More 'normob' encounters in the last few days have left me speechless. If some of what I've encountered is typical then arguments about how to introduce smartphones to the average person in the High Street are, quite simply wasted. Or maybe I'm just a technology snob. Either way, I'm a geek and proud of it. You probably are too. Read on and comments welcome...
Read on in the full article.
Before everyone starts moaning:
I think Steve got out of bed the wrong side the morning he wrote this... 😊 Please accept AAS' apologies if you feel slighted. I will try and control Steve's phone snobbery better in the future.
Joking aside it does underline a very important point. The need to look at the market (probably applies everywhere, but especially in mobile) and understand there is a great deal of variation even within a single country... (never mind between countries). Everyone has different reasons etc etc. This goes a long way to explaining the enormous diversity and segmentation that goes on in the mobile market place.
Oh and I think AAS needs to keep reviewing because we hope people value are informed opinion and it helps them make better decisions! (Nice try though Steve).
...on showing off my i8510 to a "wannabe" geek, he declared it c**p because, and I quote, "I don't like that theme". Never mind that he apreciated it was [miles] ahead of his N95 classic, it was obviously no good because it didn't ship with a theme he liked!
...but yes, the whole iPhone / WinMob (omnia) / Viewty / Tocco etc. scene is FULL of "real people" who actually go out and buy these phones then get fed up with them because (and I quote again) "they don't look like a Nokia" (!)
Excellent article, I agree with this completely. I remember when I first got my N95 Classic, it was expensive, and the people who did have one appreciated what it was, and everything it could do.
Nowadays lots of people have them. I see people in their 60s with an N95 (although that's not to say that people this age can't appreciate or, competently use the equipment, it's just that the majority of people I know with one, don't use much of the features and in some cases, don't even know how).
We need to be thankful for these people. If they only used the phones geared up to their level of competence then the phone manufactures would stop making the nice phones for us geeks on the basis that it wasn't worth their while for such a small market.
I tend to agree with ILoveGadgets. If the only market for these amazing devices was the geek/gadget freak group (and I am a paid up member of that group!) phone companies would have long since stopped developing smartphones/multimedia computers/whatever you like to call them.
As a lover of gadgets, especially mobile devices, I say good on you normies! Keep buying those overspecced devices you only use a tenth of, it pushes the phone companies to keep building new toys for those of us who really appreciate them.
I have to think about this sort of stuff daily - my co. runs on mobile industry consultancy and mobile software development. My humble opinions are as follows;
If there's friction on any level between technology and people, in my book people are ALWAYS right. Always. Without fail. No matter what they want. Honestly, technology is the biggest pile of steaming you know what, ever. And I say that as a tech fan. Tech should always always bend to what people want, need, desire, and their way of working. There is no other way forwards. Humans are not a piece of machinery that should be made to bend into shape to fit some bit of tech that some geek designed. This is why I have always hated Microsoft and their bloat and bugs and appalling design. (It's also why I rebel against geekiness/nerdiness despite having the technical competance of someone very geeky, myself). Geeks can't see the world this way - they love tech more than computers. This is fatal when designing technology for ordinary humans to use. This is why there are so many usability issues, and lack of uptake of various technology - because geeks designed it. Geeks are to a technology nirvana (where all people can use and benefit from technology), what a muddy farm track is to a Formula 1 car. Yes, this is the reverse of the snobbery Steve shows (and I don't mean my comments personally by the way), but it is also true. As regards the article's observations;
1.) Yes, keep reviewing, you guys are experts and do great reviews for the enthusiasts. It's great if more powerful tech is more easily available on the High St. Bravo, bring it on. People deserve to benefit. It doesn't matter if they don't use many features. Let them have what they want and do what they want. Do you criticise people that don't use their cookers at home to bake cakes, instead only using them for sunday roasts, or perhaps even just the hob? So what? Who cares? Maybe they will some day. Maybe they never will!
