[ Google Issues ] Script of my national radio report yesterday on why there isn't so much excitement about new smartphone introductions these days

[Lauren Weinstein]

This is this script of my national radio report yesterday on why there
isn't so much excitement about new smartphone introductions these
days. As always there may have been minor wording variations from this
script as I presented the report live on air.

- - -

So yeah, remember back when new smartphone introductions triggered
fanfare and lines of people around the block waiting for hours or even
days to get the latest iPhone? There was even a Simpson's episode that
was a parody of Apple like that. Well, those days seem long gone now.

Sure, #Apple and #Google and others are in the midst of announcing new
smartphones, but you don't really see the kind of excitement that
there used to be. And there seems to be a bunch of reasons for this.
First off, these phones, especially the incredibly expensive high-end
models tend to be loaded down with so many features that the
overwhelming vast majority of users never touch. The user interfaces
keep changing and getting more complicated, so that even doing
relatively simple tasks can be a chore. And this can be a problem even
with many low-end smartphones now.

And the kinds of new features being touted don't necessarily inspire
excitement either. The phone is even thinner! WOW! It's got #AI to
feed you misinformation and claim to be helping you simplify your
life, while actually making your life more complicated, and feeding it
24/7 to Big Tech. OH GOODIE!

One I had to chuckle over a bit when I heard it a few days ago was
Apple announcing technical memory management improvements to help
prevent app-based malware attacks. This is actually a good thing as
far as it goes -- though there are lots of malware and phishing, etc.
attack vectors still open. But I somehow doubt that "better memory
partitioning and control" is really high up on most people's reasons
for buying a new smartphone.

The firms keep announcing various camera improvements that sound
technically advanced but then many people just use the phone cameras
mainly for taking selfies anyway that would look about the same with
far simpler phone camera systems. You have features now like selfies
that can be modified by AI so that your selfie isn't even an actual
image of yourself where you actually were, it's just an artificial
creation. Interesting, but pointless, except for Big Tech who wants
you hooked on their AI and ultimately willing to pay big bucks for it.

Now one of the actually useful features showing up on more phones is
the ability to communicate with satellites for emergency texting or
more general purpose texting, and eventually voice and data. This can
be important if you're in areas without cell service, though due to
satellite capacity issues terrestrial cell sites are likely to
continue being the workhorse outside of rural areas. Thing is, you
shouldn't need a high end ultra expensive smartphone for this kind of
satellite capability, since essentially all these low orbit satellites
are doing is emulating local ground-based cell sites.

The phone manufacturers REALLY want you buying their expensive models,
or at least committing to mobile carrier contracts where they pay for
some or all of the phone -- but then you're tied to that carrier for a
year or more. The phone makers really enjoyed the era where it was
more common for people to upgrade their phones every year or maybe
two. But now more and more people are holding onto their phones much
longer, and that changes the dynamics in all sorts of ways, including
firmware updates and related security issues.

Another aspect of the situation is no matter what software tools are
provided it can still be a confusing mess to migrate from an old phone
to a new one including all the important app data, and of course many
people have their lives utterly disrupted when they get locked out of
their smartphones or they're lost or stolen.

For many people, smartphones have fallen from the amazing, wonderful
tech category to in some ways the "necessary evil" category of tech,
more like a set of shackles than a wondrous helper. So it's not
surprising that when new smartphones are announced, so many people say
"I'm not falling for it this time". And I agree.with them.

- - -

L

- - -
--Lauren--
Lauren Weinstein
lau...@vortex.com (https://www.vortex.com/lauren)
Lauren's Blog: https://lauren.vortex.com
Mastodon: https://mastodon.laurenweinstein.org/@lauren
Signal: By request on need to know basis
Founder: Network Neutrality Squad: https://www.nnsquad.org
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Co-Founder: People For Internet Responsibility
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