Fancy of mobile phones

Are mobile phones supposed to be phones or should they have glamour value? Mobile phones today are used as gadgets that are devices to communicate to some while status symbols to others. Mobile phones come in all shapes and sizes and have come a long way since early 1980s when they used to be just "mobile" and not necessarily portable! The first versions of GSM mobile phones in early 1980s were of the size of a typewriter and weighed around 5kgs! Mobile all right but you needed a back-pack to carry it! In just 3 decades, they are far sleeker, far more functional and surely part of a person's style statement.

Why would mobile phones undergo such a metamorphosis? Maybe because it is a device-in-need. A must-have gadget due to its primary purpose of it being a phone. But why are we so possessed about the mega pixel specification of its image sensor? Why are we so obsessed with its touch screens and just why are we bowled over by its looks? After all, there are many other devices-in-need. Wrist watches for example. But they did not evolve so much. We did not quite like to have anything else in a watch (other than gold and diamonds maybe) but we would rather have a clock in our phone!

Consumerism is the answer. All of this is evolved from markets driven by consumers. I belong to a geography and a generation where I learnt the subjects first and then used the devices. I did a course on Telephony before I actually used a telephone to make a call (not joking) and was quite scared of using it! I did a course on TV before the TV penetration became big in India. I did a course on wireless communication before I used a mobile phone. I worked on the 3G phone internals before I ever saw a physical 3G phone. In late 90s it used to be kind of funny working with some of the clients, not having the experience of using a phone but working on requirements specifications for a mobile phone. An application would be for example called 'Music jukebox'. We had neither used a phone nor used a jukebox to ever quite comprehend what was expected out of this feature !

As years passed by , I learnt that this was a two-way phenomenon and not necessarily one inflicted upon the 'third world'. Emerging markets such as Asia, Africa and Middle East became business centres for growth of mobile usage and soon there was a need for mobile phone makers to work on specifications targeted for these regions. It gave me immense pleasure when my peers from the developed world (NA and western Europe) struggled to understand just why a mobile phone should have a lantern or FM radio!

So coming back to consumerism, the geography and social needs dictate the requirements and then only sky is the limit. So we see mobiles in all shapes and forms. Folks from lower socio-economic strata still want that elusive talk-only phone (a dream for them really) while the more initiated ones get hooked onto advanced products such as iPhone and Blackberry. Between the ultra low cost GSM phone and Blackberrys of the world there is a rainbow of products in terms of features, hardware and style.

What elements go into the design of a typical mobile phone?

1. Market inputs for requirements (e.g. lantern!)
2. Market inputs for style (youth segment, farmers, initiated advance users?)
   
3. Geographical needs
4. Wireless coverage (GSM, GPRS, EDGE, 3G)
   
5. Socio-economic index (to decide handset price - folks should buy the phone)
6. Hardware elements (e.g. QWERTY keyboard, camera, WiFi)
7. Size of display and its type (non-touch or touch - resistive or capacitive)
   
8. The hardware baseband platform (chipset vendors)
   
9. The OS or the software platform (LiMo, Maemo, Windows Mobile, Android or other)
   
10. Language selection
    
11. Application suite
12. One or more SIM slots with SIM card size
    
13. Battery life and size of battery (in terms of mAh)
14. and so on...
    

I can speak only for myself, but I have this observation. Till now, I have not found a phone model that meets all of my requirements. Some are good in some areas, whereas others do better in other areas. The primary reason for this is human greed. In the limiting case, we would like to have a gadget that offers everything at no cost ! Technology has advanced so much that it is possible to meet the almost asymptotic greed. Some want it to guide them through an unknown city with digital maps and GPS, some want it to be a music box, while some want it to be a gaming device. That also probably is a reason why many users switch or upgrade their phones continuously for that elusive phone that will be their dream gadget!