Mobile / Cell Phone Thoughts & Reviews

I’ve been reading Ewan MacLeod’s blogs for many years now.  I started back when MIR was SMSTextNews and was inspired by Ewan to write my own blog and endevour into the mobile industry.  I went from an observer to someone involved and participating, from hosting industry events all over the world to traveling to the biggest trade shows (MWC).

I read Ewan’s rant (now being refered to as The Cannes Doctrine) about where he’d like to see mobile services go.  I’d like to add to that and rant a little myself.  I’m sick and tired of where the mobile industry is right now.  I’m a long time Nokia fan.  Anybody that knows me knows that.  Problem is Nokia is not going anywhere fast in terms of what our phones can do for us.  They have made huge strives in what we can do with our phone but not what they will do for us.  Great, now I can take an 8mp camera phone pic, I can listen to music while I’m out and about, I can check my email and I can read Ewans rants on the go.

Well my rant is along similar lines as Ewans, I want more integration of mobiles into our regular lives.  I don’t want my phone to make calls and compose sms, but I want my phone to know when to ring and when not to.  I want it to know exactly what I’m doing and when I’m doing it.  I don’t want my phone to ever ring from 9pm to 8am in it’s regular tone unless my calendar says I’m out and about.  I want my phone to know I’m at home (utilizing GPS+wifi+calendar) and that it shouldn’t ring or ding but only beep because I’m at home and my wife and daughter may be sleeping.  I want my phone to activate it’s GPS service like Google Maps or Nokia Maps when I’m outside or moving more then 15 miles per hour.  I expect my phone to vibrate instead of ring if my  calendar says I’m in a meeting.  I want my phone to automatically log into whatever wifi I’m around and connect me to VOIP.

I want my phone to read my ToDo list and know that I need to pick up flowers for my wife for her birthday and remind me when I’m driving by the flower shop.  I’d like my phone to actually order the flowers in advance knowing I’ll be driving by the flower shop.

All along my phone should know that I don’t want to accept IM’s while I’m driving because that wouldn’t be responsible of me to read and respond while I’m behind the wheel.  I want my phone to know to check for firmware updates on a regular basis and same thing for the apps I run on my phone.

One of the biggest things I want my phone to handle for me is mobile payments.  I went grocery shopping a few months back and was Tweeting on my way out the door.  I ended up forgetting my wallet at home but not my mobile (of course).  So I was shocked when I went to check out and pay.  I had to run home and get my wallet with my credit cards in it versus just swipe my phone by the credit card reader to pay.

I want so much from my phone and I expect all of this to be here now, I’m not patient like Ewan.  I expect these apps to integrate with each other and deepely into my phone.  I’m commited to Nokia, that’s not to say I’m not tempted by an iPhone.  But I see Nokia doing so many things right that I can’t live without.  I need my emoze email, Truphone VOIP, and a few other apps that either aren’t made for the iPhone or aren’t as robust on the iPhone because of the lame ducked SDK.

One of the biggest things I want is the Nokia E71/E72 form factor on whatever platform I use.

Every aspect of what Ewan and I are ranting about is here, it’s not years away, it’s just delayed due to the integration of the hardware and interaction with the other apps.  I would like to make a suggestion to the industry.  I’d like to see standards layed out accross each platform for software and hardware develpoers to work with to give the ability of proper marriges within apps and phones.  So that my work IM app will work with the office wifi and ringer profiles to know where I am and to integrate with my calendar so it never rings while I’m in a meeting.  I propose to the industry to come together during Mobile World Congress and work with each other to make what we already have that is overly fragmented into a transparent clean user interface.

Nokia, things haven’t changed as much as you’d like us all to think in the last few years, let’s make some changes before the end of 2010.  Pick the biggest and best apps and use them as an example.  Use the homescreen Switch app to control what we see but have it tied into the GPS and accelerometer.  It should know when we’re at home, the office, the park and every other place we go and control what we see on our homescreen reading different IP addresses around it, using GPS and cell phone tower triangulation.  I don’t want my work email, IM, and VOIP on my homescreen when I’m at home on the weekends.  That’s just one example.

So telecom industry, it’s time to take some steps and do what may be uncomfortable.  Make changes and make them quickly.