Somewhere Along the Way, Mobile Phones Became Real Computers...

[Jason Dunn]

And when that happened, they started acting like computers: they crashed. 8O Walk with me down this path...Until the year 2000 (give or take a year), mobile phones were just that: phones. Sure, they might have had a game or two, and a few tried to include calendar functionality, but the vast majority of people used them as phones, nothing more. I've had various cell phones for over a decade now, and I don't remember any of my early cell phones crashing or locking up. They just worked, but they only did one thing: phone calls.Sometime around the Sony-Ericsson T68 generation, phones became more than just voice terminals: Bluetooth, GPRS, ringtones, screen graphics, semi-real PIM functionality. The T68i was the first phone I owned that crashed on me - sometimes Bluetooth just wouldn't work. When I beamed a contact from my Pocket PC to the phone, it would lock up the phone, forcing me to remove the battery. It's just like a real computer! :lol:When I was down at the Handango Partner Summit in late July, they had a demo table with all of the latest mobile devices from the Windows, Symbian, and Palm platforms. All the new Nokia phones, new Sony Ericsson phones, etc. Microsoft had an Tanager Smartphone and a Pocket PC Phone Edition on display as well. I was trying to figure out the keyboard on a Nokia phone, when the person near me was playing a game on the new Nokia N*GAGE. Then a funny thing happened - the phone crashed, and it actually blue screened. I kid you not! 8O The phone crashed and rebooted, and the person using it walked away in disgust.What's the moral of this story? As phones become increasingly advanced, they're prone to the same issues that affect our desktop computers and PDAs. Nokia and the others in the Symbian camp might have a lot of marketing muscle, but they're also new at the operating system game. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a lot to learn about the consumer mobile device market - but they excel in building operating systems. It's an interesting battle being fought in the market, and ultimately I believe it will breed strong competition and a desire from all parties to improve rapidly.

[djdj]

Funny you should mention the T68... I have a T68i, and it is the phone phone I have ever owned that I have to reboot every couple days to get it to behave after a lockup or just strange behavior. Very frustrating.

[TANKERx]

Nokia and the others in the Symbian camp might have a lot of marketing muscle, but they're also new at the operating system game. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a lot to learn about the consumer mobile device market - but they excel in building operating systems.

I disagree with that paragraph because I think you're failing to take it a step deeper and not considering some important factors.

I think that Microsoft is excellent at marketing, it's just that for some reason which I cannot understand, they choose not to market their smartphone very well. It's not a case of can't..... it's won't. I mean, where are all the TV adverts and full page advertisments that were out for WindowsXP? Microsoft could do it if they wanted. Maybe they just know that the Smartphone isn't ready for normal people yet?

As for Symbian's OS expertise, are you saying that because you saw a device crash (a device that hasn't reached the market yet because it's still being worked on), it's proof that the whole platform is unstable and proof of a lack of expertise and stability? Would you like to make a similar judgement based on how often a Microsoft phone crashes?

And my SPV crashes far more regularly than any Symbian device I've ever owned, so while WindowsXP might be an excellent OS, Smartphone 2002 isn't yet.

Anyway, just my opinion. I'll no doubt learn very soon how wrong I am ;-)

[ARW]

I have no experience with either Symbian or Microsoft's Smartphone platform, but I do know that all three of the Motorola phones I've owned have infrequently crashed and reset themselves and on occasion lost some of their settings. I would admit that it isn't often, maybe every six months or so, but the phones aren't capable of much beyond voice.

Hopefully I'll find out if I can tolerate a Smartphone in the next couple of months.

[MichaelC]

I've noticed my T68i reboot during a GPRS connection, suddenly I loose my connection on my iPaq and I'll see the phone just booting up and displaying the "Welcome to T-Mobile" message. I'd say my phone crashes more often than all my PCs (home and office) and iPaq combined now.

[mcsouth]

I have not yet had my SPV crash on me, although I expect it is just a matter of time - it has locked up once, requiring me to power it off and then power on again. As far as that goes, it is certainly no worse than my PPC, which needs a soft reset every week or so, and sometimes spontaneously does it itself! :roll:

My first impression of my SPV, though, was the boot time - it seems to take forever to boot up! I was in the habit of powering off my cell while in the office, since I was next to my deskphone, and only powering it up when leaving the office for lunch, etc, but so far, I've been leaving my SPV on constantly - I have been pretty much charging it every night anyways, and that saves me the extended boot time when I leave the office. Yeah, my little Nokia took time to power up too, but the SPV just seems to take forever - is it maybe based on the Win98SE kernel? ;)

[Mike Temporale]

I think that Microsoft is excellent at marketing, it's just that for some reason which I cannot understand, they choose not to market their smartphone very well. It's not a case of can't..... it's won't. I mean, where are all the TV adverts and full page advertisments that were out for WindowsXP? Microsoft could do it if they wanted. Maybe they just know that the Smartphone isn't ready for normal people yet?


