I think I wrote the shortest post in “DomainingTips history” yesterday and the main reason was that, you guessed it: I wrote it on my smartphone. As much as I love you guys, I love my sanity more, so there’s no way I’m writing a long post on my smartphone. Today, I’ll elaborate a bit and explain why smartphones are (in my opinion, of course), utterly useless when it comes to real work.
First of all, writing reasonably long blocks of text on a smartphone is extremely annoying. I for one am not even a fan of laptop keyboards, which is why I use an “old school” keyboard even when traveling. Ok, I guess I could get used to laptop keyboards but when it comes to smartphone ones, no way Jose!
Next, doing anything even remotely complex takes ages. For example, let’s assume an end user contacts you and, naturally, you want to do a bit of research. On a laptop, doing this is a piece of cake but on a smartphone, it’s orders of magnitude harder. If we’re talking about reading your email or short answers then sure, smartphones are extremely useful but anything a bit more complicated than that and we’re in “deal breaker” territory.
As some of you know, I’m in the process of writing a book, so let’s not even go there. Talking about doing something as complex as writing a book via smartphones is pointless. Again, let’s not even go there.
When it comes to reading, things aren’t as dramatic but still, how could you possibly compare a tiny smartphone screen to a computer screen? Or a nice dual monitor setup? Let’s face it: yes, your reading experience can be reasonably good on a smartphone but there’s quite a bit of room for improvement to put it mildly.
Am I saying smartphones are awful?
Of course not.
As mentioned previously, they’re great for simple tasks like reading emails, basic Internet browsing and so on. But if there’s *real* work that needs to be done, they’re a joke. Plain and simple.
July 21st, 2014 at 4:01 pm
My 57 year old eyes and fat fingers agree with you whole heartedly.
July 21st, 2014 at 5:47 pm
Absolutely right. I always do research for every endusers on my laptop because doing on smartphone is not an easy task. Even for other stuff which are a little complicated, smartphones aren’t the best option.
July 21st, 2014 at 6:57 pm
I agree for the part about getting real work done, but 90% of what I do can be done on a smartphone, and I save the rest for when I am at my PC. Part of using a smartphone correctly is having the right apps, like to read attachments and access files remotely.
Also, I like reading on my iPhone and have no problem with the small screen (I don’t even turn the phone sideways to landscape mode). And, I like surfing the web on my phone because I don’t have worry about annoying popups, malware/viruses/spyware, half loaded pages due to javascript errors, and having to reboot my PC due to Windows crashing. Yes, a MAC would solve those problems also, but I am a PC user for the past 30 years and don’t want to switch.
July 22nd, 2014 at 1:24 am
I’ve never ever used a smartphone. Still believe that a digital camera is better than a cellphone camera and definitely agree that these little phones are utterly useless for real work in our industry. A desktop computer is way better than a smartphone or tablet. No arguing this one. The main reason smartphones are used so much is because of the fact that it can be carried around with you 24×7. That’s a huge advantage for aimless surfing, checking emails, browsing news, playing games, listening to music, taking selfies, etc. but that’s about it. Desktops rule.
July 22nd, 2014 at 5:38 am
@Eric, have you looked at using only a Windows tablet (say 8″) together with a docking station to turn it into a desktop machine? I”d like to know other folks’ experience as this is the direction I’m taking.
July 22nd, 2014 at 8:44 am
@Kassey – I have an iPad but never use it. I would rather just use my iPhone, since I always have it with me, and then my PC when I am in my office (I have a home office). Yes, while traveling a docking station or portable keyboard looks like a good solution.