2.) Anyone falling for the iPhone hype deserves to fall for the iPhone hype, if you see what I mean. Honestly, they're good in some ways (UI), and utter crap in others (like being a decent phone/camera/etc). Remember tech is down to personal preference too.
3.) Sorry this is going to sound horribly blunt but someone who calls this "Utterly dispiriting and demoralising" should go and spend a week in a 3rd world hell-hole seeing kids die of easily preventable diseases. Seriously. And see 1.) above.
PS. There's no such thing as a "smartphone" anymore, and AAS should drop all mention of it.
Other than that, keep up the good work!
Alex
phonething.com
You've made an interesting point. Phones and their uses all come back to the user. When the first VGA camera phones came out, a smart user could email or MMS pictures up to Flickr, while a NorMob would complain about how bad the picture quality is. When WAP web browsing was standard, a NorMob probably wouldn't find much usefulness. When the N95 camera is kinda slow to use, it's no wonder NorMobs don't spend the time to learn to take better photos, much less edit videos and upload them to Ovi.
The whole category of SmartPhones is really just what smart people are doing with the advanced phones that are now available. The engineers are insuring that the barriers to creating ... content (stuff, things) with smartphones are disappearing. The phone blog-o-sphere is chomping at the bit, heralding the minor incremental upgrades, waiting for each new feature. But will this speed up the uptake of advanced phone technology by NorMobs? Maybe not.
But I say it's still the duty of the early adopter to push the envelope of what's possible. Don't get depressed just because nobody else is doing it. You're a pioneer, Steve! We're all out here doing things that couldn't be done outside of a lab a few years ago. Revel in it! Can I get a W00t?
Another possibility is that the smartphone is just not as good as the non-converged competing devices.
Take the camera for instance. Taking a picture with a compact digital camera is so much easier than with a N95, nobody apart from the early adopter crowd will take the N95 serious as a camera. The early and late majority will always compare the camera bit of a smartphone with a normal camera and the smartphone will loose that, unless lots of care is given to the camera interface on the smartphone. This relegates the smartphone camera to taking pictures of your car accidents (yes, that's a good selling point).
Displaying pictures from the same camera should be easier, right? N95 again. Why on earth are there so much levels to cross before I get to the actual pictures, and why on earth are the albums not compatible with the folder structure in "My pictures" in Windows?
Morale: as long as the smartphone is worse in usability than it's non-converged competitors in use for the early and late majority, it will stay in it's niche.
steve is right i compeletley agree with him.when i see someone who doesnt know what he can do with his highend phone i want to take the phone and give him a nokia 1100!
ofcourse going into phone from power button and coming out from the the usb port is not recommonded except for us! :icon14: geeks:icon14:
Steve, your article is spot on. My experience is that most Smartphone owners have no idea what they have in their pocket.
The handset market in the UK, as we know, is geared to subsidised handsets with volume driven by upgrades. I believe few people “buy” handsets.
As a member of the Nokia S60 Ambassador programme, I speak with more mobile users than would probably be deemed as normal and I would say that at least half of the smartphone/iphone users spoken with volunteer that they have absolutely no idea of the capabilities of their device, are disappointed with their performance, which often, and I think this is an important point, translates to unhappiness with the brand. Most admit they have them because they were offered by their network provider as the latest must have.
If we predominantly purchased mobile devices at or near their true value, more considered purchasing decisions would be made and there would be many more satisfied owners which strengthen brand loyalty and referrals.
However, I must selfishly agree with ILoveGadgets and Unregistered, we do need Mr & Mrs Average to keep the sales volumes up to subsidise our passion for these amazing devices.
The Smartphones show was a silly name for three reason.
1. It clashed with Symbian's "Smartphone show" (especially as it appeared on the Symbian site)
2. and secondly because the "s" on both the end and start of the word is clumsy
e.g "Simply Smartphones" works, but "Smartphones show" sounds wrong.
3. In a title like "The phone show", the phone is assumed to be plural since you are unlikely to be referring to a particular individual phone.
