Checking the stats on MobileBurn, in the six hours that my Apple iPhone article has been up, it has received as many hits as any other release story from CES has received in the full 24 hour period after publishing. That’s on track for four times the popularity of its nearest competing story, the Nokia N76, and that is amazing. This has been reflected on the stock market today as well, with Apple shares up over 8%, and Motorola down 1.83%, Nokia down 1.32%, and Research In Motion down an astonishing 7.68%. Talk about shake up the market.
Anyway, it’s back to CES work for me – I’m really looking forward to sleeping after this week is over…
Looks like Samsung will be unveiling two new handsets for the US market at CES next week – on the 8th at 10:30am, to be exact. Both devices will feature stereo Bluetooth, a microSD memory card slot, a 2.0 megapixel camera, and will be slim devices (as is a regular occurrence with Samsung), though one will be tooled for video and one for music. I have a feeling that they will be a version of the SGH-F500 and SGH-F300 announced back at ITU Telecom World for the US market, but I’m not willing to place money on that.
I also know all about Nokia and Sony Ericsson’s releases for CES, but I have to keep hush-hush about that. Watch the CES page on MobileBurn for live coverage from CES for all things mobile.
In one of the most ridiculous news items I have read in a long time, Stuff is reporting that the New Zealand Qualifications Authority (NZQA), which oversees secondary and tertiary qualifications in the country, will be allowing SMS-style ‘TXT TLK’ in exams this year. I have written about my concerns over school age children using mobile phones here previously, and this just seems ludicrous to me.
While the NZQA is stating that it is strongly discouraging students to use the shorthand, and that in exams where requirements specifically state that candidates should demonstrate good language use, such as English, abbreviations would be penalized, I think it is terrible that ‘TXT TLK’ will be accepted at all.
We should be trying to teach students an appreciation of language, and the ability to write, spell, and speak with a high standard, not encouraging laziness and a complete butchery of the written word. I hope that the public makes a stand on this, and the NZQA realizes the stupidity of its ways.
While I had the equipment out, I decided to film a quick video of the MOTOKRZR to give people an idea of the size of the device and speed of the user interface. Click below to watch the video.
Continue Reading »
The Nokia N73 has been a bit of a roller coaster for me. When it was originally announced and I wrote the story for MobileBurn, I didn’t like it. It just looked funny to me, and I wasn’t really interested. Here we are though, five months later, the N73 has been released and I have one in my hand – and I love it. Read on for my initial impressions/mini review of this powerful multimedia handset.
Continue Reading »
An issue was raised with me the other day about mobile phones for users with special needs, such as people with vision problems, hearing problems, and other such challenges. James Kendrick touches on the subject a little, but the solutions that he found are a little, well, poor.
What I want to see is better integration into the phone’s firmware of tools to help disabled people. While this may not necessarily be practical for regular ‘dumb’ phones, I imagine it wouldn’t prove to be such a problem with smartphones.
Not knowing people that face these kind of challenges personally, I can only speculate what functions would make handsets more accessible to this demographic. I would assume that screen reader functionality would be a great place to start for those with failing vision, and conversely, having more pronounced visual indicators of what is going on with the device would help those with hearing impairments. Enlarged keypads would help greatly for many people, but this isn’t really practical to apply to all handsets – so what about a phone specifically designed for disabled individuals?
I wonder if it would be at all feasible for a large manufacturer to introduce a phone specifically designed to help those that have issues with today’s small and fiddly phones. Surly there would be a market for it, but I don’t know the economics of it all. At least for a start, though, I think manufacturers need to become more aware of this demographic, and I believe that the first company to realize this will get a lot of recognition for its efforts – and maybe even make some money along the way.
Note: I have tried to use language that won’t offend anyone, but if anything in this piece offends you, please contact me and I will amend it.
One of the hardest parts of my job is remembering model numbers of handsets. For a long time, confusing numbering has been the norm, but finally some of the marketing folk that work with handset manufacturers are waking up to the fact that model names, rather than numbers, are the way to go. Samsung are by far the worst when it comes to naming schemes, followed by Nokia, but the later has recently announced (in a very informal way) that it will be moving to a meaningful naming scheme.
