Readers' Comments

Reader Comments on Aardvark Daily 13 June 2001
Note: the comments below are the unabridged submissions of readers and do
not necessarily reflect the opinions of the publisher.


From: Peter Milne
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Advanced Cell Phones

I do not know if I am an old fashioned fuddy-duddy, but all
I want out of cell phones is POTS (plain ordinary telephone
service.  I am quite happy with my 4 1/2 yo mini-brick
phone on analogue service.




From: Matt
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Size does matter

I reckon we are going to see a divergence of technology.
We can already see that size (or specifically, the lack of
size) matters.  The coolest cellphones these days are the
smallest ones.  While they are packing an increasing amount
of technology into them, as soon as they try to stick in a
keyboard things will start to come unstuck.  We want our
cellphones small.  And before propoents of voice technology
stick their hands up, chattering away to an inanimate
object just isn't going to work for anything but
dictation.
What I think will be seen though is connectivity between
the cellphone (as the communication port)and PDAs becoming
seamless.  Along the lines of the fabled Bluetooth.
Secure, wireless and automated.
The cellphone is not designed for keyboarding - entering
names to attach to phone numbers is hard enough, text
messages are a slow painful affair - full blown emails and
word processing?  I don't think so.  But as PDAs develop,
this will become their speciality, while phones will just
need to focus on getting the message out to the big wide
world... secret video messages to spies, and all.




From: Jared Yates
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Smaller isnt necessarily better

i have to add my 2c here... personally, I cant stand those
small teeny tiny phones.

Being a fairly sizeable guy with fairly large hands, i find
those ultra small phones difficult to use. The buttons are
too small for my fingers and i find it hard to hold the
phone and dial with one hand as when i bend my thumb over to
push the buttons, its wrapped right over the phone :)

A lot of phone manufacturers, in their haste to make the
screens bigger, are sacrificing the area available for the
keypad.  i'm beginning to get a variant of "sega thumb" (if
you've ever spent 12 hours playing a sega megadrive you'll
understand :) which i have decided to dub "nokia thumb".

To their credit tho, the phone makers seem to be making text
input a lot better with things like predictive text, which
on the whole isnt too bad, but can get annoying when
spelling slang or abbreviations.

but thats just my $0.02..




From: Camryn Brown
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Cellphone / PDA

If I was writing the science fiction, I'd go for the best
of everything... your cellphone / PDA / laptop system has
two or three components:

(1) The main unit - looks like a laptop (nice and light but
big enough to have a decent screen and a keyboard you can
use). This can be carried in your briefcase (you may not be
carrying papers, but you'll always need to carry your lunch
etc). The youth version could strap to your back.

(2) The wireless headset with voicedial. All the guts are
in the laptop unit (circuitry, aerial etc). Uses bluetooth
or something to communicate with the laptop unit. Bonus:
less microwaves near the head or torso as the laptop
handles the transmission to the cellsite.

(3) For the PDA fans: docks in the laptop unit and includes
the cellphone components. So, you can ditch the laptop unit
if you need to be especially mobile for some reason
(although, why not carry the laptop and lose the equvilant
weight from the waistline?).

As for the WAP or 3G phone? No thanks... not ergonomic, as
you say. I already have SMS-thumb, and don't need WAP-eye
too.




From: Tasha
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: PDAs are the way to go..

I think that phone manufacturers should perhaps aim their
wireless data products at the PDA market as connection
devices etc.  From the phones I've seen and the one that I
was able to have a good trial of, I have yet to find any
features that would induce me to abandon my PDA in favour of
a device where it can take longer to get the next screen of
text than it is to read what is on the screen.

As for keying in text to a phone, that can get pretty tired
very quickly, whereas with a palm pda for example, you can
get a full size keyboard that folds down to the size of the
pda for travel.




From: Dominic
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Is Dick Tracy Dead?

Do people remember plastic colour screens?

There was one on TV in Feb 1998? A major Japanese company
has made one, including having the following
characteristics: stiff, touch sensitive, SVGA resolution,
and requiring no backlight.

These have been made for various reasons, one of which is
get round the size problem: building a small mobile, whilst
somehow managing to provide a reasonably sized screen.

The plastic screens I have read about on the Web vary in
size: from postage stamp to postcard. A prototype I've seen
is that of a fountain pen shaped device, a 1mm thick colour
screen being rolled out from inside the pen.

I think that the type of device truly desired in possible;
we are just waiting for the marketers to finalise the
designs (and possible wait for the technology to become
available).

The prototype I describe above, I saw in a video that was
shown in Earl's Court, London, 1995.

Some markets are ready for these things. The new mobile
technology, 3G, is in mind with these types of products.




From: Baz
For : The Editor (for publication)
Subj: Agree on divergence

By all means the manufacturers should look at more wireless
connectivity in the PDA market which would suit people who
use IT a lot at work and home, and perhaps the
telecommunications companies should be figuring a different
way of charging this rather than by the minute.

 I would suspect that most CellPhone users merely want a
small lightweight unit that fits easily in a pocket without
dragging down the line of your clothing with its weight.

The unfortunate thing here is that this decision is going
to be made by the first group who use all the connectivity
features and the general consumer is going to get a phone
with serious overkill in it.
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