You don't see a "the albums show" or "PCs user magazine".
I can't believe represented 'yoof's view of technology based on the polling one person. 'Geeks' in particular have not got the right brain wiring to understand how the masses react to products.
Remember the Casio watches with calculators and TVs on them - smartphones are just like that - anything we carry around with us is fashion, disposable and a status symbols.
All in all though, I like the article though... it reminded me of this
http://science.videosift.com/video/Dawkins-tells-a-kid-that-there-is-no-santa-claus
You highlighted an important point - you are a geek. The people reading and posting here are geeks. We take the time to read about and understand the technology we use and we make the most of it. Our lives in many respects revolve around these technologies because they interest us so much.
The users you talk about (some would call them luddites), don't appreciate technical marvels like the N95 because they don't need to. They look at core functions like SMS, camera and usability (this is partly why the iphone is doing well), and don't really see the need to explore the true functionality of the device.
The key here is making advanced technology easier to use, and to make platforms like S60 more engaging for the end user.
No, not at all..
Steve did not got out of bed the wrong side the morning as he wrote this...
I totally agree what Steve has wrote in this article
He is a true geek, he's proud of it, which he should be, because i admire him =)
I read through the article and i thought..."This is what i've been wanting to tell those Mr & Mrs Average out there!"
So Steve has wrote it all for us..giving his own opinions, telling the main points..
and I have to say i'm definitely on his side, why? coz i'm a geek too! not as much as him but still part of it =D
I totally pity those people who are using one of the best mobile phone currently available on the market, like the N95, and did not even use all of its functions, it's just a Waste of Money! I don't get why they bother to spend all of those money just to show off that they've got the newest, most expensive phone, smartest phone, when they don't even use the wide variety of functions available from the phone itself!
I really appreciate the fact that Steve has got up in the morning to write an article like this..It shows me how truly a geek he is, and makes me even more proud to be a geek as well. Thanks Steve =)
think of people and pc's, my mother has got a pc, bet she cant hack into the pentagon with it though, but someone out there can. should she really be allowed to own a pc? as long as these devices can do simple things simply then people will own them.
I am a geek too and I love it. The only problem I face is when I do something smart on my phone and people ask me "how did you do that?", I start explaining to them and never know when to stop. 😊
Whether people use all the features or not, we still need normal people buying these phones. Forget normal, I am sure even most geeks do not use a phone to its fullest extend. How many people here can confidently say that they use all of the (say 40) features offered by an N95? And its just not with Symbian. I have seen people using WM phones and all they do with it is the same - Call, SMS, take an occasional pic, etc. It there are not enough buyers, the companies will simply stop making these phones. After all we geeks are a minority.
We have already seen this in firmware updates. If a model does not sell enough, we don't get new firmware for it. So cheers to these normal people!!!
Sadly there are whole swathes of the population, who seem to be intelligent in other fields, but can't/won't acquire technology skills. These people are completely resistant to learning anything new and you shouldn't worry about them or waste your time on them.
I have long given up trying to tell people who press the right arrow key 80 times to get to the end of a line that using the End key is much faster. If they haven't discovered this for themselves, they won't listen to anyone else. Darwinism rules, these people will eventually become extinct!
Ian.
[Feeling particularly grumpy this morning].
The general drift of the article and comments seems to be that only geeks or technologically oriented people would be able to really make use of a smartphone. I dont agree. I believe that all that is really required for anyone is an inclination to explore what your device can do for you - you dont have to be a geek and you dont need to understand anything about technology for that.
The fact is that a smartphone can help some geeks to get interested in stuff that "normal" people do. I hold a tech job (although not related to mobile devices) and I could call myself a geek.
My e90 and my previous e61 have changed my life in ways that really dont have anything to do with technology, although technology is the enabler.
The wide screen gave me back my reading habit that I lost after college.
I am now in my mid-thirties and had never seriously studied a map before, but now I have my entire locality charted out, thanks to Nokia and Google Maps. I have even started a bit of city exploring - there is no way I would have got interested in something like this but for Maps.
