Just pick up an old phone or cordless phone and feel how it fits in your
hand and how the buttons/UI are made to fit your hand and you have a solid,
time tested platform for calling. Flip phones are the closest highly
available portable solution that excels at being a phone.
There is no reason you can't add email to flip phones like you had text,
other than Verizon pretending mobile data has a similar value to gold.
There is no reason a flip phone can't have solid voice commands that
trigger from a button press and not use a bunch of power with always on
services.
Flip phones mostly don't break when you drop them and don't scratch much,
since they the phone is also a case when closed. They often survive extreme
conditions, like being out in the rain. They last forever, they fit your
face and hand better. The people who make flip phone operating system
actually take into considering one hand control based off a refreshingly
static interface (the phone keypad). Texting is not hard on a smartphone
unless you text all day long, in which case I question your
productivity/business approach. Flip phones cost a fraction of the money.
They have superior call quality and reception. Unless you provide me
awesome features I don't want to learn a new OS every 2 years just to use
my phone.
A flip phone and a 15 a month hotspot with a tablet is all I need until
Google, Verizon and others get their game together. I've put up with their
platform for years and I'm just tired of spending my personal time and
money to endlessly find work arounds for basic phone functions and things
the hardware obviously could do, but don't need to do in order to make
Google and Verizon money.,
The biggest features I would miss is call blocking, which really should be
done at the Verizon/Call Center level and not on the phone's hardware. The
calls should never even reach my phone. And the next big feature would be
the few simple voice commands that work well like setting a timer or
setting an appointment. Then the far less important entertainment and
convenient search ability, which generally are not productive uses of my
time. I'm better off researching things on a real desktop and scheduling my
life in more meaningful ways than trying to get things done on a limited
hand held computer phone. I also like the authentication apps for two
factor authentication, but that can be done through SMS or a dedicated
hardware 'key' like Yubi.
So, it's really nothing important. I don't want Facebook on my phone (if I
used social networking successfully for small business the people should be
calling me or I can respond when I have time at the office). I don't need
traffic updates that don't really work. I don't need weather and news
updates to distract me from real work. I don't need half baked geo location
features and inferior navigation to my dedicated GPS unit. I don't need IM
on my phone (already have SMS). I don't need to take HD video and pictures
with my phone when a 100 dollar dedicated camera can do a far better job
and with a way superior interface and not consolidating those features into
one unit doesn't increase my costs, it lowers them because GPS and camera
technology is much more static compared to smart phone software. The
hardware you can get on a smart phone can be pretty impressive for the
cost, but the software is so many years behind it really doesn't make it a
smart investment.
I'm an IT tech with over 10 years experience from DOS to Windows 10 to
Linux. I've worked on phones from running copper lines for old PBX systems
to modern VOIP and supporting hundreds users cell phone issues. I've
wasted days of my life this year alone researching all the short comings of
MY personal smart phone and the conclusion is, there is no acceptable work
around. Because of that, there is no reason to accept the crappy battery
life, low security, higher costs and overall disappointing performance of
today's smart phones. I have better things to do with my time than be a
phone/advertising platform guinea pig.
I would rather smart phones were smart and could replace my car GPS and
function as solid long lasting phones while also having the ability to go
online and do some basic research and document retrial, but my needs for
mobile computing are limited, while my need for mobile phone connectivity
have been decided for my by societies demands of a more connected world. I
don't EVER need to rapidly respond to a Facebook post, but I do need to get
all my calls and not generally dislike using my phone because the coders
and project directors don't really care about focusing on core
functionality and ensure they are providing a solid device for the money.
It's just never going to happen. The way these guys make money is selling
us new gadgets every few years and a consolidated device that actually
worked really well and lasted a long time would basically put multiple
industries out of a job. They aren't going to design phones that can last 5
years unless we make them design phones that can last 5 years. Batteries
are not honestly up to the task of this much consolidation. Modular phones
are not going to be a real solution for years down the road until batteries
are 3 times more energy dense.
