Hello! And welcome to our Friday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
We have used this space recently to highlight the fact that mobile devices are now basically in charge of the mobile industry and that a week cannot go by without a new mobile device or smartphone being hoisted onto the market. This hoisting is usually followed by carriers scrambling to figure out how to tame the new beast.
Nearly four years since it was first unleashed onto the market, Apple’s iPhone remains the beastliest of these beasts. Sure, other devices have been launched that can do more than an iPhone, but when it comes to the minds and pocketbooks of consumers it remains iPhone or bust.
And it’s with this thought that I feel a sort of emptiness in that unlike the previous four years, this June looks set to come and go without Apple trotting out a new device that will require normally sane people to drop everything, dig out their camping gear and head for their nearest Apple store.
While I of course find these people to be out of their gourd, I also like to revel in the fact that supposedly grown people camp outside of an electronics store to buy a product that they can walk into that same store at any other point in time and purchase. All without having to take a “camping” shower.
These events have always been good for television stations that for some reason think we want to hear “why?” someone would leave their comfortable confines of their parent’s basement to be the “first” inline to buy the latest iPhone. But, I think I speak for many when I say we don’t want to hear from these people. We don’t want to see these people. We don’t even really want to know that these people exist.
All we really want to see from these events is when the inevitable fracas breaks out between those standing in line over either line cutting or whether Wolverine is really the most bad-ass “X-Men” character.
But, alas those possibilities will have to be put on hold for what appears to be at least the summer. Hopefully that delay will just lead to more angst, more insanity and the unveiling of at least 132 new Android-powered devices.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Here are a few signs that while the world did not end recently as predicted, the clock is definitely ticking:
The fine folks at Appetizer Mobile have teamed up with Interscope Records and Lady Gaga to launch the “Lady Gaga: The Monster In You” mobile application. Currently the offering is only available via the iPhone
This was how it was explained by the PR person gracious enough to send this nugget of news along:
“The Monster Globe will be launching in the coming days. Millions of images are expected to be gathered within weeks and posted on the front of LadyGaga.com. No artist to date has embraced their audience to this extent or has tried to capture all of their fans in a method like this. As monsters are uploaded to the monster globe, they’ll appear in real time, essentially lighting up the monster globe. It’s a very cool effect and will create a dynamic visualization of her audience and fans.”
I couldn’t have said it better myself.
I’m usually not one to wish ill will on another person, but by unleashing this application into existence, those involved are really pushing my limits.
–Word on the street is that tablet devices are something we just can’t live without. And by word on the street, I mean an online survey conducted by Samsung Mobile, which also happens to be a company that produces these must-have devices. Coincidence?
According to the survey, which was conducted by Kelton Research so you know it’s not biased, 90% of U.S. consumers either own a tablet or are considering owning a tablet device. This would seem to mean that nine out of every 10 people in the country, whether man, woman, child or infant either owns or is considering the purchase of such a device, though the fine print goes onto indicate that the 1,000 people surveyed were limited to those 18 years of age and older. I guess those under the age of 18 are not really consumers regardless of what you see at the local mall.
The survey goes on to describe what percentage of people would be interested in conducting certain activities from their imaginary tablet device, including taking pictures or videos (44%), video chatting with loved ones (41%) or staying connected to co-workers (34%). (I find the video chatting one most amusing as all of the people I know with tablet devices typically ignore everyone around them when in a social setting. Now I know they must be video chatting with someone more important.)
Not sure why since it was such a hypothetical situation the survey didn’t include other cool activities as time travel, making peanut butter and jelly sandwiches or bird watching.
–Speaking of non-sensical surveys, mobile virtual network operator and apparent fear mongerer Great Call released the results of its own questionnaire that showed being a person is a dangerous thing. The survey, which used TNS Global to bother 1,000 adults most likely during dinner, found that two-thirds of American’s admit to “such basic safety lapses as walking alone in remote places, forgetting to lock doors at night and having too little gas in their tanks!” (That exclamation point was theirs, not mine. I would have included an ampersand and a question mark.)
Results from the survey found that 72% of respondents “walk or jog alone in sparsely developed areas” as opposed I guess to walking or jogging at a packed football stadium; 67% “drive without enough gas in the tank,” which I can only guess is enough to get to the nearest gas station; and 58% “go on a blind date without telling someone where they are going,” which I can only surmise is because they don’t want their spouses to find out.
The survey also found that 10% of people did not want to make an emergency call to 911 because they did not want to bother the staff. Classic.
–And finally, got a note from what is now my new favorite company: Kapow Software. What an awesome name made even more so by their decision to not include an exclamation point after Kapow, or Software. Awesome!
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at: dmeyer@rcrwireless.com.
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