I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The current SmartPhone platform is aimed more at the corporate market than the consumer market. How many ads do you see for BizTalk Server? Backoffice Server? eCommerce Server? These are all successful Microsoft products, but they are not marketed to you and me. They're aimed at the corporate market.

Until the Microsoft Smartphone is a little more "refined" and gains some market share, these devices will be marketed to large corporations and the enthusiast. So TV and full page ads are not what is needed.

Back on topic...

My Sony Ericcson T200 had a huge hissy fit earlier this week. And that's a basic phone, nothing special. I think the increase in mobile phone crashes is caused by the decrease in time to market. Budgets are tight, and companies are rushing to get products out the door. This is often reflected in the quality control and testing.

[Corn Bread]

What's the moral of this story? As phones become increasingly advanced, they're prone to the same issues that affect our desktop computers and PDAs. Nokia and the others in the Symbian camp might have a lot of marketing muscle, but they're also new at the operating system game. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a lot to learn about the consumer mobile device market - but they excel in building operating systems.

I can't help but laugh when I read this. :lol: Jason, I love your site Pocket PC Thoughts and I usually agree with your opinions, but I think you're wrong about this one.

First, Symbian is way ahead of Microsoft when it comes to Phone operating systems. And I'm sure you'll even admit that Microsoft's current build of the SmartPhone OS is less than stable (personally, I think it's junk. I usually love MS stuff but the Smartphone OS? bah, give me an Ericsson or Nokia phone anyday)

Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung and Motorola has been in the Cellular Phone market for years now and they have a better understanding on how to make a "good" phone and know which OS is the best to use. Microsoft on the other hand is the newbie here and still has a lot to learn in terms of Phone OS', the SmartPhone 2K2 is a step in the right direction for them, but at it's current form, it's junk. Unless MS can improve the OS and Major Phone manufacturers like Nokia, Samsung and Ericsson adopts the Smartphone OS, I don't see Microsoft winning this market anytime soon. Samsung, the 2nd bestselling phone brand cancelled their plans to make a phone based on MS' Smartphone OS, this fact give Sendo's choice of the Symbian OS over the Smartphone OS more sense.

Oh, BTW, the T68 wasn't the first phone to be more than just voice terminals,I think that honor goes to the Ericsson R520 since it has everthing the T68 has except for the colored screen. Jason, I'll forgive you for this mistake since America and Canada is so slow and outdated when it comes to GSM technology. :lol:

[Corn Bread]

I'll have to disagree with you on this one. The current SmartPhone platform is aimed more at the corporate market than the consumer market. How many ads do you see for BizTalk Server? Backoffice Server? eCommerce Server? These are all successful Microsoft products, but they are not marketed to you and me. They're aimed at the corporate market.


Corporate market? C'mon, the only reason why MS entered the Cellphone OS market is that they see how big the market can be, and the big chunk of the cellphone market is made up of ordinary joes like you and me. Saying that the Smartphone is targeted for the corporate as an excuse for its low volume sales is just that, a poor excuse.

[popabawa]

My SPV has crashed once in 3 months, I'm perfectly OK with that as it's still a pretty new platform.

On the other hand, my old Sony T39 required a reboot every 3-4 days after it locked up. Very frustrating.

On another point...

The problem with the mobile phone market is that it's still led by the handset manufacturers who are just driven to shift new handsets. They then develop new 'features' whether customers want them or not.

The carriers are forced to take (and therefore promote) the new features on these handsets. Problem is, the development cycle of the features is so short, they are often launched when they are poorly supported and poorly implemented. Thus, they are frustrating and difficult to use. People try it once, and then give up. (not to mention that they are really expensive).

For example, even now, GPRS coverage in London is spotty and quite unreliable.

These new features (GPRS, Multimedia messaging, cameras etc.) will only appeal to a small proportion of the moble phone user anyway so they are going after an ever dwindling customer base who 'want' or 'need' to upgrade.

So, the Smartphone platform is niche, very niche. It compliments my iPAQ in a nice way, I can get my email, browse the web, I can see my appointments & reminders when I don't want to carry my iPAQ. Would I want to use it as my sole PDA? No way.

Given what proportion of business users actually use a PDA (I'm guessing at < 5-10%), how many use a phone (I'm guessing > 95%), go figure the market opportunity - ZIP!

[OzBert]

The problem with the mobile phone market is that it's still led by the handset manufacturers (...)

The carriers are forced to take (and therefore promote) the new features on these handsets.

For example, even now, GPRS coverage in London is spotty and quite unreliable.


1) Other than Nokia (too strong a brand muscle) the handset industry is driven by the Operator consortias, not the terminal vendors. "DoCoMo-fication" so to speak.

