back to article Boring. The phone business has lost the plot and Google is making it worse

No, dear reader. You didn't forget to set the alarm, and you haven't just slept through Mobile World Congress. If 2018 feels different, it may be because the phone industry's biggest annual get-together failed to produce any interesting new phones. It's a trend that's been apparent for some time. Apple and Google, the two most …

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  1. Zog_but_not_the_first
    Mushroom

    What chances, then, of anything interesting happening ever again?

    Be careful what you wish for...

  2. Rameses Niblick the Third Kerplunk Kerplunk Whoops Where's My Thribble?

    Stock Android

    I have to confess to being in two minds about stock android. Yes its dull, boring and while not a bad user experience, it's not great either.

    However, the huge plus in its favour: timely and ongoing software updates. The more bespoke the software, the more effort it is for OEMs to put out updates. Delivering with stock or near stock android images for predictable hardware should mean that android updates should appear quickly for these devices.

    Which is nice.

    1. Buzzword

      Re: Stock Android

      Yep. Recall the period from 1995 to 2012, when Windows barely changed. You could learn Windows NT 4 (released back in 1996), fall into a coma for a decade and a half, and come back to find the Windows 7 desktop experience almost exactly the same. Same for Microsoft Office, right up until that bloody ribbon. Users didn't have to re-learn everything every two years. Given how much crap we've suffered in Win8/10, I'd love to have that stability back.

      1. Zippy's Sausage Factory
        Windows

        Re: Stock Android

        Recall the period from 1995 to 2012, when Windows barely changed. You could learn Windows NT 4 (released back in 1996), fall into a coma for a decade and a half, and come back to find the Windows 7 desktop experience almost exactly the same. Same for Microsoft Office, right up until that bloody ribbon.

        Mmm... NT 4 with Office 97. Now I have a warm and cosy nostalgic feeling.

        That's a Virtual Box I need to make for myself, I think...

        1. chivo243 Silver badge

          Re: Stock Android

          @Zippy

          In a moment of nostalgia, I recently spun up a Win2000 desktop and a Win2000 advanced server. Couldn't find an AV for them though, or a browser that works on the web today...

          Took a whole 5 minutes to install! I say go for it!

          1. kryptylomese

            Re: Stock Android

            I think Immunet AV will work with Win2000 but I have not tested it:-

            http://www.immunet.com/index

      2. Steve the Cynic

        Re: Stock Android

        Same for Microsoft Office, right up until that bloody ribbon.

        You must have been using a different series of Microsoft Office releases to the one I used. Interesting things changed position on the menus Every Single Release, even before the Ribbon showed up.

        (Who else remembers when "Page Setup" was on the "Format" menu where it belongs?)

        1. Terry 6 Silver badge

          Re: Stock Android

          If I remember correctly, preRibbon, you could at least move menu items around. To have a customised/simplified menu in the Ribbonised Office you have to create a new menu with all the bits you want and then hide the original . Which usually implies creating 2 new menus, since you need another one for any of the bits you wanted to keep in the original location. Oh and BTW, the bits of the Ribbon are really just fancy menu items, even though they are named "short cuts" ( presumably because like most shortcuts they mean leaving a logical straight route and getting lost in the middle of nowhere).

    2. big_D Silver badge

      Re: Stock Android

      I'd rather a boring phone that is updated with the latest security patches than an "exciting" phone, where part of the excitement is wondering if it will catch a cold when I visit the next website or receive an SMS...

    3. Tim Seventh

      Re: Stock Android

      I have to confess to being in two minds about stock android. Yes its dull, boring and while not a bad user experience, it's not great either.

      For android, all you need is to download is a custom home launcher app in the play store to instantly make it exciting. Just in case you didn't know, most non-stock android just simply adds their own customized home launcher to change how you feel about their android device. So stock android can easily be changed to look similar to non-stock android.

