What Should Smartphones Do For You?

[Jason Dunn]

We've got over 1500 registered users, but not very many comments - it seems that most of you are lurkers. ;-) So here's a question that everyone should be able to answer: what kind of benefits do you want to receive from using your Smartphone? What should it be able to do for you? If you're a current Smartphone owner, in what ways does it not meet your needs - how can it be improved?

Everyone should have an opinion on this, so start posting. ;-)

[James Sonne]

http://www.pdai.org/james/smilies/Lurking.gif

[dh]

For me it's easy. I don't want to switch carriers, so I want Smartphone to work with Sprint. Surely it's not too much to ask?

My main reason for wanting one would be to sync with outlook for PIM and mail functions. Currently I use my VM4500 phone and Dell X5 all the time so replacing them with one device would be nice. Ideally of course, there would be a Smartphone version of Pocket Informant as well.

A Treo 600 with better screen and WM OS (as discussed in the PPCT thread) would be just the job as well.

It's a shame that Sprints only serious offering at the moment is that crappy G1000 thing.

[mar2k]

I would love a Smartphone, but the ones available in North America are not worth buying. Old 2002 OS, no Bluetooth, no camera. i600 is too expensive at $499. MPx200 is out for me because there is no GSM 850 band which is prominent in my area.

In short, the Smartphone market has a long ways to go before I will own one and post regularly. I think there a lot of people in the "wait and see" mode. Once these shortcomings can be addressed - availability, choice, price, features, coverage with more devices on the market I think comments and activity will pick up tenfold. Its difficult to make intelligent comments having never used a Smartphone before, just reading about them.

[JonnoB]

With the upcoming release of the MPx, I am re-thinking my Pocket PC + SmartPhone combo and may settle (for a while) on a more data-centric phone like the MPx + BT earbuds.

[encece]

I loooooove Smartphones. I have an MPx200 with great reception under AT&T (I hate you TMobile!...except for your nice unlimited data rates!) and I have an e200 that I hope one day to get SIMUnlocked. (The seller kinda duped me....not really).

You're never limited to the phone offerings of the US. Except if youre a CDMA user. But if you're a GSM User....the European world of Smartphones is just an ebay click or two away. You can get a Mitac Mio 8390 (Top of the line except for Bluetooth for cheaper than you would pay here in the US for an i600 under Verizon. And it's 2003. And it has a camera. (No BT yet).

What would make my smartphone better?
MORE APPS!!!!
PocketStreets. PocketMoney. MSReader.

All the PPC apps that I have used in the past. I miss them dearly on the Smartphone and dont see any reason why they cant be there one day.

They're slowly getting there. I'll be happier when my e200 is working, though with it's camera, Bluetooth and 2003 OS.

Other than that...I'll never go back to a regular phone again!

As a side note...I'd also like to see more location based services. Where are my kids. Where are my friends. Where am I compared to where I am going. GPS is the wave of the future with phones....I just want to get there faster!

[Jason Dunn]

Great responses guys, keep them coming!

[greenmozart]

OK, I'll give it a go...

I have an i600 and love having my contacts synced. This is almost worth the price of admission alone for me. Voice Dial is another huge time-saver for me. I still haven't set up access to my corp e-mail yet (waiting to do my EX 2003 upgrade) but that will be one of my main uses of the phone, as well.

As for what I'd like for improvements, here goes:
1. better placement of the side buttons so I don't accidentally push them every time I use the phone (or maybe I need to reshape my fingers)
2. put back the ability to configure separate ringers for each contact, or give me a larger external screen that can display the photo or contact name with caller ID
3. put the speaker on the FRONT of the phone
4. SYNC NOTES!
5. give me better (read: FUNCTIONAL) task management that actually shows the full task
6. BLUETOOTH!!
7. BLUETOOTH with USEFUL PROFILES!!

Now instead of just rehashing all the usual complaints about this phone, here are some "creative" ideas:
1. I like the idea of location-based services that the user can choose to enable in a push and/or pull configuration... so long as the user has control of this.
1a. one of these would be a "Tourist" mode that would notify you of local specials in nearby restaurants and tourist spots, including walking/driving directions originating from your current location. That way you could get all the "flavor" of a locality without having to go searching the web before your trip and hoping to find that little-known gem in the vast reaches of cyberspace. The city itself would be talking to you while you were walking (or riding, cabbing, skiing) its streets. Obviously the amount of notifications in a city like NY would be staggering, so you'd have to be able to narrow down the list of notifications to only those that interest you (through categories of some sort I imagine).
2. I think I saw this app somewhere so this probably isn't new, but I want my call history to sync with the Outlook Journal and be linked to each contact that is in my Contact folder.
3. sync with public folders
4. a powered car mount that I could just drop the phone into and have it charge and route all audio through my stereo system, turning down the music automatically and activating the speakerphone when I receive a call and resuming music after the call disconnects (more a call to the accessory OEMs than the phone makers)
5. device-to-device sync for those of us that have a SmartPhone and PPC or PPCPE


That's all I have right now. Not very original, but there you go...

