Mobile phones these days have everything that you could possibly ask for, don’t they? They have broadband Internet connections with virtual Qwerty keyboards. They have advanced cameras. They’re even starting to come with calling plans that are affordable for the daily cell phone user. You might be hard pressed to think of a feature that your phone doesn’t have but which you wish it did.
However, there are definitely features out there that more phones could feasibly have and simply do not. Although some of these are available on the rare phone here and there, most of these are features that are only just beginning to get dreamed up. Here are ten of them that you can start writing letters to the manufacturers to demand that they’re next phone offers:
1. Biodegradable design. More and more people are interested in green mobile phones. They’re starting to crop up on the market in the form of solar power chargers and other green technologies. There’s also been a recent push across the globe to make cell phone recycling easier for consumers. Despite this, phones right now are really bad for the earth. What we need as concerned cell phone users is a mobile phone that has all of the features that we desire but uses a biodegradable design. After all, most people don’t keep their phones that long anyway!
2. Spam blocker. Spam via mobile phone seems to be on the rise. This primarily takes place through SMS and MMS messages. It’s frustrating to have your phone ring with a message only to check it and see that you’ve received spam from someone. This also creates concern about mobile phone viruses. There are software programs available to protect many phones but most don’t have this feature worked into the design of the phone when you buy it. All mobile phones today need to come with spam protection that blocks these messages and keeps your cell phone safe and secure.
3. Wi-Fi Hot Spot Finder. Picture this: you’re driving around in a new location trying to hunt down some free Wi-Fi so that you can take care of something on your laptop. Maybe you want to Google directions somewhere or perhaps you have some work that you need to get done during a business trip. You don’t want to have to turn you laptop on in the car to search for a hot spot because you don’t want to use up your battery. This feature would enable your cell phone to find those spots for you instead.
4. Mute button. Take a look at your average cell phone and you’ll find that it doesn’t likely have a mute button on it. This was a standard feature of the landline phone that got lost along the way. Haven’t you ever been on the phone while out around other people and wanted to mute the person on the phone for a second in order to have a side conversation that they couldn’t hear? There are ways to do this on many phones and you can use a mute button on a number of mobile headsets but it would be nice to see a return to the simple “mute” button in the design of the phone itself.
5. Seamless integration with landlines. Fixed-Mobile Convergence (FMC) technology is currently in development. When it works properly, it would allow you to use one phone that would transition seamlessly between networks. One example of this in action can be seen by taking a look at the UK’s Vodafone connection provided by British Telecom through an ADSL line. However, not many carriers are offering this right now and it’s still in the testing stages. It seems that wireless technology could be altered to improve the ease with which transitioning between landline and wireless networks takes place.
6. The ability to read you a book. People want to read books these days but they don’t want to carry books with them. That’s why Amazon’s Kindle book reader proved to be so popular when it hit the market last year. Although Kindle lets you easily access numerous books, it doesn’t go the extra mile of reading them to you. Your cell phone has the capability of doing that (just think of audio cell phone tours) but it’s rare to see books audio books in this format. It’s something that exists but people aren’t using it because it takes up minutes and battery power. If there was a function on your phone that would let you maintain your battery while being read a book, more people would probably know what was happening on the bestseller lists.
7. Health monitor. There remain people who are highly concerned about the health risks associated with cell phone use (although studies indicating a link between mobile phones and cancer are suspect at best). Perhaps we could give a better reputation to the mobile phone by making it possible to use it as a health monitor. Wireless health monitors exist on the market today so it’s feasible to make this a regular feature of cell phones.
8. Pedometer. If you don’t want to go so far as to measure your entire health, perhaps you wouldn’t mind having your cell phone act as a pedometer for you. It’s good to know how many steps you’ve walked in a day, especially if you’re keeping an eye on fitness. You probably already carry your mobile phone with you everywhere that you go so it wouldn’t be much of a stretch to consider using it for this dual function.
9. Ability to act as ear plugs. We hear a lot about noise reduction on cell phones. However, what it refers to is improved quality and reduction of the background noise where the person you’re speaking to is at. (In other words, someone calls you from a street and the street noise is reduced so that you can hear his voice over the noise.) But wouldn’t it be nice if putting your cell phone to your ear could reduce the noise that’s actually around you. You could just focus on your call and forget the fact that you’re the one standing on a busy street!
10. A battery that lasts. Although there are ways to extend the life of your cell phone battery, the reality is that it’s just not going to last very long. When asked what number one feature they would like improved on their mobile phones, a great number of people will answer that they want a battery that lasts. That means that they want a battery that maintains its high energy level years after the day that the phone was bought. It also means that they want a battery that will last for weeks without needing to be charged. We want to be able to go on vacations and leave our cell phone chargers behind. It’s not a reality with today’s mobile phone technology but maybe someday it will be.
Your mobile phone does a lot of things for you. It certainly does more than you could have possibly imagined on the day that you got your very first mobile phone. However, that doesn’t mean that you should assume that it does everything that it can do. Let your imagination roam with thoughts of what you only wish that your cell phone could do for you. Perhaps you’ll be able to come up with the next big invention!
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One Comment
The biggest thing they are missing is the market for remote controls for TV.
If they added a stronger IR and someone would write some really good app. it would fill a big gap.