If You Build It, Will They Come?

OK, the year is 1983 and the Analog Motorola DynaTAC 8000X was the first real portable cell phone out the door. Yes, I was a big user of this unit and still have one in the keep-forever drawer, along with the 10th-ever-built 3.5” hard drive, and many more techie toys.

This thing was great you could even bang a nail in the wall with it because of the design (contractors loved it). So let us flash forward to today where smart phones are everywhere and users are going bigger on the touch me phones.

All this geek speak is making me think, “Wait, wasn’t the idea to go smaller?” The goal was to provide a right-sized device for the masses and somewhere along the yellow brick road the manufacturers took a left hand turn into the “computer zone." The blending of computer, camera, mp3 player and the main phone was in full swing, and while a smart phone is cool, is it needed?

I use my cell phone for calling clients first and foremost, and the other stuff maybe 1% of the time. The issue is, not a single smart phone does everything well, but all make phone calls perfectly. So why is it that the phone manufacturers are focused on the 1% and not the 99% of the phone?

The answer is marketing, and frankly, it’s working great for them. We all have fallen into this trap of more must be better when it comes to phone purchases and upgrades. We need to look at the phone bill of today and really call it the communication bill don’t we, because cell bill doesn’t fit any longer.

The big question is, do you need all the bells and whistles of a smart phone to make a phone call to Mom or Dad? Does your great aunt in Sheboygan know how to text or even surf the internet, or would a simple call to say hi work better?

I started thinking what would be the ideal smart phone and here is my list:

• Bigger buttons for calling
• Slide-out keyboard or a reverse flip to cover the glass (dual purpose)
• 4” display, my eyes are going

The above could be done cheap enough to make the phone around a $99.00 purchase without contract. I don’t need Internet, Camera, GPS, Voice Commands and all the 1% stuff. I need texting because of my kids but I need a great cell phone! I would also love a phone bill for $20.00 a month and not $70.00 plus which is out of control, because the 1% is driving the cost not the 99% phone. So that said, could someone at the cell companies remember the primary function because my wallet can’t afford the 1%, can yours?

CAW (Cool Application of the Week)

What is on your hard drive or in the directories is always a mystery after a few months or years of use. Do I have duplicates or stuff I just never use any longer? Disk Space Fan to the rescue. It will help sort out what is hidden away in the computer closets. I use it to drill down into directories to see what is taking up my hard drive space. Recently I used it and was surprised that my TEMP directory had 2 gigabytes of updates and needed cleaning. So take a look and delete carefully, it is spring computer cleaning time here on the Patch!

One other note: Please watch our kids during the spring and summer months as they tend to forget that cars don’t play well with children not watching!