[ShivShanks]

how can it be improved?


Biggest mistake with WM Smartphones IMO is the removal of the touch screen. It would have been entirely okay to make it optional so that some mfrs can leave it out, but to totally remove it? Thats a cardinal sin. There are many kinds of applications that benefit a lot with a touchscreen. Even some normal scenarios like browsing the web can benefit. For example you have a page with a large number of links in it (esp. true for non mobile optimised sites) then its a pain to keep hitting the down key to reach the link you want. With a touch screen you can hit the link you want immediately. Yes yes it might necessitate a stylus but you don't have to use it if not required.
Without a touchscreen the WM Smartphone is crippled as a platform for high end devices. See how Motorola had to use the PPC Phone edition for the MPx. Now the problem is that if you need good keypad support you have to go with WM Smartphone and if you need touchscreen support you need to go with PPC Phone edition. And again application development is fragmented due to this. There is no middle ground so to speak of. Instead of beefing up WM PPC with good keypad and phone support they went ahead and did a new OS but they unnecessarily crippled it by removing the touchscreen (What were they thinking? Why not keep it optional with a strict requirement to support the keypad?) This is one area where Palm got it right and when they add better support for phones in the base OS it could have a distinct advantage over WM due to the common platform thing.
All that and lacklustre device options in the CDMA world. CDMA is the way to the future and there is pathetic little WM Smartphone options for it.

[Santa Fe]

http://www.smartphonethoughts.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=4728&highlight=

[Don Sorcinelli]

I still believe that access to information when I am "sans computing device" (notebook, Tablet PC, Pocket PC) is still what I desire most. For the most part, this is what the Windows-Powered Smartphone does. I have access to my PIM data (I wirelessly synchronize to Exchange Server with ActiveSync) and browser access. My usage pattern also seems to fall in line with the design goal behind the Smartphone - "a phone first...".

That being said, the things that (at this moment in time) curb my Smartphone use are (I own a Mitac Mio 8380 with Smartphone 2002) -

* Smartphone 2002 OS.
* No Bluetooth.
* Limited battery life.

Of course, these should (keeping my fingers crossed) all be corrected in H2 2004. I'm not sure that I will jump on the MPx bandwagon. I actually think the MPx100 may fit my usage patterns better. I eagerly await the specs on real battery life.

DonS

[mashtim]

My only SmartPhone criteria so far are pretty simple:

1) Full PIM functionality ( not just lots of phone #s and emails addys, but physical addresses for home and work as well )

2) BLUETOOTH (with usable profiles. i.e. the ability to link to my GPS and headset at the same time )

3) More Bluetooth ( i.e. modem profiles for when I have to bring my PPC/laptop along with me)

4) Lots of screen real estate (something about the size of the P900 would suffice, I'd imagine)

5) Speed. The less time I have to speand waiting for screens to load, the better.

6) Quad-band radio stacks. I don't travel internationally all that much any more, but it would be nice to just swap my SIM card when I get off the plane in Antwerp, Tel Aviv, Hong Kong, etc.

7) Wi-Fi. I'm not so sure if I really NEED this, but seeing as I'm on AT&T and am not going to pay $80/month for unlimited data, it gets expensive using GPRS all the time.

8 ) NO CAMERA. I'm sure I'm in the minority on this, overall, but I'd rather they make the phone a bit smaller/sleeker than take up space putting in a low-res camera that I'll never really use anyway (and that could conceivably be banned from a number of places sooner than later)

9) An @ssload of internal memory. I want to use my SD cards for music and games, not programs.



OMIGOD.... I'm no longer a lurker! :lol:
I'm sure I'll edit this a few times as more things pop into this overworked Friday-frazzled brain of mine, but that's a start!

[James Sonne]

I really want a Smartphone to take the place that my old PocketPC had, to keep contact information for me readily available and to keep me entertained when I have nothing better to do. I require bluetooth, and I'm not willing to spend $500 on a phone that has yet to be proven, so I'm waiting as well. The E200 and the MPx220 seem to be the perfect phones for me, though. I just hope that the SmartPhone OS is user friendly. I'd hate to think Microsoft based it on the PocketPC OS and just tried to wing the input controls. But I'd have to use a SmartPhone in hand before I could come up with any bias for or against the OS. Which is also a problem, no cellphone centers have smartphones in stock and on display anywhere around me.

