The past year should have been all about the Motorola Q. Seriously. About two years ago, the Q and the new category of slab-like QWERTY smartphones were starting to gain serious momentum. Suddenly, the Sidekick idea, a full QWERTY keyboard on a consumer-oriented, or at least bargain-priced smartphone, seemed like a hot seller. So, most of the phones introduced this past year were aimed at that market. In January, of course, the iPhone announcement completely changed the focus of pundits and consumers, but, following an average product cycle of 18 months to two years, we won't start seeing real iPhone competitors until the beginning of next year.
Getting the message
So, this year was all about QWERTY keyboards and messaging on phones. If we saw a touch screen phone this year, and we saw plenty, they weren't really iPhone competitors, and it showed in their interface design. Sure, plenty of companies had the same idea of bringing an all-touch phone to market this year. It was a logical next step, and though we definitely saw some good effort from LG and AT&T Tilt or the new Motorola Q9, and we saw them on small phones like the Pantech Duo or the LG Rumor. We saw SureType keyboards, keyboards affixed to touchscreen phones, and SureType keyboards affixed to touchscreen phones. It was a year for keyboards, as the U.S. market seems to have fallen out of love with multi-tap in a big way.
A traffic jam of features
One of the interesting trends we're also seeing is the redefinition of the low-end. There are plenty of free or nearly-free phones available with a contract agreement, but for only $50 to $100 more, you can actually expect some pretty snazzy features with your phone. While last year we might have talked about phones with music or video capabilities, this year, along with the messaging phones, we now have see a general "media phone" category. There is a serious mid-range across all the carriers that come equipped with music players, along with stereo Bluetooth and microSD card support; streaming and downloadable video content; GPS navigation and location-based services; a mobile Web browser; and a camera with video recording capabilities. These used to be serious bragging features on phones, even a year or so ago, but now we can think of a handful of phones on each carrier that fit the bill, and we still think of them as mid-range.
The reason is because these features are not well implemented. Music players are bland or difficult to use, and over-the-air music stores are expensive and inefficient. With the exception of V Cast Mobile TV, mobile video is comprised of short clips that are hardly worth the download time, let alone the exorbitant extra expense they cause you to incur. GPS navigation is not nearly on par with what you'd get on a standalone unit, even though carriers expect you to shell out at a few hundred dollars over the life of your contract for the service. And don't get us started about the cameras on phones.
What people asked us for
When people ask us for cell phone buying advice, nine out of ten ask for a phone that makes good calls. What they mean is that they want good sound quality, good reception, and good battery life. Then, they want call management. They also want to feel like a phone is reliable. If manufacturers continue to pile on features, they need to be useful and accessible. Otherwise, it's time to get back to the basics.
Incidentally, the tenth person who asked us for cell phone advice asked for a phone that could record DVD-quality video and then upload directly to YouTube. We knew a couple that could upload, including the Helio Ocean, after recent updates, but the Nokia N95 is probably what he needs. We've seen a lot of these user-generated content apps coming to cell phones, and we think it could be a fun trend that will drive adoption of more advanced mobile internet services. This year was all about MySpace and YouTube, and an interesting trend we saw was the use of standalone apps to handle these portals. A separate MySpace or YouTube app gives you access, instead of the Web browser, even on an advanced browser phone like the iPhone. Perhaps this is the way to go as well, to allow more diversity in the application, instead of taxing the already-limited mobile browser.
As the mobile industry scrambles in the year ahead to catch up with the shockwave unleashed last January, we hope that the manufacturers use the best lessons of the iPhone and apply them to the technology of today. Instead of simply mimicking the touchscreen, improve the execution, the interface design, on the messaging and media phones that were so popular this year. Then, in a couple of years, when the phones hit the market, we'll look back and laugh at the sideways QWERTY-slider craze of 2007.
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