      Taking from another perspective, what really separates a stock android and a non-stock android is the amount of bloat placed by the manufacture. Stock android (google stock version) will have little to no bloat apps with only google apps, while non-stock android almost always have bloat apps from the manufacture. When bloat apps eats your data, your battery and phoning home which you can't disable by default (without rooting or custom rom), that's a point given to stock android especially when users complain about the slowness of bloated non-stock devices.

    4. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Stock Android

      Stock Android is a bloat free blank canvas for you to install and setup your phone as YOU wish, free of duplicated apps, social media platforms you don't use, and sponsored installs.

      All of these things are reasons why I would never buy a Samsung phone and stick to buying google or very close to stock.

      1. DropBear

        Re: Stock Android

        Well no, not really. A "bloat free blank canvas" would be a Stock Android WITHOUT any Google apps. Which by the way is obtainable for sure, but it's NOT what we're talking about here.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Stock Android

          Its called AOSP. On a pixel, Don't sign into with a Google account and all the Google apps can be disabled and disappear before your eyes. However be prepared for a pretty pointless experience....

    5. Oh Homer
      Linux

      Android Go

      Would I be hoping for too much that one day this "Puppy Linux" of the Android world might be made available for older handsets, to extend their useful life by another decade or so?

      My most recent handset is an SGS4. My "alarm clock" is an SGS1.

  3. hashkey

    We've had the guts of ten years of OEMs bringing their own flavour to Android and what do we have to show for it? The worst thing about Android is the control OEMs have over the system (and its updates).

    I'll be delighted if, as I expect, Nokia's sales continue to impress, other OEMs realise that they have nothing to add to add to the software experience, and jump on board.

    I agree that this could be a tipping point for Android One, but I'd argue that that's A Good Thing.

    1. Dan 55 Silver badge

      The worst thing about Android is the control OEMs have over the system (and its updates).

      No, the worst thing about Android is it's difficult to update if it's been customised. This year OEMs resolved that problem by not customising it, when it really fell to Google to fix that problem. Is it so difficult for Google to separate the skin and a few custom apps from the OS? (Another thing that Symbian did years ago and Android still doesn't do.)

      So here we are, Android is free and good enough to make cheap Chinese phones work, thus delivering a mortal blow to the manufacturers of yesteryear. They can't differentiate themselves software-wise because Android is clunky and can't be kept up to date if they do, they can't hardware-wise because that's expensive against rock-bottom white-label Chinese phones. The only target market that works is selling too-expensive phones to the idiots who buy them, low and mid range are dead. Google stands atop the hill surveying the ruins all around and pocketing the advertising commission.

      1. xanda
        FAIL

        Mind the gap - in the market...

        The only target market that works is selling too-expensive phones to the idiots who buy them, low and mid range are dead.

        It does seem a bit odd, and sad even, that choice is distinctly lacking. Nobody is providing a stable, value alternative in this sector of the market - at least not in mature western markets. Plus it seems that the old maxim of 'you get what you pay for' just doesn't apply in the mobile market - as attested to by the build quality of the many premium phones we've repaired.

        Personally we have never been comfortable forking out serious cash for a phone and have always been content with less (it's sometimes more apparently). Almost always our experience has been that friends and colleagues who rave about their expensive new shiny find themselves quickly relegating all the fancy stuff (camera included) in favour of more mundane requirements.

        Just how difficult can it be to produce a reasonably priced, modest spec'd mobile and still make a decent profit? Wileyfox seemed to be onto something until the bankers pulled the rug.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Mind the gap - in the market...

          > Just how difficult can it be to produce a reasonably priced, modest spec'd mobile and still make a decent profit?

          Very difficult, if lots of other people are trying to do the same. That's economics.

        2. DropBear
          Facepalm

          Re: Mind the gap - in the market...

          The old maxim of 'you get what you pay for' ...was never, ever true. Not even approximately. What IS true instead is that most of the time, certain premium features or level of quality requires a certain minimum price under which you can't get it, because it's not feasible to produce for less than that. Any assumption that you actually get any of that beyond the baseline features and quality whenever you pay more than the baseline price is entirely baseless, any extra you pay going straight into the pockets of the seller being infinitely more likely. Which is not to say you NEVER get anything for paying a premium price, only that you really, really, really shouldn't simply assume that you do, without some cold hard proof. Because most of the time, you're just paying for an illusion.