I am more organized now, thanks to the calendar and Projekt (big learning curve though).
I have got interested enough in digital photography to go buy a decent standalone digital camera. Some aas articles have also played a part in this.
What has understanding technology got to do with any of this? "Someone's mom" could very well do any of these things. I don't know, perhaps it is a question of phones presenting these functions to an end user in a simple enough manner, that they would feel comfortable enough to explore.
I don't think Steve needs to despair so much..some of your articles are about stuff that you can do with your phone and not about the phone itself - the first one that comes to mind is one about Shozu some time back. See, there is plenty on your site for "normobs" who are just willing to spend a little bit of time looking at what their phones have got.
This is also why some of the most interesting bloggers are people who write with a personal touch rather than about hard-core technology or phone software or business strategy - for example the Lebanese lady whose name I would probably mis-spell if I typed it, or Ed of e-series.org who is badly missed.
I work in technology but I recently took the decision to reject all the trappings of technology. I had an N95 but one day I just thought to myself "why am I wasting my time poking this thing when I could be doing something worthwhile?". So I stopped, dumped the tired old N95 in the rubbish and went off to do something worthwhile. There's no going back.
Unregistered wrote:I work in technology but I recently took the decision to reject all the trappings of technology. I had an N95 but one day I just thought to myself "why am I wasting my time poking this thing when I could be doing something worthwhile?". So I stopped, dumped the tired old N95 in the rubbish and went off to do something worthwhile. There's no going back.
Your still using a computer though.
ltv, although that is how it may sound, that is not what we all mean. Technology-in-use can never be too complex, otherwise it will never accepted by people. No one likes to bother going through a huge learning curve to get the most out of anything. The examples you have quoted - how many ppl you know do things like that? The problem is people taking the initiative to learn.
6 years ago, I was a feature phone user. I was using a 6610 and was very happy with the colour screen and infrared and the fact that I could customise my phone with ringtones and wallpapers excited me. Then I discovered Symbian though the 6260. And man my perceptions of cell phones changed. I was constantly on the net looking for more applications, games, etc. But all this happened because I wanted to do that.
Like I said, the problem with smartphones is people not willing to explore the device. Steve's example in the article - the guy using the n95 - he has a great phone with him (sorry Steve, i agree its good, but its not the best phone in the world 😊), but is he exploring the features? No. He can use the 5MP camera to take good snaps, but he wont. If he ever gets lost, he will ask people around him for directions, but I am pretty sure he will not turn use the GPS on his phone.
People out there keep praising the blackberry for the email on the go. I know corporates that spend huge amount of money to buy blackberries for its people. But had these people explored a bit, they would have discovered that any Symbian phone with the help of a some 3rd party software can offer most of the features and flexibility of a blackberry. I have been using push email on my S60 device for than a year now. And I never felt the need to go for a black berry device.
These phones are not that complex, but someone has to still explore them to learn how to use them. You cant get a device in your hand and instantly expect to know what all it can do...
And, somewhat tellingly, when she caught sight of my N95, she recognised the interface and said that this looked much more familiar.... 8-)
Well, this is the dilemma of any industry incumbent: should you overhaul a product which so many people are already buying?
New entrants to the market can start from scratch because their market share can only go up, so they're free to experiment as they have absolutely nothing to lose.
But if you've already got more than double the market share of your nearest rival, it's very very difficult to make changes because you'll be afraid of losing your existing customer base (and to some extent that's a justified fear, look at what happened to Coca Cola in the "New Coke" debacle).
The upside of this is that if you DO lose customers, it becomes much easier to make changes because you have to win them back. Apple's success with the iPod and iMac came at a time when the company was on the verge of disappearing completely, and that spurred them to try new things. If they hadn't been failing, if the Mac had been as successful as Windows, maybe it would have stagnated just like Windows.
