I can't type or flush

Well this is nice - recognition by the techies of the need for things to just work. Normobs, normal mobile users, can at last get the benefits of a smartphone with something that has a user interface simple enough to do it all for them...like choosing between connectivity options; 3G or WiFi? I don't care, I just want it to work.

Of course I'm talking about the iPhone with it's out of the box experience. And as much as it pains me to say it, that user interface is simplicity at its best. Anything that just works gets my vote.

But why won't I ever own an iPhone? Apart from this odd thing I do where I don't want to own the obvious choice, it comes down to fingernails.

Don't get me wrong - I don't have big talons, but my nails do grow very quickly, and they're very tough. I'm a real stereotype from a Boots advert, I love make-up, especially nail varnish. Heck, as mama used to say, if you've got it flaunt it.

But those wretched touchscreens won't respond to the touch of a finger nail, and in the effort of getting the pad of my finger on the screen I'm typing gibberish! I'm a teeny tiny keyboard kinda gal, but I need the buttons, or a touchscreen that responds to nail lacquer.

Mind you, I also have problems with those button toilet flushes, so maybe it's just me?

More back slapping please

My buddy over at MobileIP just intellectualized my rant about Femtocells in his post which talks about the hype at Mobile World Congress - the largest telecoms love-in that happened last week in Barcelona - vs the reality (i.e. not just what Jim in marketing and Jean in accounts think, but what average Joe thinks and wants).

He's cleverer than me, so I must be right! *W00T*

Does anyone fix broken gadgets anymore?

My mum's TV has broken. It's about a 10 year old CRT, and it's served her well. But then something went kaput. She lives in west Wales, where they still have handy men who fix things for a fiver (this guy once fixed the broken play button on my cassette player when I was 15 - my hero). So she took it to him, who said "leave it with me, I'll get it fixed."

But can he can't get the part. No one has a part that would fit. So he can't fix the TV. So she has to buy a new one - spending £300.

Suddenly I feel nostalgic for the days when we used to fix stuff. Who has £300 floating around to buy a new TV? She could get one for less, if she used binoculars to view it.

Don't get me wrong - I love buying new shiny toys, but only when I chose to. And hell...a television is a necessity. She has no choice - she has to buy one. With the rate at which consumer technology is progressing, it won't be long before we can consider a product that is two years old obsolete, resigned to the recycling pile because you can't get the components to fix it anymore. I hope not. I want to chose to buy, not be forced into it.

More living room clutter

Here's my plea: stop making yet more boxes that clutter up my living room.

In the days of carbon neutrality and sustainability goals, why are companies finding yet more boxes to manufacture that merely serve to gather dust in the corner of my living room?

I'm talking specifically about Femtocells, but this plea is applicable to lots of one-trick gadgets out there. I don't get it. My WiFi router can do the same thing, all the operator needs to do is put a bit of magic in the mobile network and the handset then me, the lowly little consumer, gets the improved indoor coverage as promised by a Femtocell, but doesn't have to add to the clutter of the living room.

I've always thought this - it's just another piece of pricey equipment for operators to subsidize in order to solve a network issue they caused because they didn't think things through in the first place. But most people who have a 3G phone contract have a wireless network at home. Dunno about you, but I'm seeing a pattern here.

Yet while equipment manufacturers are still touting Femtocells the lowly consumer is never asked what would actually fit best with their lives. It's a common problem where that focus group of one thinks it knows what average Joe wants; when people so caught up in their own industries really think they understand the general consumer. Please, ask us first what we'd prefer before cluttering our lives with these one trick pony gadgets.

Social networking sites cause cancer

Dr Aric Sigman isn't getting enough air time anymore so has resorted to telling us that by reducing the levels of face to face contact we're having, social networking sites cause cancer.

Well hold the front page of the Daily Mail and cancel my Facebook account! Oh hang on...not sure I can delete my Facebook profile anymore! Damn those privacy rules, they're giving me cancer!

After a lot of drivel about Dr Sigman's scientific* claims, we're then told that research suggests that the number of hours people spent interacting face-to-face had fallen dramatically since 1987 as electronic media use had increased.

Riiiiiight. So since Facebook is 5 years old, that all adds up. It has nothing to do with working longer hours, commuting longer distances, living further away from loved ones, the growth of mobile telephony and text messaging? To name but a few things that have increased since 1987 and might effect the amount of time you spend meeting people face-to-face.

I probably ought to take this blog down before I get a tumour.

*scientifically proven to grab headlines

A powerful dream

Clearly I have a bug bear about power cables and how they tend to be 'per device' even within the same brand. How often do I hear the office cry:

"Does anyone have a Nokia charger?"
"Is it the big one or small one?"

Invariably the only one to hand is not compatible.

So to my delight I see news this week that the world's biggest mobile phone makers and network operators are backing plans for a universal phone recharger.