          1. Terry 6 Silver badge

            Re: Mind the gap - in the market...

            Well yes. Or at least, just because you pay a lot more doesn't mean you get a lot more or a " more" of stuff that you actually want. Maybe you pay a lot more for a little more. Or a little more good stuff and a lot of junk to make the premium price seem justified.

            The best example is with some car manufacturers. For one such example, three or four years back when we wanted to buy a Honda Jazz the only model with a proper built-in satnav system also came with a bundle of crappy useless things like flashy silvery door ledges and god knows what else, bumping the price up well past the value of the satnav we'd actually wanted. The main problem being that these weren't a grade-up of extras, they were useless flash.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        the worst thing about Android is it's difficult to update if it's been customised.

        Android can be customised a lot through published APIs without touching the original code-base. This problem is entirely created by lazy and/or incompetent developers demolishing the core system instead of creating extensions. Developers working for Samsung and other manufacturers explain that headless ad-hoc-modifications have turned what should be a few minutes of bugfix-merging from Google's code-base into man-years of labour. It should have been easy to set up development and distribution infrastructure such that it would take less than 40 hrs for critical fixes to trickle from Google's codebase via manufacturers to the end-users. Instead we're talking months.

        There are, and have been alternatives, but those alternatives are barely mentioned. Tech media has largely been reduced to a bunch of ad/click-whores. 99% of what they call product reviews are shameless ads and/or product demos. Nobody is representing the consumer anymore. Consumers would probably have chosen differently had they been informed by someone with the guts to explain how they are being screwed over by the industry.

  4. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Phone design

    If we have flexible screens then why not incorporate a phone in a glove? Mic in the thumb, speaker in the first finger and screen on the palm. Could be quite handy.

    1. Vulch

      Re: Phone design

      That layout twists the wrist uncomfortably, better off with speaker on the thumb and mic on the little finger.

      1. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

        Re: Phone design

        And a hard reset will be a kick in the crotch...

      2. israel_hands

        Re: Phone design

        I've already got a pair of gloves like that. Woolly gloves with Bluetooth connections, mic in the little finger and speaker in the thumb.

        I can confirm that you look like an absolute legend when using them.

        I think the reason the phones seem "boring" is because there is actually an ideal form factor for them, based on current tech limits. And as others have said, from a phone OS I want stable boring and resilient. Bells and whistles are more likely to cause problems and introduce flaws. It's bad enough when you buy a new PC and have to strip out all of the OEM cruft that they use to bloat it out and (in my experience) slow it down while adding useless bullshit. The difference being that unless you root the phone, you mostly can't delete the bloatware.

        1. Dave 126 Silver badge

          Re: Phone design

          Yep. The current constraints on a phone are:

          -Size of pockets

          -Size of users hands

          -Acuity of users eyesight

          -The tasks the phone is out to.

          1. Aitor 1

            Re: Phone design

            The main issues as I see the problem are:

            1. Support. today phones are use and throw away. They should point the target towards a car sales type of market, and make most of the money from spares, etc. Just put a validation chip/code in batteries, screens, etc.

            2.Wireless desktop. If they provided a wireless desktop/connected to a standard "brainless laptop" you would use the same electronics everywhere, same os. That would encourage ppl to buy more expensive phones, and then mantain them with batteries that have to be bought from the official shop, also the only one that can reseal the unit, etc. Just look and jhon deere and their "DRM everywhere except the oil, and give us time".

    2. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phone design

      AC suggested, "...why not incorporate a phone in a glove?"

      It's been tried. A company with some experience in embedding devices (such as guns) into gloves was hired to complete the design. A prototype was built. When the test engineer went to answer his prototype Glovephone, he got mixed-up left and right and accidentally shot himself in the head with his Glovegun. It was tragic.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Phone design

        Back when phones were just phones a glovephone might have had a market. But you give up all the things that make a smartphone a smartphone if you put it into a glove. Unless you think you are going to hold your hand flat and be able to read a website on it...

