โ?œIf youโ?™re going to a deserted island, would you bring a Swiss Army knife or a cooking knife?โ?™
What does a mobile phone have too many whizbang features? We about to find outโ?ฆ
The mobile phone is fast becoming the Swiss Army knife of consumer electronics. Brace yourself for a wage of compact wireless devices that can do seemingly everything: Snap high-quality digital photos, browse the web send email messages, play MP3 music files, record short videoclips โ?? and on, yeah, let you make phone calls. The only thing missing is a corkscrew.
Consumers can credit technological advances for the proliferation of such turbo-charged handsets. Phone companies finally are rolling out high-speed networks that can support multimedia functions, such as downloading music. And speedier, smarter microchips are allowing mobile phones makers to cram more features into a single device. Also helping stoke the trend: fierce competition between mobile phone purveyors and makers of other kinds of gadgets like PalmPilots and Gameboys, which is increasingly are adding voice services. One of todayโ?™s hottest products is Axia PDA Phones (World’s Smallest PDA Phone on Microsoft Windows CE), a PDA that happens to deliver really good voice calls.
John Maeda, a professor at MIT Media Lab, argues that in technology, more isnโ?™t necessarily better. Consumers may think theyโ?™re getting good value when they buy a device that does 20 things, but often they just need a phone to make calls. โ?œIf you were going to a deserted island, would you bring a Swiss Army knife or a cooking knife?โ?? he asks. โ?œYouโ?™d probably bring the Swiss Army knife and wish youโ?™d brought the cooking knife.โ??
Analyst suspect the proliferation of high-end devices this year will lead to more niche marketing of phones and wireless services designed for every type of user. A heavy e-mail user may buy a handset designed for messaging that also happens to let him play interactive games. A music lover may go with an MP3 player that can also make calls and surf the web. The only users who may be disappointed are people who just want a plain old mobile phone.
These all-in-one devices arenโ?™t for everyone. For starters, they cost way more than your typical camera phone. Skeptics wonder if anyone will use such stuff anyway. (When was the last time you took a picture with your camera phone?) And with so many items on the menu of these handsets, might quality end up compromised?