2) The carriers force the handset manufacturer to implement certain features into phones, otherwise they will not be purchased. E.g. cameras. As a matter of fact, the before mentioned consortias publish phone-book-sized requirement-spec-documents, telling which feature shall/must/must not be in certain class phones.

3) what has spotty GPRS coverage in LON to do with handset manufacturers?

OzBert, currently at "Assembly.org" in Helsinki

[ppcsurfr]

What's the moral of this story? As phones become increasingly advanced, they're prone to the same issues that affect our desktop computers and PDAs. Nokia and the others in the Symbian camp might have a lot of marketing muscle, but they're also new at the operating system game. Microsoft, on the other hand, has a lot to learn about the consumer mobile device market - but they excel in building operating systems. It's an interesting battle being fought in the market, and ultimately I believe it will breed strong competition and a desire from all parties to improve rapidly.

I think it's not really a case of having computer-like functionality that's wrong here... Anything beyond simple is bound to have something go wrong with it.

I remember one of the older Nokias... the 3210 and the 7110, all of which were plagued with firmware deficiencies... they'd hang or not charge the battery at all... all remedied with Firmware updates...

New to the operating system game? probably not... Nokias have always had their communicator series... If there is anyone new here who needs to learn big time, and really listen to MVPs, and Mobile Device/Mobile Phone users, it is Microsoft.

I like the Micrososft Smartphone platform, actually I try to push for it in every conversation... but, it is always hard to push for something when the most basic mobile phone available handles calls far more better than a Microsoft Powered Smartphone... the only saving grace of the Smartphone being it's tight integration with Outlook and the familiarity of the smartphone apps.

Simple is no longer going to cut it... we need functionality and added features...

One thing I know is that Microsoft mobile devices have great potential... probably greater than any other device... but, the phone industry is just not the same as the PDA industry... changes have to be made and soon... Smartphone users now may have been burned with the first release of the OS... if they fall into the same predicament with the second release... then that can spell a long walk home for Microsoft as far as te mobile phone market is concerned.

I have been a GSM power user for years, CSD, SMS, MMS, EMS, STK (SAT), WAP, these are all old... but these added to Voice makes GSM such a powerful combination... The Smartphone has a lot of room to grow into but has very little time to actually prove itself to be a powerful option...

If you want to have a long list of what is lacking in the Smartphone Platform and why heavy GSM users still feel that the Smartphone is... somewhat lacking in the phone category, you can always get in touch with me and I can point out every flaw or shortcoming that plagues the current OS version...

Neil, if ou are reading this and if you may be wondering what these are, feel free to email me.

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo

[Jason Dunn]

I think that Microsoft is excellent at marketing, it's just that for some reason which I cannot understand, they choose not to market their smartphone very well. It's not a case of can't..... it's won't. I mean, where are all the TV adverts and full page advertisments that were out for WindowsXP? Microsoft could do it if they wanted. Maybe they just know that the Smartphone isn't ready for normal people yet?

You're confusing that fact that while Microsoft built the operating system, they do not build the phones, own the networks, or most importantly, own the customers. It's 100% up to the carriers to market and promote their Smartphones in this case. There's a very delicate balance here - many companies out there fear/loathe Microsoft, so they can't start stomping around in the carriers sandbox.

The business of the carriers is so deep and complex it's scary - you have to realize that the Smartphone would have been out in 2001 if the carriers had embraced it immediately and didn't have testing cycles that were 8+ months. Oh, new build of the OS? Start testing all over again!

This is an issue we'll cover more on the front page later on. :D

[Marc Zimmermann]

Nokia, Ericsson, Siemens, Samsung and Motorola has been in the Cellular Phone market for years now and they have a better understanding on how to make a "good" phone and know which OS is the best to use.
That, however, doesn't prevent my Siemens S45 from showing odd behavior at times (such as shortening all address book entries to the first four characters). Even though the phone is way more robust than Smartphone 2002 or Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, these things happen.

[rbrome]

I have to say that in my experience, Nokia's Series 60 actually crashes more. Microsoft's Smartphone OS crashes less, but it's also painfully, inexplicaply slow in many situations, certain features like *GPRS* simply refuse to work for days at a time, and the main-menu interface completely blows compared to Series 60.

But back to crashes... My Nokia 3650 is totally unreliable when doing GPRS over Bluetooth. It's never been able to hold a connection for more than 15 minutes. And when it does re-connect, 1 out of 5 times, it will either cause the phone to auto-reboot, or the phone will freeze completely, requiring me to remove the battery to get it working again.

Plus there are bugs with disappearing text in the included Notes application, and when calling certain 800 numbers, it always gets stuck in "calling" mode, meaning you can't press numbers to activate phone menus... which makes calling certain comnpanies (like Best Buy) totally impossible!

But again, I've had my fair share of problems with both OSes, and so I'd have to agree with Jason that as phones gain serious OSes, they gain serious OS problems.

