Avoid Cell Phone Hell

Q&A with Buddy Phillips, Software Developer and Technical Genius

I fancy myself a pretty sophisticated, savvy “business user” of technology. As a small business owner, my cell phone is especially essential to my ability to conduct business. So a couple of weeks ago, when my trusty Blackberry Curve went kaput, I raced to the AT&T store for a replacement. My first replacement phone – the Torch – lasted 10 days. (My thoughts on RIM’s foray into touch screen technology are not fit for public consumption.) So I returned to my AT&T store and traded-in the Torch for the 3G Blackberry Curve.

I realized somewhere during this trip through cell phone hell that perhaps my technique needs improvement. That is, if I PLAN my cell phone replacement, if I have a STRATEGY for figuring out what device would best meet my needs before going back to my local AT&T store, that the fear, loathing, and panic would be eliminated. Or at least greatly reduced.

With that in mind, I chatted with Buddy Phillips, software developer and technical genius, to get some guidance on how to best prepare for my next cell phone purchase.

Q: How long should a cell phone last?

A: For the older “non –smartphones” that are just phones, they last for five to eight years. With the smartphones,there are new models and features coming out all the time. The idea is to upgrade every couple of years rather than wait for your phone to wear out. The carriers provide financial incentives to upgrade to the latest models. What’s important to remember about the smartphones is that the phone is not really the key part; it’s the operating system and the new features and functions that it offers.

Q: I’m a pretty basic user – talk, text, email, some surfing for sports scores, not much for shopping,photos, or video. What technical features are most important for those functions?

A: If you are a basic user, the most important thing is connectivity. So choose the carrier that offers the best service for you.

Q: What are the major benefits of the various operating systems – iOS, Android,Blackberry?

A: There are really two things that you have to take into consideration here: connectivity for the phone functions – email, talk and text; and then the network for the data functions. For the data functions to perform well, you need to choose a carrier that offers one of the newer 3G or 4G networks.

Cost is also a consideration for your data plan. How big of a data plan do you really need? The best way to determine that is to start with a smaller plan and evaluate whether or not that’s meeting your needs. It’s much easier to upgrade to a bigger plan than to downgrade to a smaller plan.

Q: What’s your opinion on the idea of the cell phone as a digital wallet?

A: Personally, I’m not quite ready for that yet. I feel there are still lots of unknowns as far a security issues are concerned. Phone viruses are not common yet, but we don’t have the protections from them yet, either.

Moving forward, as that type of functionality becomes more and more common,I think that phones will become a big target for hackers. I think that we will definitely get there, but I am taking a wait-and-see attitude before jumping in.

Then there’s the lawsuit between PayPal and Google that’s just getting started. I think that’s going to be a big court fight, so we’ll have to wait and see what happens there as well.

Q: How did we ever think that a telephone was supposed to be use just to talk? And what future functionality do you think the next generation of cell phones will have?

A: Speculation is a lot of fun. I think the term “cell phone” will go away, and we will have a device that’s our personal computing device. Along the lines of what’s out there now with the Android phone that plugs into the laptop and shares information. I think that’s the future. You’ll just walk into a room and the desktop and laptop and other devices will turn on and all be driven off of your phone.

The actual function as a phone will be so minor. All other computing functions will be driven off this little device; everything will be synched up from our phone. The hard drive in a cell phone today is huge compared to what was in computers five years ago, and the processing capacity is the same as computers had back in 2000.

In the near-term, there will be continued improvements in wireless voice processing. Right now there are Bluetooth headsets that clarify who’s talking by eliminating the background noise if you’re talking in a crowded room, and I think that technology will get to the point where you can just have the phone on the desk near you or even have it in your pocket and be able to have a conversation.