Unlike Barry Allwood at MobileScraper (like the name), I think this is a great idea – with a caveat. Like Barry, I hate Motorola’s confusing naming. Why are vowels so bad, Motorola? What I do like, however, are names like LG’s Chocolate. Think about the auto industry, manufacturers do not name their vehicles with long, confusing numbers, but instead give them names that are memorable, which increases model awareness and encourages word of mouth marketing.
I don’t think a pure name based system is the answer, though; Too many names will get just as confusing as the numbers. What I would love to see is manufacturers using names for ranges of products, which are then broken down with short, easy to remember numbers. Samsung, which I previously called the worst offender, has actually begun introducing this method (though only on a very small range of handsets currently). Samsung has its ‘Ultra’ range, which is then broken down into numbers based on the thickness of the handset (Ultra 9.9, Ultra 6.9), and while I don’t particularly like the decimal point in there, I think this is the way of the future.
Imagine it, the Ford SMAD-1901 – pretty memorable…
The Be a Good Dad blog has made a very thoughtful response to my Cellphones and Children post, and in fact disagrees with me on one of the points I made.
Be a Good Dad contends that SMS text messaging won’t ruin a child’s spelling and grammar skills, and will in actuality help them know when to write with slang and when to write formally. This is an interesting argument, and if a careful eye is placed on children, could indeed work. As a side note, Be a Good Dad seems like a very good blog for fathers to read, so be sure to check it out.
Someone should introduce Be a Good Dad to the Firefly and Migo handsets though, as well as other available handsets for kids, as they answer almost all the features the article requests in a handset for kids.
I know I am known for a little Motorola bashing in my time, but what do you expect when you are presented with a company whose business plan is to continually rehash an old handset?
After the announcements of the MOTOKRZR K1 and MOTORIZR Z3, I really thought that Motorola was going to give me something new. But with no shipping date for these handsets in sight, what has the company given us? That’s right – RAZRs in new colors… again… Though this time it comes in the form of ‘Tattoos’ for the aging handset.
One day, Motorola is going to really surprise me with a handset that just makes me go ‘wow.’
James Kendrick points me to an interesting article on CNET UK about the average age of children when they get a mobile phone. The article states that a recent study shows that the average age of a child is expected to drop to five years old this year – while five years old does surprise me, I thought I would weigh in with my opinion, and it is generally a positive one. I would like to say first, however, that I am not going to address the issue of phone radiation, as we could argue back and forth about that little issue all day.
If I remember correctly, I got my first phone at the age of eleven or twelve, which was quite young back then (I was the first kid I knew with a phone). Even ignoring my involvement in the industry, I have no problem with parents giving a phone to a child – with a few caveats. For a start, I do think that five is too young; sometime in the latter stages of Primary school (or elementary school, depending on where you are, between grades 5-7) would be more appropriate.
To be honest, I like the idea of companies making child friendly phones like the Firefly and LG’s Migo. I do not agree with giving a fully-fledged handset to a child, but I think that these very restricted handsets are a safe way to introduce a child to the responsibilities of owning a phone – including teaching them the associated costs of calling, and looking after the phone itself. These child-focused handsets also provide a form of peace of mind to parents, with children at an age where they start going out with friends and generally getting around a bit more on their own, as many have integrated GPS tracking capabilities and emergency buttons.
One thing I do dread though, which is something that the CNET article also touches on, is the way an SMS messaging capable handset could destroy a young person’s aptitude in spelling and grammar. I absolutely despise receiving a message coded in ‘TXT TLK,’ and with handsets including easy to use predictive text input methods these days, I really see no excuse for the laziness. This is one issue I don’t really know how to address, though it is one that the restricted kid-phones don’t have (as they cannot send text messages). Short of trying to instill a respect for good grammar and spelling in your children (which is probably a pipe dream), I don’t know how we can solve this one.
Like everything, there is good and bad points to giving a phone to a child. Overall, I’m on the positive side of the fence. I do not have children though, so my stance could completely turn around when I do.
