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Killer App Still Under Development
by Andrew McCaskey
Slashdot Review Podcast
Todays comments focus around a blog entry from a few days ago from Techdirt:
” . . a new survey out of the UK that’s found nearly two-thirds of the new mobile phones returned to a major retailer there as broken aren’t broken at all, it’s just that apparently they’re so difficult to use people think they’re broken. The poor usability of increasingly complex devices is symptomatic of the mobile industry’s usability problems as a whole — particularly with the mobile content and data services that are supposed to be driving its latest renaissance. A survey of people who used data services for the first time during the World Cup found that half of them won’t use it again, citing poor ease of set up and use as significant reasons, while other content providers report embarrassingly low response rates to content-delivery messages, something largely blamed on, again, setup and usability problems. ”
One of the running jokes in the tech world, as you probably know, is the cynical comment of the “killer App = Digital Voice” . Usually the opening line after you re-connect from a dropped call. The finger pointing between service providers, handset manufacturers, and retail channels – who bear some responsibility for the set-up of the devices.
Techdirt continues to say that “The sad thing is that these exact same types of stories and surveys have been published for many years, but very little meaningful action is taking place, particularly from mobile operators, who must bear a lot of the responsibility for ensuring users devices are set up properly when they get them, but also from handset vendors, most of whom don’t devote enough resources to software and user-interface design.”
I’ve had up close and personal experience with handsets from Nokia, Motorola, Audiovox, Samsung, and Ericsson. If there ever was a time for the disclaimer Your Mileage May Vary – this is it. But who to blame ? The take away is the overall reliability, usability and customer satisfaction for the overall package – the proverbial three legged stool.
The digital voice killer app won’t be here until all three legs get reliably attached. And of course, I want to sit more comfortably and higher than I did just a few years ago – camera, PDA, web browser, music player. And by the way,
It’s going to be fun when it happens. And no wonder that I carried an 8400 Series Nokia for four years. Just fit the hand, never read the manual, and did it’s one job well. Except for those dropped calls.
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