Are smartphones making fools of us?

[Lite Beer]

EDITORIAL
Are smartphones making fools of us?
The Nation

BANGKOK: -- Investing in an upgrade is always a dodgy proposition, but the tech firms want to keep us guessing

That IPhone 6 is allegedly bendable is not a surprise. When a production line is working as fast as those of Apple and all its rivals, some unfavourable traits or flaws are bound to emerge. What is truly amazing is the manner in which cellular users are embracing everything thrown at them. Big screens. Small screens. Earphone plug on the side. Earphone plug at the top. Earphone plug at the bottom. A little bit more computing speed every three months. And on and on it goes.

Some "upgrades" are understandable, but others are not. Cellphone customers have been caught in the crossfire among manufacturers and telecom service providers.

The "understandable" or necessary upgrades are made to ensure competitiveness of products, but unnecessary upgrades are only meant to ensure the financial competitiveness of the concerned companies.

And the problem is that, unless you are a tech genius, you can't really tell whether a new phone contains necessary upgrades or is made simply to rob you blind.

When a new phone hits the market, its producers do everything within their powers to make people buy it.

Make no mistake: all strategies are likely to be legitimate business practices, although, in the process, customers are made to believe that what they have now - tech wonders just a few months back - are obsolete and need to be replaced as soon as possible.

There are worse things than unnecessary upgrades, such as the upgrades that could have been done earlier but were held back for business reasons. For example, if you can make a mobile phone that's twice as good as your competitor's, you can choose to make your product only "50 per cent better" than that made by your rival. That's enough to make your product a big hit, and allows you to keep "the other 50 per cent" as future business ammunition.

Again, it looks like a legitimate way to do business. Everyone can keep the best for last, so to speak. But again, it's the customers who will have to buy two phones instead of one.

Of course, they have the choices of a) buying two phones, b. buying just the second phone, or c) buying just the first phone and gritting their teeth when the second one comes out. People who pick b, appear to have the best deal, but then you never know whether a "third phone" is around the corner.

It can be argued that the fierce competition in the tech market is discouraging all manufacturers from holding back. In other words, belated upgrades risk becoming irrelevant. If you can make a TV that's 100 per cent sharper than your rival's, you should go ahead and make it immediately or you will likely be end up sorry. This is a reasonable assumption, although spotty upgrades can be a risk worth taking, if well planned. It seems like a no-win situation for customers, so what should they do?

If you buy a new phone every three years, maybe that's okay in today's world.

If it's a new phone every year or six months, a review of how you use the gadget is needed. Why change it so often when all you do is make calls, send Line messages, beautify selfies and watch YouTube? If new commercials are making your 8-millimetre-thick phone feel heavy, kill the urge to buy a 4mm one and hold out for a paper-thin model, which should be available in no time.

Source: http://www.nationmultimedia.com/opinion/Are-smartphones-making-fools-of-us-30245208.html

-- The Nation 2014-10-11

[Halion]

For some reason that escapes my logic these lemmings who rush to the cliff edge for the latest design and technology somehow feel empowered by their ownership of the latest device. Somehow it fills a void in their lives and they spend their day glued to their doing little of any productive value to either themselves or others. Simply having "Apps" and taking "Selfies" does little to produce higher order thinking.

[Cats4ever]

Interesting points in this article, particularly about tech and marketing. I have become cynical about modern marketing; basically they are trying to put one over you. I am a long time retainer of mobile phones and call from it, answer it and reply to urgent SMS's (under protest). I prefer the tablet and laptop for the other stuff.

[Oziex1]

I have a 3 year old smart phone does what I need.

Recently I read in the local rag, people from Hong Kong and China travelled to Perth, Western Australia to purchase the I Phone 6 because supplies were limited at home.

For what, paid expensive air fares and hotel bill for a phone. more and more useful but mundane items are being seen as must have fashion items.

I have met people in developing nations who have spent a months wages on these gadgets only to get drunk and leave them at the bar never to be seen again.

