Don’t believe the hype

(Originally published on infoSync) Nokia recently released the Mediamaster 230 S, a set-top box which among other features offers Bluetooth supports and lets you synchronize images taken with a Nokia 7650 — or any other Bluetooth 1.1 phone that supports the OBEX object push profile. Just minutes after reading the announcement, I spotted the cries of an analyst writing that camera equipped phones will not succeed, mainly since standalone digital cameras will always deliver superior quality.

Allow me to be crystal clear on this one; this is just another example of the herd phenomenon, and I’m getting sick and tired of it. When mobile telecommunications were all the hype, they were ALL the hype. You rarely heard somebody say that things were getting out of hand until 3G licenses suddenly skyrocketed. Nowadays, mobile telecommunication is presumably all down the drain, and it seems that is all there is to say about that. 3G will be a failure. Digital cameras are better than the ones integrated into phones. MMS is too expensive. E-Mails are too hard to type.

Oh, come on! Can we please try to do a bit of independent thinking, and not deem everything mobile telecom-related as a failure before even considering the concept or that particular idea?

Sure, 3G is not going to suddenly have all of us connected at 2 Mbps with a 50 EUR flat-rate. Some people that need Internet on their laptop at all times will be the first to adopt the new service, especially if they are, for example, consultants making 100 EUR an hour and need to be productive at all times as best they can.

Digital cameras will for quite some time ahead offer better resolutions than those integrated mobile phones. A friend of mine just visited Photokina here in Cologne. There are no cameras that go well above a resolution of 10 megapixels, even though, as far as I know, 4 megapixels would be up to par with standard film in terms of grain versus pixels. These are of course professional cameras, but you’d be hard pressed to argue that we’ll have a 20 megapixel camera in a phone any time soon. But — (again) come on. Who would need that? The entire point about camera phones is that you always have them with you and can take instant snapshots. My digital camera already changed my life in the sense that I carry it with me a lot and can simply press a button and take a picture without thinking about possible development costs for a ruined shot. The camera phone will be with you virtually all the time, and hence used even more often for quick snapshot of what’s happening around you. It was never meant to be the camera you take with you on your trip to the Pyramids in Egypt.

As for MMS, I actually don’t think it is that expensive. They are simply doing what is called price skimming, skimming of the cream of the market. Ever heard of first adopters? Those are the people that just have to have the latest gadget, and will pay almost any price to use it and its features. Well, these people are now sending MMS messages back and forth and are paying a high price. The price will likely stay that high for some time, but given the fact that this is a novely and that you can still send SMS messages in abundant numbers, you’ll find that it’s not really that expensive. Whoever is thinking that MMS will just take over from SMS has not understood the idea behind either of the systems. Whenever I can send a message that fits inside 160 characters and only needs text, then there is no reason whatsoever to use MMS.

E-mails are hard to type on a numeric keypad — I couldn’t agree more. Isn’t it wonderful to be reachable on your mobile phone though when somebody tries to call you, though? Wouldn’t it be nice to be able to leave from wherever you are for any reason and also know about the important e-mails coming in? Perhaps some of them only require a brief reply, and then you can do that from the convenience of your hand instead of having to seek out the nearest Internet café — or even delay the reply until you’re back in the office. Otherwise, just get a PDA with a thumbboard and hook it to the phone via Bluetooth or Infrared. Heck, you could even get a foldable keyboard for the PDA and carry something only slightly inferior to a laptop in terms of communications with you.

Of course, all of the above doesn’t make mobile telecommunications sound like the wonderful concept it was hyped to be, but if you stop to consider what you in reality are capable of pulling off, all of the above mentioned features are actually pretty damn cool. Always having a camera with you to grab that lucky snapshot of something happening around you. Being able to send that picture off right away if needed or wanted. Always being able to go out whilst keeping in touch with the rest of the world in a variety of ways, and respond to incoming request if you want to.

There is a Japanese saying that’s worth keeping in mind: If you believe everything you read, you’d better not read.

So please. Next time you read that this or that is doomed to fail (even if it’s coming from us here at infoSync), think about what the person writing it means with ‘failure’. Maybe it’s not failure at all. Maybe the bar was raised too high. Maybe they got the entire thing wrong. And by all means, don’t believe me.