  5. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Form factors

    Why oh why are the only decently-specced phones one can buy in the large, thin, fragile phablet form factor ?

    I DON'T CARE HOW THIN MY PHONE IS.

    I had a Treo smartphone 13 years ago that I kept in my back pocket, that took crushing and falls and never broke.

    Because it was small and thick and sturdy.

    WHY can't I buy one like that now ?!

    1. AMBxx Silver badge
      Thumb Up

      Re: Form factors

      There are some tougher phones about. Bullitt make them and there's someone else whose name I can't remember too.

      Mostly branded as Land Rover, JCB etc. IP68 and big batteries.

      If my BB dies, I'm tempted with one of the Land Rover phones, but worried about looking like a poser (I drive a Defender).

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Form factors

        @AMBxx

        The rugged phones I have seen are all too big for me and my back jeans pocket.

        I don't need a 5" screen, 4" or less is fine for my needs and smaller = less bending moment = tougher.

        If there's a tough, thick, 4" screen, decently-specced phone out there, I'm interested !

      2. Joe Werner Silver badge

        Re: Form factors

        > There are some tougher phones about. Bullitt make them and there's someone else whose name I can't remember too.

        Interesting! I once (waaay back) had a Siemens phone (actually... I think three, over several years). They were the ruggedised version, and did survive a lot of abuse. One of my best mates also had phones form that series. His partner threw the phone through the living room at the wall once because she was upset (about the phone call, not my friend). I think the lid of the battery compartment came off, but everything continued to work. My phone fell onto the floor in our lab several times (stone floor).

        Are these bullitt phones also relatively small? Then this would be a good option for the next one.

        1. DropBear

          Re: Form factors

          It's not whinging. Phones really are mind-bogglingly f###ing boring in a bad way these days; it's just that I don't want my "freshness" as one more stomach-churning OS/UI revolution (boring is good there) but rather as some variety in hardware. There are a number of ways to do that without necessarily turning everything we LIKE about our phones upside down, from the dual-screen Yotaphone through larger battery options all the way to various extra keys, from a few (Nokia Xpressmusic) to full fold-out/slide-out qwerty's, and that's just a few ideas. I really miss the full-on batshit insanity of the likes of the Nokia E70 and the Motorola Aura. Unless the industry shows me something on that level, they have a reeeeeeeeealy long wait ahead of them before I even think of getting a new phone...

      3. This post has been deleted by its author

    2. Anonymous South African Coward Bronze badge

      Re: Form factors

      Same here.

      I don't care how thin it is. I want a sturdy phone with a big battery, it doesn't matter if it is Nokia Communicator sized.

      And put a proper layer of glass on it (which doesn't crack at the first drop), or give us a slide-out QWERTY (like the LG Chatterbox) but with a decent-sized screen.

      Fancy doodahs like a fancy posh camera adds nothing to the phone. And fingerprint sensor? Pfft. Don't have need for such gimmicks.

      1. Edwin

        Re: Form factors

        Next year's HMD nostalgic relaunch - the Nokia E7? Or maybe one of the 9xxx series? Shall we do a poll?

        1. ScissorHands

          Re: Form factors

          I only care if Nokia re-releases the N9. With Sailfish and the original UI.

      2. Franco

        Re: Form factors

        "or give us a slide-out QWERTY (like the LG Chatterbox) but with a decent-sized screen."

        Amen brother. Give me a device like my much loved HTC Touch Pro running the latest version of stock Android. I'd have preferred Windows 10 Mobile, but that's a lost cause now

    3. davemcwish

      Re: Form factors

      Try Caterpillar. They have a range from £50 feature phone to this years all singing and dancing £800+ s61.

      Also this retailer. (No affiliation)

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Form factors

        @davemcwish

        Thanks, but as I mentioned, I want a SMALL sturdy phone that fits safely in my back pocket.

        Size comparison here:

        https://www.phonearena.com/phones/size#/phones/size/CAT-S31,Palm-Treo-800w/phones/10654,2912

    4. Headley_Grange Silver badge

      I DON'T CARE HOW THIN MY PHONE IS.