[sawadee1947]

Are smartphones making fools of us?

only if you switch them on.....

[empireboy]

For some reason that escapes my logic these lemmings who rush to the cliff edge for the latest design and technology somehow feel empowered by their ownership of the latest device. Somehow it fills a void in their lives and they spend their day glued to their doing little of any productive value to either themselves or others. Simply having "Apps" and taking "Selfies" does little to produce higher order thinking.

I don't disagree with you about what does/does not produce higher order thinking but it seems to me to be in the nature of people to improve their own sense of status in their social setting by participating in certain types of consumerism... a point not missed by the advertising agencies and whilst it may not directly improve a societies thinking, it does provide jobs and shareholder returns... factors not without some value?

[Chicog]

Not everyone falls for the marketing tosh.

4K TVs are not exactly flying off the shelves.

VideoDiscs died a painful death, as did Betamax.

[kinmaew]

Technology can help in many ways and we should take advantage of it but yes I think some of us go too far. I am in front of a PC most of the day during my working week I don't need to be "Online 24/7 checking my f&&**** messages" or doing my banking "On the go". I just have a regular Nokia phone a few years ago which I use for texting mainly and receiving calls. There is a time for technology and a time for being away from it doing stuff like exercise, getting dirty, doing physical exercise, music, reading a book, catching up with friends.

My phone screen is cracked, when I was last at MBK I saw a sign that said they replace broken screens.

"What model you have?"

I showed him my phone

"Oh my god, No, No more"

or "This one, finish no more hap" better buy new phone 900 baht

A few years back stupidly bought the TGF a new phone (5000 baht), she just dropped it in the toilet and that's it. You see people don't appreciate things they don't buy themselves.

I still have my cracked screen Nokia and loving it.

[Mudcrab]

And everyone thought Henry Ford was a genius. He wasn't.

The real genius was one of his employees who came up with the concept of "last years model".

Roughly a hundred years ago.

[harleyd61]

Are smartphones making fools of us?

YES

[belg]

if you make 200k baht per month, like MOST people bragg about on this site, what is 25.000 baht every 6 months ?

[GlobalCtzn]

I walked by a small bar in CM a few weeks ago at about 11:00 p.m. There was a 3-man live band playing some very nice blues. There were 5 occupied tables in the bar with 2 or 3 people at each table. EVERY single person was zoned into their smartphone. I was so taken by the visual I stopped and watched for a couple of minutes. If I had smartphone I would have taken a photo, but alas, my 10 year old Nokia does not take photos. Smartphones have created a society of zombies..............

[Lupatria]

Are smartphone making fools of us?

According to the latest survey on how many hours the average Thai spends on his/her phone it happened already some time ago.

[Lupatria]

[mrbojangles]

Not everyone falls for the marketing tosh.

4K TVs are not exactly flying off the shelves.

VideoDiscs died a painful death, as did Betamax.

If memory serves, Betamax was the better product, it just died because VHS was first to hit the shelves and because of superior marketing, most people had already bought VHS.

[xen]

I have a iPhone 5 that my employer has supplied. Does everything but nothing at all well .

I still use a camera as it takes better photos at smaller resolution and with a date stamp which i require . Who needs 5 mb to take a photo of a bit of paving detail or a broken bolt .

Calender and email is handy some of the time but i still need a desktop to do my scheduling. Answering emails can wait until i get back to a human size keyboard as i have fat fingers.Too busy to spend my life staring at Facebook or twitter.The Weather app is good as is the app for currency exchange but usually i can also wait until i get back to the office. Having to go through i-tunes is just another form of torture to hear music on the phone . And i can survive without playing silly games.

It does nothing more than my first Nokia did.

[sumrit]

Not everyone falls for the marketing tosh.

4K TVs are not exactly flying off the shelves.

VideoDiscs died a painful death, as did Betamax.

