phone features 'baffle users'

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Article on the BBC website today that new phone features are frustrating and confusing lots of people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7833944.stm

Frankly I'm one of the confused. Despite being a professional software developer (or perhaps because of) I find mobile phones confusing as hell.

There are just too many features for someone like me who only has a mobile for emergency use or the occasional call or very rare text message. I threw away a "perfectly good" Sagem mobile phone because I could not navigate the menu system to find things. The problem seemed to be that the menu wasn't static, it kept changing what keys did what. The final straw was when I tried to send a text message and it just typed in rubbish instead of the letters I was actually pressing. It turned out it had a dictionary and was trying to guess (badly) what I was typing. Eventually found a setting to stop it fu****g up my text messages but got so sick of the damn thing it went into the trash can anyway.

All these features that get crammed onto mobiles are fine for kids who have the time to learn them all or people who use a mobile all the time, but for infrequent users they can be a real pain in the posterior to use.

Electronics should be recycled.

I do believe that they put in a lot of unnecessary stuff. A cell phone is supposed to be, just that. A phone. Nothing else. That's why people are always so distracted (especially when driving). It probably warps their brain too.

Many studies have come out saying the current young generation have seriously impaired social skills, yes even the NT kids, thanks to cell phones. Using text messaging instead of face to face interaction is what is being blamed.

You can get simple cell phones for emergency and occasional use only. Just get a Tracfone. They always have less bells and whistles.

Agree about the number of features. We use cell phones for work and for the most part I use it as a pager (via text message). The biggest problem I have is that the text message alerts override whatever it is you're trying to do on the phone. If I get a bunch of pages in a row (say 10 or 20) I can't use the phone until they all come in.

I know on my phone there was a setting for that...

And I agree, phones have become WAY to bloody complicated... Mum calls me at least once a week cause she 'broke' hers.

I tend to stick with Nokia mobiles as I'm used to them. I agree though, mobile phones today are becoming less and less easy to use.

Well, if you're in software (and had to deal with MS), you're familiar with the concept of 'code bloat'...

It's all marketing; since phones are pretty much equal now, the only thing to really compete on is features. The more bells and whistles you can stuff into one of these ear appendages, the more chance some L33t speaker's gonna get one...

I tend to be slightly amused at the fact that most of these are designed for people with busy social lives, and lots of freinds....lets me out of the running...

I have a book (not a pamphlet) that came with my 'basic' phone, that I only buy minutes for. I call out, I get calls. If I get someone's number, I copy it into a database; that way if I lose the phone, or it gets turned off, I still have the number...

Don't get me started on Microsoft they are a nightmare to deal with, assuming you can actually get to contact anyone there in the first place. Emails have a habit of not being delivered, online contact links go around in circles. If you do eventually find an online form to fill in it tends to crash out when you hit 'send' with some cryptic server error.

As for Microsoft's online documentation, much of it stinks. They simply do not provide adequate documentation for many of the new features they introduce, leaving us programmers to use trial and error to implement the newest technology instead of following clearly defined implementations. There are times I've had to use ten year old software technology because Microsoft have not produced adequate documentation on how to use their more recent "better" technologies.

Google searches reveal the huge number of programmers that Microsoft leave in the dark having to fumble around for information ... try this, no already tried it doesn't work, well this worked for me... etc. The blind leading the blind half the time.