phone.
Signal Quality
[ James Robertson] January 2, 2006 13:23:33.264
Comment by James Robertson
I use Verizon, and I must say - the quality has been pretty good wherever I go. It's not common at all for me to lose calls, and I've mostly switched to the mobile as my main business phone