I'd also love it if they actually expanded the GSM network so that I could get signal places other than major interstates. Until cellphones become more standardized this will always be a problem.

Cellphone service companies are the devil, basically. I remember the old days of simple plans and service everywhere. Now it's 8 different pamphlets and dodgy service areas which are determined by your choice of plan based on indecipherable comparison tables and confusing 'dumbed-down for the masses' lingo.

[TANKERx]

I recently discovered this really cool thing that I can do with my MPx200. What I did was press some of the keys on the keypad so that a really long number came up on the screen and then I pressed the green button and the next thing I knew, my smartphone was talking to me and asking me what I wanted.

Heck, it even knew what time it was because it said "Do you know what time it is? What are you doing calling me at three in the morning!?". It then started to say lots of rude words like Moron (which is Welsh for Carrots). Maybe Microsoft could work on that aspect of its interface?

;-)


Now that's a thought; a Smartphone with a five second delay that bleeps out obscenities!

[bibap]

With the arrival of MobiPocket 4.8 I now carry my i600 on weekends and leave the PPC at home. I just wish it had Bluetooth.

[encece]

I hate to plug a competing sites but we're all enthusiasts here. Modaco has a program called SmartJournal written by Paul Obrien, in the ModacoSoftware section of the site that syncs the Call history with Outlook Journal. I'll omit the link as not to raise any issues. Easy to find though. :D

[ombu]

Simple, full PIM and modem for my PPC and lap-top.

Regards.

[Qman]

For me I would have to say a touch screen at the moment would make it better for me! It all about input, baby! :wink:

[deavod]

OK, I'll give it a go...
...
As for what I'd like for improvements, here goes:
1. better placement of the side buttons so I don't accidentally push them every time I use the phone (or maybe I need to reshape my fingers)
2. put back the ability to configure separate ringers for each contact, or give me a larger external screen that can display the photo or contact name with caller ID
3. put the speaker on the FRONT of the phone
4. SYNC NOTES!
5. give me better (read: FUNCTIONAL) task management that actually shows the full task
6. BLUETOOTH!!
7. BLUETOOTH with USEFUL PROFILES!!
...

Wow, what a great post! I hope MS takes a look at that wish list. In fact, why don't you go to:

http://register.microsoft.com/mswish/suggestion.asp

and tell Microsoft!!

Now to be honest the first 3 items are your hardware problems and MS can't help with that. (I have the MPx200 and I have the same 'wishes" as you do.)

Your gripe about the calendar / tasks is very good. I just found this:

http://www.developerone.com/powercalendar/index.htm

which answeres all of my issues. Works great. I've passed that link to everyone at work and they use the software too.

.D.

[mcsouth]

I was pretty excited when the MS Smartphones finally started hitting the street, and last July, I bit the bullet, and bought an SPV from a seller in London through eBay. The phone I got was near new, and unlocked, so moments after I received it, I had my T-mobile SIM card installed, and was enjoying my new phone.

I managed to get the hand of the interface fairly quickly, and found the navigation to be not too bad. I quickly loaded up with some of my favorite apps, like eWallet and ListPro, among others, and even made my own wallpaper for the Today screen. I found some games on various sites, and even got my fav, Snails, installed.

But there were problems.....app installation didn't seem to be as smooth as on the PPC - I seem to remember that some apps wouldn't run from the card, and had to be installed in the precious little internal RAM, and further, most apps couldn't access files stored on the card. The final straw for me was the lack of Tasks support, though. I did download and try out Power Tasks, but ran into some critical syncing issues - tasks created on my phone wouldn't sync to the desktop, and task status wouldn't update consistently. I worked with the developer on this for a week or two (great guy, very helpful), but ultimately, I lost patience, and my SPV ended up on eBay about a month and a half after I first got it (broke even on it, even with the shipping charge from London!).

There is part of me that would love to have a smartphone - it worked for me for several reasons. But in the end, there were some critical gaps in function, I experienced more crashes and lock-ups than my PPC in the same time period, and I just couldn't justify the expense as a result. I am still "lurking" though, and am waiting to see if MS's Smartphone can fill those gaps for me - if so, then I will definitely be back. At this point, though, the new Motorola Mpx or iPaq 6000 PPCPE units are more likely going to be my next unit, since they offer more of the functionality that I want from my handheld device.