Nintendo is another example, they were going downhill all the way but when they reached their lowest ebb with the Gamecube they came up with the Wii and the DS, which turned things round completely for them.
And, interestingly, Microsoft's best product is probably the Xbox 360 and Xbox Live, which were both created in a field where MS was not the market leader. They had to compete with bigger-selling products, so they were forced to do more than just copy what others were doing.
It seems to be failure that encourages innovation and success that stifles it, which is why it's so important to have a marketplace where companies can compete as much as possible.
Oh, please! If smartphones were only sold to the geeky, we'd have a situation similar to what PDAs were like ten years ago: e.g. they cost the earth, and didn't do the simple things very well at all. Be thankful that Nokia is actively promoting a powerful OS for people who just want to make phone calls. It means that I got a 6120c for free on the cheapest plan that my provider offered -- and yet, in my hands, I also have a very powerful, very extensible computer.
Incidentally, recommending the N95 8Gb to your friend wasn't the most sensible of things to do. The N95 *is* bulky, and hardly fits into a pocket. It's clumsy, plasticky, unattractive, and it doesn't even have a card slot so you can expand the memory (and 8Gb cards are cheap-as right now). And yes, most people won't need half the features. An E-series phone or a 6xxx series phone would have been much more appropriate -- or better yet, telling them to wait for the N79 or N85.
'normobs' as you would refer them, i won't since my dad would also fall in the same category !!😊
Its all about needs and wants. A layman will buy 8 mp phone because he wants the best and his need would probably be to take quality pics. What the problem is, he would not be realising that his NEED can be fulfilled by even a 3 mp phone. The grumblings happen when he realises that a later stage after his purchase. A business executive who may be a layman in terms of camera tech, may strut around with an e90 and his need might just be mails on the go. Once he would come to know that even e51 can take care of that fabulously, his love for his e90 would go down drastically.
The point i am trying to make is, the 'smart geeks'(hello, steve! 😉 ) are able to match their needs and wants almost immediately after a phone is launched and would know whether they would buy that phone or not but laymen probably would take 3 to 4 months to match that but in a hurry to be up there in the elite league, would buy that instantly.
So its fine as long as they match it and buy the product suited to their usage.
You guys keep on doing what you are doing. Its a fantastic job and you are helping people cut down on their lead time to understand phones.
bartmanekul wrote:Your still using a computer though.
Yes. I'm at work.
I've there were no kick backs from the networks than very little of this would occur.
Would I buy an N96 if I had to pay �600 up front in one go? No. I'd buy a decent HD camcorder, a cheap phone and an iPod Touch. But, if I can get the network to pay for some of it and have the other payment spread out over a couple of years then I just might.
Seriously Steve, I feel your pain, it's extremely frustrating seeing this kind of crazy phone/user mismatch that's taking place these days. But then, the same thing has been happening for the last 6 years in the PC industry... ^_^
Obviously it's not in the same league as 3rd world starvation, but then, what is?
Totally agree!
After reading the article I felt like commenting on this issue.
Yes, most people don't really know what their phone is capable of and therefore don't use the features. I have to admit though that I really like to play around with tech gadgets and I can say for a fact that even a month after I eventually opened the box of my N95 8GB, I still discover new things to do with on a daily basis. Plus, I still am optimizing my workflow really. It's just complex enough to take you a big amount of time to get used to.
Then the manual is somewhat useless as it doesn't really live up to the phone's capabilities. You just have to play around in an educated manner - most people can't or don't want to. They buy phones because they are cool.
How often did you ask someone you know "Hey what phone model is that?" and they reply "Uhm I think some Nokia/SE something", they just text, call and occasionally use it as an MP3 player/camera.
I feel that way to because I have more than one problem with the human race. But it doesn't mean that I hate everyone because it's wrong to hate everybody. In fact, there are certain people who I care about.
Hi I am Thomas.
Nice article, I agree with this completely.
I remember when I first got my N95 Classic, it was expensive, and the people who did have one appreciated what it was, and everything it could do.