If memory serves, Betamax was the better product, it just died because VHS was first to hit the shelves and because of superior marketing, most people had already bought VHS.

Not strictly true. Betamax had a slightly faster head to tape speed for the video part of the recording than VHS did so produced a slightly better picture but the audio head to tape speed for Betamax was slower so the audio quality was markedly inferior. Also, because of the design,

Also Betamax had to pull far more tape out of the cassette to lace and wrap round the video head which caused more regular damage to the tape than VHS machines, which needed less than half the amount to lace up.

Although JVC's VHS system was released a few months before Sony's Betamax system in Japan both systems were released at around the same time in the rest of the world. Initially competition was fairly even, although in the UK, partly because rental covered by far the largest portion of the market and all the major rental company's (except Redifusion who rented both) chose VHS, that quickly became the preferred system.

But the main reason VHS became the standard and Betamax died a death was because of JVC's strategy over its patent. W

[Jangot]

My Grandfather used to say "You cannot make a fool of anyone, you can only show them to be the fool they are"

[freebyrd]

I couldn't agree more....

[dharmabm]

About a year and a half ago I bought a gnex, which at the time was a 2 year old phone (the nexus 4 had already been released at the time). I think I paid 10k baht for it and I was perfectly happy. I dropped it a few months ago and broke the screen, and was lucky to get an invite for a oneplus1, which is a hardware equivalent of a 25k phone for 14k. No proprietary software, no bloat... Just a good phone at a fair price. We are not all sheeple

sent from my slimkat 1+ using tapatalk

[Jonmarleesco]

Far too many users can manage the fool-making bit all on their own. Always prepared to pay through the nose for the innumerable functions that, to most half-intelligent individuals, are nothing more than gimmicks.

With so many IT nuts ready to upgrade for the most inane add-on, the manufacturers have no reason to change their approach.

Have they?

[canuckamuck]

And everyone thought Henry Ford was a genius. He wasn't.

The real genius was one of his employees who came up with the concept of "last years model".

Roughly a hundred years ago.

Perhaps you don't realize that Mr. Ford made the same model T for 19 years and made all the newer better parts with the ability to be retrofitted into older models. Meaning that it didn't matter which Model T you had, you get new parts for it and everyone new how to fix them.

Ford's philosophy was to make it the most practical, most affordable, and the most simplistic vehicle, using ever increasing factory efficiency to drive the prices to the lowest possible point.

A total alien philosophy compared with today's gadget market

[4evermaat]

And everyone thought Henry Ford was a genius. He wasn't.

The real genius was one of his employees who came up with the concept of "last years model".

Roughly a hundred years ago.

Perhaps you don't realize that Mr. Ford made the same model T for 19 years and made all the newer better parts with the ability to be retrofitted into older models. Meaning that it didn't matter which Model T you had, you get new parts for it and everyone new how to fix them.

Ford's philosophy was to make it the most practical, most affordable, and the most simplistic vehicle, using ever increasing factory efficiency to drive the prices to the lowest possible point.

A total alien philosophy compared with today's gadget market

They don't make em like they used to.

[NamKAheng]

How about built-in obsolescence like Apple is doing? You have an iPhone 5 but your battery is almost dead (about 400 charge cycles) and you already know they are not easy to change like other smartphone. You go to the store to change your battery, but they ask 80$ to do it and the sales guy is telling you that for 99$ you can have the new iPhone 6. Here we go again, now you are the proud owner of an iPhone 6 that will last about 400 charge cycles (if you are lucky) with a not so easy to change battery. So when will you get an iPhone 7, 6 months, 8 months ..... maybe a year. On my good old Nokia my battery was dying while I was in Bangkok, I went to a 7/11 to buy cigarettes and I bought a brand new battery for my Nokia, now that's a good bargain. I did not throw my battery in the trash I bring it back to Canada and dispose of the battery at a recycle station in a store. Companies like Apple should be fined because they contribute to a throw away society.