The Killer Cellphone

As a geek, I love technology and gadgets, but there is no gadget that I share as much of a love-hate relationship with as the mobile phone.

Yes the mobile phone is very handy and useful. It can be used as a camera, as a handy calendar, a replacement for the radio And so on, saying nothing about its usage for voice communication. I’m always amused to see old TV shows like “The Jetsons” where they tried to show the futuristic world as best as they could imagine, and totally missed the humble cellphone. Who would have thought, that sms would be such a ubiquitous mode of communication, and used everywhere. Some people even go to great lengths, and call the cell phone, the end of all other gadgets, and write articles like this: Five Gadgets That Were Killed by the Cellphone

I am more skeptical about this. Yes it very useful to have everything in one device –You don’t have to carry many different appliances, each with their own charger and wires-, but then you end up with a device, that is a jack-of-all-trades, master of none. Give me a scientific or accounting calculator over the Cellphone for calculations anyday. Any two-in-one gives better radio reception than a Cellphone ever can. It can catch more bands, and from a wider bandwidth as well. As for playing mp3s, very few devices come close to the user friendliness of an Ipod. And don’t get me started about the camera on a Cellphone.

What scares me more as a geek is that you do not have redundancy, or multiple points of failure. If by mistake you lose your cell phone, either by misplacing it, or due to a technical failure, you lose everything. You lose your music, your appointments, your messages and your contacts. Of course you could religiously back it up every night, but truthfully who amongst us does that?

Another reason mobiles irritate me, is that they depend on electricity for everything. If you are out of battery juice, you are out of luck. You can’t even get out the number of person you want to call and warn that you won’t be able to call. Cell phones, should fail gracefully, with different levels of non-functionality as the battery power goes down, and not suddenly become an expensive brick, as they do currently.

They irritate me for a different reason too, but that one is social, not technical, and I should write about that soon. Till then enjoy this joke: Dave's New Cell Phone


This post is a part of the November madness programme that I am following, where I attempt to post one entry on this blog, everyday for the last 3 weeks of November.