In the 7 years I've been in the business of selling good old mobile phones, things have changed dramatically. When I first started, mobiles were humble devices that allowed us to call the people in our lives whilst on the move. The biggest high tech demand from a customer used to be for a camera in their phone and even that was a stretch. I remember using a Sony Ericsson K750i and being wowed by the quality of the 2 megapixel camera. It was a piece of technology I thought was years ahead.
Fast forward 7 years. Now, what can we do with a mobile phone? We can take high quality photo and video. We can store thousands of songs. We can find where we are on the planet and have directions given to us. We can search the world wide web and read emails just as we can on our computers. We can also poke, stalk and "officially" be in a relationship through social networking sites- all on the go.
Now that mobiles are relatively cheap, any idiot can use one. I say idiot cos I have to help them everyday. We are constantly told how bad times currently are. Living prices have risen and we have to spend more on gas and electric and all that good stuff. Yet when a new iPhone is released, you see thousands of people queuing for it. Mobile phones have become a part of our lives. We depend on them. We create whole businesses on them. I can have a business customer, all suited and booted coming into my store with his expensive leather briefcase, telling me his phone is faulty and he uses it for business and he is losing money from not being able to use his mobile properly. At the same time, I can have a god awful runt who hasn't bathed in days, wearing a stained track suit and cap with breath that smells like a rotting brewery with a hint of ash, telling me his phone doesn't work and he ALSO uses it for business. Obviously the latter is just another one of those idiots that will use any excuse for a new phone even though the only business use he could get out of his phone would be selling weed now and then. Now although you can differentiate people, they all have the same needs and expectations when it comes to a mobile phone. Mind you, I'm not happy about it. If I could screen my customers before I help them, I would enjoy this industry a whole lot more.
Nowadays, everyone wants more. There were times when people couldn't conceive the notion of using a mobile phone as a organizer and web browsing device. Now? The first question usually asked about a new mobile purchase is "how good is the web? Can I use Facebook on it?"As we start moving away from physical keypad devices, the generation of touchscreen phones has started to dominate the industry and this goes for all phones. Even none-smartphones are touchscreen orientated although they haven't got much shelf life left.
In 5 years time, every mobile will be a smartphone and keypad phones will be a thing of antiquity. Already, we see web browsing on a phone as a standard feature that sits along side calling and texting. Apple, Google, RIM and Microsoft have showed that software is just as important as hardware on a mobile and have advanced the Mobile Phone into markets that we never would have thought possible a few years ago. We have desktop computer levels of speed and processing on everyday devices. We can control our TV's and DVD players with our phones! Who would have thought it?
My only gripe with this evolution is, people. When a new technology is introduced, people are wowed by it. They eventually embrace it and in time, it becomes a norm. The problem with this is when manufacturers release devices that are packed full of features and specs, people label them as boring and nothing special even though most high end devices are similar across most manufacturers. Now I know most people, myself included, want to see more evolutions and more advancements in technology that will better our lives. The people I'm talking about are the whiners. The ones that have no idea about what it entails to have such extraordinary devices that are being released regularly yet they want more. They want more from a device in which they will use only 30% of the features. Because of this, manufacturers are being pushed to outgun each other which, in any other market, would be great for us consumers but in the high tech world we live in, all we get are patent lawsuits that stop devices being sold and stop technological advancement.
We can blame the companies that sue each other all day but the reason for this happening, is our demands. Back in the day, we wanted cameras on our phones but weren't really fussed about it. Now that we have all these amazing devices that better our lives, we want more. We want more from devices we could only dream of a few years ago. The world has changed and all of us and our technology has changed with it. I think it's about time we embrace what we have and appreciate it. Let the tech masters continue to bring us amazing new gadgets without bickering about who's copying who. Well, that really would be a perfect world wouldn't it?
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