So I thought I’d spend a few moments writing about why I am not too interested in a social phone, and basically just bitch and whine about why I am not too happy about having all my phone interactions to be viewed through the lens of facebook.
There are probably 5-10 people I call on a regular basis, I don’t think i’d call more people if my phone was more social, would I post more to facebook ? Would I upload more photos ? Probably not…
Where is the value add for the consumer, I sometimes wonder if companies invent ideas to satisfy there need to do something rather than satisfy a need in the market. My most pressing concern with facebook at this point is that the software is slow. I can’t really go into why it is slow, because the code is not open sourced. But compared to Google+ it is molasses.
I very well don’t want something that is slow / buggy to take over my homescreen. I dislike this concept immensely. (Given that my phone was released approx 2 years ago)
A new idea:
The problem I have with my phone is around the following list. List is not ordered according to any priority.
- Privacy: I don’t know what most apps are doing. As a user you have no clue when an app is gathering data, and when it is being disseminated. I don’t think giving an app blanket permissions for geolocation access is enough, I generally want to know what data it is using and when. I want to be able to analyze this data. (Tough problem to solve)
- Data Segregation: I would like data segregation to happen further up in the app ecosystem so data is stored in an app independent datastore. Apps should share not just activities, but data. Ex: After my run, I would have a copy of the geolocation information on my phone, and have it setup to share that information with Strava / mapmyrun..etc..etc. What I don’t want is for a specific app to gather information, and then surreptitiously pass that information up to their service, and all of a sudden I dont have a copy of my own data. (Tough problem to solve)
- Async: All apps should by default not block. I think spinning wheel = annoying, if the internet is not accessible, highlight that on the device, if there is a queue of events that need to be processed, and something is blocking then highlight that, an let the user make the appropriate choice. (Tough problem to solve)
I really dislike that there is this idea being pushed that for the user having a social phone is a good thing ? When for me it doesn’t solve any of the problems that I actually care about. If my friend is listening to Rhianna on his lunch break, which although interesting and confusing (why would any guy be listening to Rhianna on their lunch break), it unfortunately has a lower priority on my list.
Solving any one of the above problems and then blanketing my phone with navy blue facebook colors is more acceptable, but just giving up all your data without getting anything in return..
That is just silly.