      This - 1000x.

      The whinging Reg headline is just what's wrong with this market. Fake consumer pressure on tech companies to come up with massive "innovation" every year is why I've got a £700 upgrade phone that's a crap phone, with <10hours battery life that's too big to fit in most of my pockets sitting unused in a drawer somewhere and, more importantly, why next year's products will be even crapper. It's less emperor's new clothes and more that the emperor is a c**t.

      Hopefully my stock of SEs will last me until I retire and then I can get by with just the big button phone that I take to the pub.

      1. Steve Jackson

        Re: I DON'T CARE HOW THIN MY PHONE IS.

        Yeah, that's why I have an SE too.

    5. tychosoft

      Re: Form factors

      Indeed, even a just somewhat thicker/heavier phone with the extra space used for a better battery life seems a win-win to me, too. Of course I also do remember a period when lead slugs were put into telephone handsets because they felt much "cheaper"/"flimsier" to people once the old carbon mike and classic speaker was replaced.

      1. Dave 126 Silver badge

        Re: Form factors

        > And put a proper layer of glass on it (which doesn't crack at the first drop)

        Tell the Materials Engineers to pull their thumb out then... what you want doesn't exist. If you have a hard thing with no give, the forces acting on a very small area get very large.

        Motorola's tough phone, the Defy, uses a polymer screen - but being polymer it is more susceptible to scratches.

        You might consider a toughened glass screen protector - a brief trawl through forums suggest that most of the time when a drop results in a shattered screen protector the underlying glass screen (the expensive bit) is just fine.

        You can if course use plastic film protectors over a glass screen. The physics is such that even the small amount of extra area over which they spread forces goes a long way to protect a glass screen. Of course they may need replacing periodically as they pick up scratches.

        All engineering is compromise.

        1. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Form factors

          "You can if course use plastic film protectors over a glass screen. The physics is such that even the small amount of extra area over which they spread forces goes a long way to protect a glass screen."

          That's actually how the glass protectors work, as they have a thin polymer layer between them and the actual screen. Force on the outer glass is spread over an area and the polymer handles a little deflection, protecting the inner screen. See also laminated windscreens.

          The great thing about the glass protector is that it's like a laminated windscreen where you can take off the chipped outer and put on a new one, without having to replace the whole screen.

          1. Destroy All Monsters Silver badge
            Windows

            Re: Form factors

            My trusty Nokia Asha cheapophone has met concrete floors more often than I can remember and is still fully functional. Battery is good enough for a whole week. Plus you have a real keyboard. Camera is just good enough to document traffic accidents though and the filesystem has a bug as undeletable files of 0 size have been accumulating over the years.

            I could do without the "Facebook Button" retardation (one button to reach max stupidity?) and the interface, though simple, seems to have been designed by someone who used to be a co-designer of Colossal Cave Adventure in his youth. It would be excellent if one could just redesign it, if need be in Microsoft Basic.

            The only problem is that women relentlessly make fun of me for having such a crap retro phone. OTOH, my age makes me more than impervious against such criticisms.

            Oh well: MC Solaar - Victime de la mode

            1. Updraft102

              Re: Form factors

              The only problem is that women relentlessly make fun of me for having such a crap retro phone.

              Best defense is a strong offense. Make light of any one of them for being a bleating, fondleslab addicted sheep first. The ones that aren't actually bleating, fondleslab addicted sheep aren't the ones that would make fun of you for having a phone that doesn't meet their standards. For the rest of us, it's just a phone, not a status symbol.

    6. Loud Speaker

      Re: Form factors

      I used to have a phone with a decent screen form-factor, replaceable SD cards and battery.

      Ohl, I still use it, because the new stuff has not got any of the essential features.

      Phone manufactures are in a foot shooting competition, and they are all winning!

  6. DenTheMan

    All we now need is the Polo.

    Rather than having a notch, why not bring out a Polo mint like phone with the camera dead centre.

    Oh the innovation in me.

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