Russell Beattie writes:
I’ve got what is arguably the most powerful mobile phone in the world in my pocket. It’s a 3G device with a variety of communications and media capabilities, yet it sat there for the past 72 hours with nary a button press. In *my* pocket. Why? Obviously there are other devices and offline activities (sleep, mostly) which are competing for my loving attention. And honestly there’s also really a dearth of apps and content for the phone – I’ve played with most of what’s available already (but that hasn’t stopped me with fiddling with all that stuff before). But I think what the real reason I haven’t used my phone is this idea of context.
Mobile phones still need that killer app which takes out the need for context. They need to get to the point where they are less devices that you use while out and about, and considered more destinations in their own right. In other words, the current crop of apps are mostly created with that “mobile context” in mind. So you could say I haven’t looked at my phone lately because I haven’t been moving much. This is wrong. It’s limiting a platform which can potentially do anything that a small computer with broadband access can do. The person who comes up with the app that compels a person to use their phone without considering the fact that it’s a phone is going to have a killer app on their hand. One could argue the opposite, that mobile phone apps *should* only be used in the mobile context, but I think that’s too narrow minded.
