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 atRCRWireless.com to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
CRUISING AT 40,000 FEET — So, I am typing this column on a late-night flight back from the ongoing CTIA Wireless IT Wireless and IT and Entertainment IT Wireless show in San Diego. And because of this, I have christened this WOTW a “Special Edition.” “Why is it special?” you may be asking. Well that’s a good question, and like my father used to say, “There are no stupid questions, go mow the lawn.”
Being so christened, I will now answer the question I was asked most at the event and in turn the question I asked most people: “Did you see anything exciting?”And my response from this year’s show was “Yes I did. Several times.”
I give that response not to be snarky, but because at this year’s show, the coolest thing(s) I saw were/was the same device seemingly over-and-over again, just plastered with a different logo.
Conformity has become the rule in wireless. There must have been a dozen phones launched at or near the show that all had the same feature set.
–3.something-inch touchscreen? Check.
–Slide out keyboard? Check.
–Box-it-came-in styling? Check.
–Android operating system? Check.
–Some sort of cloud-based, backup service with a snazzy name? Check.
No one even bothered going with a crazy color like pink, or hot pink, or hot hot pink, or showed off a diamond-encrusted version for the extra flash. For shame.
Now, I understand we are in the middle of some economic uncertainty and handset manufacturers need to be careful how they allocate research dollars, but how much can a spray can of hot pink paint cost? And a Bedazzler is only $20, and from what I hear it makes your outfit pretty “tight.”
And if pink or rhinestones are not your flavor, why not paint ‘em the lime green color of the Android logo, or even better, punch them out in the shape of the Android logo. Anything but the cookie-cutter style that dominated devices at the show.
(Speaking of which, I am not sure how cookie cutters got such a bad rap. I mean, they cut cookies. Who doesn’t like a cut cookie? I know if I was given the choice of turning into any kind of cutter, a cookie version would be near the top of my list.)
I will give Nokia here some credit, though I have never understood Nokia’s aim in the U.S. market. Their wildly designed phones may not be the most practical or appealing to the domestic market, but at least the company tries different designs.
If everyone is trying to copy Apple’s iPhone, why they don’t just copy it? As in actually going through the trouble of engineering and producing a device that is real similar to the iPhone, or even real, real similar. That has been done and so far no one has found the same success. Do it like the black-market Chinese manufacturers by heading down to the local Kinko’s, putting the iPhone in a copy machine, print out a high-quality, double-sided print on the good paper and sell it as your own. Maybe use some Wite-Out to replace the “i” with another letter, or better yet a cool symbol, like the one for boron. Now that’s a cool symbol.
OK, enough of that.
Thanks for checking out this week’s Worst of the Week column. And now for some extras:
–Not sure if many people attending the CTIA Entertainment and IT and Wireless and IT event caught this, but we were probably as close as ever to seeing the most awesome spectacle ever imagined at a wireless show. What am I talking about? Well, for a few minutes during the opening day keynote, the CEOs from the nation’s four largest wireless operators were all on stage at once. Now, of course there were there to hand a $1 million check to charity, but I was hoping that after they finished with the picture-taking, a steel cage was going to be dropped from the ceiling and we were going to be treated to the ultimate death match. Imagine: Four CEOs enter, one CEO leaves. Man, that would have been sweet. (My money would have been on Sprint Nextel’s Dan Hesse because of his reach advantage, and I figure he probably has the biggest chip on his shoulder. Chips go a long way in the cage. That’s my motto.)
–Don’t get me started on the growing menace of application stores, or as they are known by those in the know, “App Stores.” It seemed like you could not turn a corner without a carrier, handset maker or platform provider announcing plans for its own application store. Now, I am all for giving customers as many choices as possible, but this fad can only lead to trouble. (I’m just hoping there is an app for that.) Not sure how yet, but I am putting my money down that too much choice for consumers can be a bad thing.
–Am I the only person who thinks all trade shows should be held in Las Vegas? I mean there are tons of hotel rooms, there is gambling, there are a lot of taxis, there is gambling, there are a gazillion clubs to choose from for awesome parties, there is gambling and it’s a city designed and built to handle crowds. Did I also mention that there is gambling? Yes? Gambling.
–And one last quick thought as I type this from a thankfully not full flight bouncing over the Rocky Mountains. What’s the over/under on the percentage of people on a flight that actually turn their cellphones off? I would go with something in the 50/50 range myself.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at dmeyer@ardenmediaco.com.
