Mobile Phones poised to overtake PCs in 2006

I don't mean to play down the reality that older users aren't being catered to by the mobile industry. The reality is that too many of the older population see mobile devices as phones. That's an inaccurate view of today's devices many of which contain computing power equal to the PCs of only a few years ago.

If you watch teenagers and young 20 somethings, they rarely used their mobile devices for voice calls. The use them differently as they also use the Internet differently than older members of the population.

Equally, many regions of the world are skipping the PC althogether and their only experience of the Internet is and will be from a mobile device. In Africa, for example, it is cheaper and more feasible to deploy wireless towers than to lay cable through the mountains and jungles. There is so much happening in my industry these days that it's hard to stay informed on all the newest developments.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/blogging-social-media )
Feed your mobile jones ( http://www.mobilejones.com )

Grace, there are a number of mobile devices that already come with voice interfaces for dailing numbers, navigating menus and even composing text messages. I anticipate that those will continue to develop and be common place over the next 18 months.

Browsing interfaces are also changing. Rather than try to replicate the PC based browser experience companies like Nokia and others are developing browsers that use zooming or fisheye UIs which also help with amplifying the relevant or "in focus" information from the screen for easier viewing.

Debi Jones
Contributing Editor, Blogging and Social Media ( http://www.blogher.com/topic/blogging-social-media )
Feed your mobile jones ( http://www.mobilejones.com )

Have you seen this ( http://www.popgadget.net/devices/a_cell_phone_wi.p... )??? It's not perfect, obviously, because it doesn't come with "all of the bells and whistles" but it is an improvement for those who have trouble with the small screens and the tiny numbers.

~Denise
Daily Dose of Denise ( http://flamingohouse.blogs.com )

Fascinating and promising - except for one very obvious thing to this 51 year old user:

Even with the best of reading glasses, it's a bitch to read the text on a tiny cell phone/mobile unit screen.

Until presbyopia is cured, I will stick with my laptop monitor.

I'm not being glib here. This is a huge practical issue that is overlooked continuously by product developers. How do you make these technologies useful for the truly aging (50 plus) population?

It's more than just the weeny screen, it's also the key pad on a cell phone. An older person with arthritis in their fingers will not be able to manipulate those little keys for any reason. And a good reason would be for sending out an emergency message/email.

I can only surmise that the "some markets" referenced in your leading paragraph does not include my demographic.

Your thoughts"

Grace Davis State of Grace ( http://gracedavis.typepad.com/ )
BlogHer Blog Contributing Editor
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