[encece]

You can add custom ringtones on the MPx200 cant you? Edit a contact and scroll down the list. Must be an implementation the carrier chooses to include or not.

[undeadkid]

I do love my i600. Coming from an i700 I sure do miss the touch screen and the stylus.

If we can get the touch screen back, I would be so happy.

[encece]

I think what alot of people want (myself included) is a smartphone sized pocketpc. Maybe a Treo600 type device with a PPC OS.

[anodyne88]

I want it not to break (like the digitizer screen in my sx56).

I want it to be small.

I want it to access all of my contact info from outlook.

I want it to read email and send simple replies.

I want it to check the weather via the web, check some sports scores, stock quotes, my bank balance, and other basic things when I'm on the road.

I dont need it to use excel or word files - I never use this in ppcs, even though I thought I would - the screen is just too small on a ppc to be useful...

I just bought the mpx 200 to try and see if it could replace my sx56, and I think it can. Ive always been a big pocketpc guy, but after getting the sx56 I told myself I'd never go back to a pda without a phone, since the phone portion is such a critical piece of functionality in a mobile communications device (which is what a pda really is to me).

Now I dont think I'll go back to a pdaphone, since they are bigger, easier to break physically and fussier from a software standpoint, but really dont offer much more core functionality than a smartphone does.

[Mike Temporale]

9) An @ssload of internal memory. I want to use my SD cards for music and games, not programs.

I agree. It would be nice to have 128 internal. I like to keep music and pictures on my SD cards. And I like to move them between my devices.

I think most of my other wants can really be addressed by 3rd party software. I think we need more developers working to bring us some cool applications for the Smartphone. There are some things I would like to see Microsft address, like Bluetooth profiles and the ablility to add my own custom profiles, but for the most part I think there is a lot of room for 3rd party apps. Even if they are small simple tweaker apps.

[Gorskar]

I want a phone that looks good, has a fast processor, lots of memory, Sp2003 opertaing system 8 WAY joystick, takes SD cards, bluetooth, camera.

Not too much to ask?

/me goes back to lurking.... 8)

[TopDog]

I use mine mainly for calendar, Codewallet, email and Mp3 and as a infrared GPRS modem with my laptop.

What I would want to see besides a more stable/faster OS and better batterylife, is a better Calendar (look at Power Calendar, this funtionality should have been buildt in.). I would also like to have FM radio buildt in.

Speaking of hardware, a thumb keyboard like the ones from Compaq would be really cool when I'm on a long trip! Just plug it over the usual keys :idea:

[Santa Fe]

And since we get almost 350 days of sunshine a year and I am outside most of them I'd like a screen that I can see outside Mr. Smartphone maker.

[dgennetten]

I would like to, at any time and place from my phone, specify that whenever my handset is located 'here' ('here' being determined by location-based services), that it automatically switch to meeting or silent profile & automatically switch back upon leaving 'here'. The radius of 'here' would ideally have a useful default but be configurable.

Doug

[Joff]

My old SPV is no subsitute to my PPC.
I'd love to have a smartphone that can do all my PPC can. The new MPx looks the business :clap:

The ingredients that win me over are:
plenty of RAM
sharp response (my SPV seems to hesitate on many occasions)
BT
a screen large enough (I understand we must compromise here)
oh, I'd love to have WiFi as well

Oh well, sounds like I am more of a PPC Phone Edition man than a SP man... :roll:

[Jason Dunn]

Off-topic, but important...

I hate to plug a competing sites but we're all enthusiasts here. Modaco has a program called SmartJournal written by Paul Obrien, in the ModacoSoftware section of the site that syncs the Call history with Outlook Journal. I'll omit the link as not to raise any issues. Easy to find though. :D

I have absolutely no problem with you posting a link to this - sounds useful! The only restrictions on URL dropping is that we ask people who run other Web sites to use our announcements forum when they want to promote their site rather than promoting their sites in our general forums. The line between a good-natured promotion and spamming is sometimes a blurry one, so we've found our system to work pretty well. You're an end-user, so there's no conflict of interest here - give us the URL! :-)

[saja2003]

I own an MPX200 and I truly miss my PPC phone edition. The SP platform limits the functionality I've become accustomed to with the PPC. Touchscreen can be invaluable in many applications. Which means a PPC SP like the upcoming MPX220 or is it MPX300??? might the device of choice. I miss Fonix Voice alert, which used to TELL ME to call or perform a calendar event at the specified time. Instead of just a beep etc. Many programs have not, and cannot be ported over to this platform. So limited number of programs is my number one gripe. I miss pocket money, streets, word, excel...it's all on the PPC.

Lurk status over :twisted: