What would you LIKE cell phones to be? What changes?

[Buckrub]

Seems that some of this is easy, and some ain't.

1) Universal charger. Seems that we're there already, except for the Evil Empire iPhone. Not sure why they have to be so different.

2) Charge ala carte, and stop all the bundling. Bundling makes them rich. Pay for what you use. Or at least make MANY smaller bundles.

3) All I hear is that they are expanding their network. But I travel the USA extensively, and I am flabbergasted by the dead spots. Put some towers up, for goodness sakes. Spend some of that money. Fire some managers if necessary.

4) As painful as it'd be for all of us at first, they need to divorce their networks from the handsets/devices. This waiting 2 years for the next one, and all that, is silly. A man should be able to buy what he wants. Yes, I know that I can do that NOW, at full price........but I'd rather the network costs be cut in half, or MORE, and not subsidize handset costs.

5) Stop telling me that EvDO and HSPA+ is 4G. They ain't.

6) I'd say "Get some better customer service", but they won't, so no sense asking. No one but Cabela's has CS worth a crap anymore.

What y'all got that you'd like to see?

[BarryBobPosthole]

I want true convergence. I don't want a laptop and a phone and a landline and cable tv and all that. I want one device that acts as CPU for any of the above applications. A device I can plug into a laptop type terminal and turn it into a PC but when I unplug it, the memory and the functionality and the data goes with me until I walk into another room and either dock it into another dumb terminal of some kind or dock it into my car to use it as a gps, music player, weather radar, telephone, video player/recorder, whatever. Just make the docks agnostic and ubiquitous. Put all the brains into the network, not the devices.

that's all I want. Can I have that by fourth quarter?

BKB

[Buckrub]

sure.

4Q20XX

It's in the cloud man.

Oh, and you can't have that UNTIL iPhoneys make their plug universal!!

But you contradicted yourself, if I read right. You want the memory/functionality/data to go with you when unplugged, but THEN you said you wanted the brains to NOT be in the devices.

Are you in management, by chance?

[Thumper]

I will say I have morphed a bit over the last few years. My main bitch USED TO BE that I simply wanted a phone that makes/receives phone calls. Nothing more ... like a portable house phone that I can travel with. BUT ... I have to say, I've gotten kind of hooked on phone capability, as well as texting. One thing I've REALLY grown to like is the fact I ALWAYS have a camera with me. It's not at home ... or in the glovebox ... it's ALWAYS where I am. I no longer have any use for a wrist watch ... a watch these days is nothing more than a piece of jewelry. I no longer have a need for an alarm clock taking up space on my bedside table and I don't have to remember to pack a "travel clock" when I travel. I schedule reminders for various things ... Dr. Appointments, pills to take, meetings or lunch dates, etc. I use the GPS when I'm with someone who doesn't have one in their car. I use the internet to find places I'd like to visit while traveling or simply to do whatever I'd normally do on the I-net when I don't have a computer with me. I LOVE the app. "Gas Buddy" when I'm traveling. I REALLY like the ability to research prices when I'm looking at something at an estate sale for example. The uses for the I-net are endless and too long to list here. I enjoy receiving music (radio stations) that I can't get locally. (Blues stations are rare as hen's teeth, but I always have them available on my phone) I even have a "flashlight" app. downloaded and use it often. Heck, I use it for TONS of stuff and have probably left a lot out here. One thing I'm not into is playing games on my phone ... but I know a lot of people are.

What ELSE would I want? Heck, I have no clue. I have no imagination.

Yes, the different charger plugs (and their ridiculous cost) has always been a pet peeve of mine.

[Buckrub]

Good Grief. I've morphed into Jim.

[BarryBobPosthole]

Pumprub.

Scary thought.

BKB

[Thumper]

The REALLY scary thought would be you morphing into another Bucky. Would you then be Postrub or Buckhole?

[LJ3]

The more moblie computing power you can put in my hand, the happier I am. I think they should all take the next year off and do NOTHING but advance battery technology to support the devices. That's the chokepoint these days. Apps apps apps is all you hear about but most of the most valuable apps chew the battery way faster than they should.

[Buckrub]

Here here! Genius.

And make the screen big enough so I can see it. And the speakers worth a crap. I can't WAIT for the Note III..........

[Chicken Dinner]

Y'all lose me in the bigger screen. I like to carry it in my front picket and anything bigger than 4" or so starts to be inpactical.

[quercus alba]

illegal in restaurants, and other public places. I don't want to listen to your one sided conversation while I'm munching down on a Big Mac

[Buckrub]

I don't use my phone in restaurants. And the bigger the screen the better. It fits just fine in every pocket I have. Wife has a Note II and it's the Cat's Meow. Plus a stylus. Small sucks.

But that's not what this was about. It was about what you'd suggest as changes that would benefit mankind, and maybe even Len.

[Niner]

I am afraid I am going to have to see a few more power point slides before I can commit to any proposed futuristic changes.


I don't know about the other Andriod devices, but the Motorola Droid phone launches apps constantly and randomly all the frikin' time. EVEN with the app killer app installed and running....that is what sucks the battery down on those, otherwise pretty good, units. ONE of the things I LOVE about the iPhone is that it does not launch apps by itself, and when you shut down an app...it STAYS shut down.

Chargers ARE pretty much universal now. You have a cord with a whatever connector on one end, and a USB connector on the other. The chargers either plug into a 110VAC wall socket or a 12VDC cigarette lighter, and have a USB connector on them to accept said cable.

[Gunther]

Y'all lose me in the bigger screen. I like to carry it in my front picket and anything bigger than 4" or so starts to be inpactical.

No kidding, I have way too much in my front pocket area already.

[Buckrub]

iPhoneys use USB connector? Since when? I thought it was a proprietary 30-pin connector????

Oh, and Droid's are sucky Androids. Samsung rules.

[Niner]

I have no knowledge of prior models, but my iPhone5 has a little apple only connector on the phone. One end of the charge/data cable plugs into the phone...and the other end is USB.

Now my iPod has that goofy big connector. It's cable has the goofy one on one end and USB on the other too.

[Niner]

I picked up these colorful car chargers on clearance at WalMart for less than $2 each and the iPod cable was less than $4.

image.jpg
Sure. They look a little "festive", but they work!

[BarryBobPosthole]

I think every cell phone should have a built in tricorder.

That'd be handy.
BKB

[Buckrub]

Wow.
I always wanted a Tricorder. Wow.

Still do, actually.

[BarryBobPosthole]

They're handy as heck. Especially when there's klingons about.

BKB

[Thumper]

I'd rather have a built-in transporter. "Beam me up Scotty!"

[Buckrub]

You idiot. Transponders are On Board Ship only. they aren't handheld.

Tricorders are.

Geez.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I think the transporters located them though by their communicator badge because they were always touching it before they transported. I assume that was to activate something. What I never understood was, if you had a communicator badge you could just touch and say 'Beam me up, Scotty', then why the hell would you ever need one of those flip phone communicators like they used sometimes? I always thought that was a continuity issue on the series.

BKB

[Buckrub]

Good grief. I have to explain EVERYTHING to Democrats.

Communicator Badge is like a signal beacon. HERE I am, these are the coordinates, so beam me up from HERE. Touching it signals the SHIP to initiate the beamup process.

Flip Phone communicators were simple radios to talk through.

Geez. Do y'all not pay ANY attention to anything?

[Thumper]

Hey! Radios used to be as big as coffee tables, then they got smaller. Even smaller when transistors came out. Then they had wrist radios ala Dick Tracy. Why can't I want a portable transporter? And YOU need to pay attention to details ... it's a transPORTER, not a transponder!

The transponder was used to locate ships in the galaxy.

[BarryBobPosthole]

I was too busy looking at the Orion Slave Girls to pay attention to what they talked on and didn't.

BKB

[Buckrub]

Yet you claim to be a Senior Noticer.

Geez.

[Thumper]

Ok, I can't resist. Did I ever tell you about the time I met "Captain Kirk"? I was at a place in Beverly Hills called the Red Onion for happy hour. (not sure if the place even exists anymore) He was sitting next to me and we said a few words to each other (no real conversation). In fact, we both left at the same time. Last I saw him, he was walking across the street .. I assume to his car. (?) I have to say, after sitting there listening to him for about an hour, I'd rate him as one of the biggest a-holes I've ever met (I'll give him a #3). A real arrogant jerk. I'd put him right behind Eric Estrada (no. 1 jerk) and the very pompus Sly Stallone (no. 2 jerk-off).

I just wanted you to know, the name-dropping Thump is still alive and well.