The inventor of the cellphone says the
iPhone's ubiquitous, do-everything, jack-of-all-trades approach to applications, music and – oh yeah – phone calls, makes the Apple Computer superstar mobile device less impressive, not more.
Martin Cooper, who while working at Motorola made the first cell-phone call in 1973 with a device weighing two pounds and with only 20 minutes of battery life, says that cell phones today, especially the
iPhone, are too complex. Speaking at a
conference in Boston, Cooper said wireless companies and cell phone makers have the wrong ideas when it comes to making products people really need. Instead, he advocates cell phones with fewer features and functions, not more. He also says cell phone reception problems and dropped calls are a major problem for the industry and could be avoided with some better technology. (Cooper serves as chairman of a company called
ArrayComm, which develops software to help antenna arrays more finely pinpoint cell phone location.)
Cooper's main push is for simpler, specialized phones, such as the one his
wife designed called
Jitterbug, a cell phone with large buttons and extra large characters on the LCD screen for use by the elderly.
"A phone that's an Internet appliance, an MP3 player, a camera and a whole bunch of other functions doesn't make a lot of sense," he said. "You try to build a universal device that does all things for all people, and guess what? It doesn't do anything very well."
Before you start thinking Cooper may be a curmudgeon who just doesn't like the fast pace of tech advancements, though, you should take a look at this: His
personal fact sheet from ArrayComm (PDF link) points out that he is always trying out the newest cell phones (on average, a new one every four to six months) and he's driven to find the "smallest and lightest handset." A gadget hound, just like us!) [From:
Forbes.com]