The thing is, with the stability of the new "X" OSes - Windows XP and Mac OS X - I think people are becoming less tolerant of crashes these days. And as always, people will be even less crash-tolerant with personal devices like phones.

[Corn Bread]

That, however, doesn't prevent my Siemens S45 from showing odd behavior at times (such as shortening all address book entries to the first four characters). Even though the phone is way more robust than Smartphone 2002 or Pocket PC 2002 Phone Edition, these things happen.

Yup, couldn't agree more, but my point is;the MS Smartphone OS is even worse in this area (maybe not as worse as the Nokia 3310 and 8310 as ppcsurfr has said, now those were really worthless phones pre frimware upgrades.)

BTW, I noticed that there are a lot of people from the US that complains that their GPRS connection contsantly drops, I don't think this is the fault of the phone but rather, the fault of the immaturity of the GSM networks in the states. Here in the Philippines, I have gone thru various GPRS phones and 2 different Telcos and I always have experienced very stable and good GPRS coverage/connection.

[mores]

i'd like to add a few words in defence of the t68i.
apart from the fact that it was the smallest and prettiest phone i have ever had, it was also the most stable.
i had a bunch of nokias, and they all started behaving weird after a while. after a few months of use, i couldn't depend on them anymore. i never knew if they were still on when i took them out of my bag, if the important phonecall won't be interrupted somehow, etc.

the only problem i had with the t68i was when i was using a bluetooth headset, and the phone software was not updated to meet he minimum requirements of the headset. i believe this caused some troubles. there was i believe a 1 second time-window, where a call would arrive to the t68i and have to be "forwarded" to the headset. if i pressed the call-accept button on the headset during that one second, chances were good that all hell broke loose. call gone, headset ringing, phone ringing, but no way of turning them off except remove the battery.

the t68i was a good phone that let me SEE my contacts and email and send mms and all. brave new multimedia world !

[popabawa]

3) what has spotty GPRS coverage in LON to do with handset manufacturers?

It doesn't. It has everything to do with launching features that are under-tested and poorly implemented.

My post was based upon my recent experiences in nearly (thank god it didn't happen as it turns out) taking a job with one of the major carriers here in the UK.

They claimed (this was from very senior management but I'm happy to be corrected) that they were 'held to ransom' by the handset manufacturers and forced to take the handsets which were being developed.

This was achieved by the handset manufacturers simply withdrawing handsets which the manufacturer deemed obsolete (i.e. had been available for more that 10 minutes :D).

Of course, it's still beneficial for the carriers to intoduce these new phones but they are forced into the scenario which I originally decribed, i.e. poorly thought through launches of new features.

[ppcsurfr]

Reading this whole thread makes me laugh...

I remember it too well, it was in either PDABuzz, or early on in PPCT, that I was so much into BT and GSM, with even CSD, HSCSD only prior to the launch of GPRS...

People would say that GSM is nothing... GPRS is not as fast as other systems, etc.

It was all because no one really had considerable experience with these technologies...

Take a look at Nokia, Nokia has been making phones for the USA in the USA flavor of CDMA... it is only recently that they have decided to inlclude 1900MHz to the 900MHz/1800MHz GSM phones... We've had loads of Nokias running GSM, just like any European country... but in the Philippines, SMS became a hit... a very big hit that STK or SIM application Tool Kit also known as SAT also became a hit. WAP didn't really come out as it was thought to be... but it is still fully supported. We have what we call SMART Money which ties a Mastercard Electronic account with a subscriber's SIM and if the subscriber opens an account with a partner bank, he can do bank transactions via his GSM phone or SMART Money card. Funds transfer, bills payment, even reloading another phones pre-paid account. It is the first in the world and it is very secure... incidentally the same Telco offers Secure SMS which is 3DES encrypted. It is less likely that we complain about our phones here as they normally work really well given the good support of our telcos here implementing DualBand cellular sites which can easily switch from 1800 to 900 and back as the need arises. Coverage used to be an issue several ears back... now, it is quite rare that there are areas without network coverage. The only probably place where you can't get any signal is inside a cave or in a building's basement parking... but even hotels, malls and public buildings now are being installed with Picocells and the like.

Anyway, as with our experiences here with GSM phones which from the early stages were already more than voice terminals... They have included Data, SMS, STK, WAP, and some proprietary features... we've had experiences of them hanging, crashing, and doing nasty things... All without a user accessible OS.

Phones crashing? Old news... what would be nice is if Microsoft really comes up with one that is crash proof. :-)

I know that is near impossible... not because Microsoft is not capable of coming up with one... it is simply unrealistic at this point. I think no one can.

Mabuhay! ~ Carlo

[alan williams]

Every mobile I've had since my first has had some sort of software/firmware issue at one time or another. They all crash...now they just crash with style. ;)