Phone/PMP Manufacturers Need To Step Up. (*Rant Ahead*)

With the announcement of the SmartQ MID useing the same CPU as the M8 and coming in at $130 China price it got me thinking about the state of the cell phone/pmp markets.

How is it that Apple can build a device running off an underclocked now pretty dated ARM cpu running at 412mhz, and 2 years after it's conception there is still no touch screen cell phone or pmp on the market with a UI that remotely comes close to the user experience of the iphone? I mean what have all these manufacturers been doing? scrtching their a**es?

Lets face it....the only real contender is the Palm Pre and possibly the M8 if the iron out the plethora of Fw issues which unfortunately were always going to be inevitable and at this time seems highly unlikely, not to mention the fact that the UI is esentially copied and does show shades of innovation but has yet to be developed properly.

The thing is it is not a matter of cpu power or money.....it is a matter of design. Now I know often fan boys like to kiss Apples a** and fail to acknowledge their short comings but the fact remains....no one has built a touch screen cell phone/pmp/convergeance device OS to rival theirs. My mum just brought an LG renoir today. A nice feature set, great camera blah blah blah and.......and also...a piece of s**t of an interface. Unresponsive touchscreen, confusing convoluted menus, ugly logos, laggy OS etc etc. What are these jokers playing at? I mean really? It looks like an 8 year old designed it.

Lets look at other maufacturers. Samsung...again looks like an 8 year old made their logos, horrible resistive panels, average performance although again their hardware is nice. Windows mobile...hahaha i'm not even gonna comment on that. Android? please.....ugly, boring, no video player!!!!!!! (only available through 3rd party apps). Nokia/sony ericsson(Symbian s60)....ugly, convoluted, laggy. Although I think SE are probably the best of this terrible bunch.

Then the Pmp market. Cowon....Great players, great sound, average uninspired interfaces. Archos, nice hardware...boring interface. Sony...great sounding players....to much beuracracy to support common formats (flac? Ogg? divx?, ugly icons, boring unispired interfaces. Iriver...underspeced machines, average interfaces. The list goes on and on and on....

The fact remains that if these jokers continue pumping this type of junk onto the market Apple will always win...period. What ever anyone says, Apple jumped into the cell phone market and in 2 years have become the bench mark by which everything else is measured. You go to the big carriers websites here in the UK and they have a bl**dy section called 'Iphone alternatives'. Even the pmp game aswell. I mean the interface of every single 'connected' touch screen pmp/dap around simply looks like a joke next to the ipod touch and usability wise can also not compare. Its a sad sad fact, design/aesthetics/useability is to put it simply evrything in this market. I don't buy the fact that just because apple has an enormous music ecosystem and lots of advertising as the reason they are so much more succesful. It plays a role but is not everything.

People are superficial, you bring a device to the market that blows all your senses aurally, visually, aesthetically, functionally etc etc you could still be very succesful.

If SmartQ can bring an ARM 11 powered MID with an 800x480 capacitive display to the market for $130, and u consider the kind of budgets most major dap/pmp/phone manufacturers have then you have to ask where is the vision or innovation in these companies? because its certainly not a matter of profit margins or R&D budgets. They could easily bring/have brought this kind of spec too and developed some incredible interface and still brought it in cheap.

Thank god for Palm is what I say. They had been known for their innovation in the PDA sector during the 90's/early 2000's and unfortunately lost their way. However they completely re-assesed what they were doing, started again and have built from the ground up. They seem with the Pre to be one of the only genuine innovators in the game along with Apple who have actually considered the way in which people are going to use interact with their devices instead of just sticking a load of Mp's on their cameras and hope for the best.

Great post.