How to improve handsets
We need a new rule for handsets:
If you create content, you must be able to easily send it.
This is basic telecommunication. We still have numerous phones that fail this simple test. For example, I can record voice memos on my Motorola Q but there is no menu item for sending them via email.
You have to ask yourself why some features do not exist. Sometimes it is because the service provider has another, more costly way, for you to do the same thing (such as MMS- multimedia messaging, in the case of sending a voice memo). Yes, phone features are controlled not by what is best and easiest for the user, but often times by how the carrier wants them used.
Open Source phones will change this, if they can get on the network. Customers will become more educated about their options and start to want something better. This is kind of like how AOL dumb-downed the Internet for so long and added little value and then started losing millions of customers a year.
Imagine a network and a phone that was friendly to users first, not only when convenient. A different business model for making money on the handset would allow this paradigm shift. The iPhone did not do it, but it has made a difference and shown that features (like their 'new' voice mail, ignored for years by other carriers and thought to be too expensive) do matter. Perhaps the rumored Google Phone will shake things up to the customers advantage. One can hope.