One of the companies backing this scheme is quoted in the BBC's report as saying: "By supporting this industry initiative on common charging solutions, and enabling consumers to choose if they need a charger with every new device or can re-use existing ones, we can contribute further in improving the industry's environmental footprint."

Bollocks to that!

What it means is that I can use my husbands phone charger at home, and keep mine in the office. I can use my mums when I go and visit her - the flexibility is endless.

I have a dream, a dream of a universal-recharger utopia, where all hotels can have chargers in rooms, so you never have to fill a separate suitcase with the endless plugs and adaptors you need for a short weekend break away.

Bliss.

Stuck for a gift this Valentine's Day?

Just call me Long Distance Clara, because I love driving! But I hate bickering with my husband about how I drive. He's learnt to back off a bit and let me speed if I so choose.

Then we got a SatNav, which meant I argued with that rather than my hubby when it came to route disagreements (because I know best).

Now herald the Eco SatNav from Vexia. Much like my other half, it'll moan when I abuse the accelerator and flashes an onscreen warning that I need to change gear (well... Mr. IsThisThingSwitchedOn doesn't flash an onscreen warning - but you catch my drift).

I have a feeling that would grate after a while. I get annoyed enough with English Daniel on my Garmin NuVi telling me forcefully to "turn left on Broadway" when there's no left to be seen. I think my road rage would get out of control if he started giving me other driving tips.

But at least the other half and I don't fight anymore, it's poor English Daniel who gets it in the neck instead.

SatNavs - probably the best Valentine's gift.

Don't judge an eReader by its cover

Because if it looks like Amazon's new Kindle 2, you'll be begging for it to launch over here.

Sleek and stylish with text to speech and MP3 capabilities, it's a gadget-lover's dream. But will it replace books?

The amount of times I've dropped my book in the bath/splurged suncream all over it/trodden on it because I slung it on the floor next to my bed before going to sleep means the reality of owning an eReader will be a short lived investment of a product I am destined to break.

There seem to be endless headlines about the death of the book, and so much debate about the future of reading and whether eReaders will replace books as we know them. Maybe I've been drinking too much of the Blurb coolaid, but I just don't see the book dying. Publishing models will change, that seems a certainty. But will the book die? No.

Apart from all my reasons above, we're human and we have this odd thing we do where we collect and hoard stuff. I'm a film fan. I have a massive movie collection, half of which is on VHS. I can digitise it, but I also want to keep the originals.

It's the same with music. I will always buy the CD of the band or album I really love, because I want to own the original.

We're funny creatures, we want the latest and greatest but also get very sentimental about 'things'. The members of Bookcrossing can't just give a book to a secondhand shop, they have to track its journey.

So we'll buy the new Kindle, it'll be fun for a while, but the battery will run out 2 hours before my plane lands just as I get to a crucial part in the story. And I won't be able to bend the cover over backwards and read it with suncream soaked hands whilst dangling my feet in the pool. So I'll lose interest, and it will be resigned to the man drawer of the house.

Did you hear the one about Sony's new "stupid box thing"?

Ever watched The Onion?

Check out this video about Sony's new "stupid piece of shit that doesn't do the goddamn thing its f*!king supposed to."

Viewers may be offended, but this is a joke...so get a sense of humour or switch off and get over it.














Enjoy.

Fancy a Gamble?

The Luminox Lxdfi4030 Digital Photo Scanner, described by one unhappy customer as "not a scanner, more of a webcam in a box." (see the review at the bottom of that link to its Amazon page.)

When products break, you get them fixed. But what happens when they're just useless? Isn't there some sort of trade description act? Or do we just write it off as wasted money? In most cases I do the latter, because in most cases it does do what it says it would do, it just does it badly.

You can do as much background research as you like with the information available about that product, but without that independent third party - whether that's from a friend or a product review - you can never really be sure of what you're buying. You can even be reasonably sure that a sales assistant in a reputable store won't sell you a heap of crap - sure, they may not sell you the best product for your needs, but it's unlikely to be a total dud.

In this Amazon review, the guy states "a good hint of if a product is good is that you'll have press reviews. I see none."

He's right. I've spoken to enough review editors to know that they will rarely even include a total dud product in a round-up. So if a product even has a review, it got past the first hurdle. Of course there is also an element of PR people pulling in favours, but we can't turn water into wine and a reviewer won't lie - for starters, just think of the complaint letters from readers.

So the Luminox does copy an image: "it is like a webcam in a shell that has a window at the far end of the box, this allows light in. You then put your photo in the frame and 'scan' it in." It just also happens to be "unreliable and probably the poorest image type product on the market today."

So that's £80 down the drain.

At least he remains undefeated, and has found a use for his Luminox, deciding to "convert it into a litter tray for small cats."

Let that be a lesson to us all - never buy a new toy without reading a review first.

As for how these products ever make it to market...well that's a post for another time.

Out in the Cold

OK, so this has nothing to do with technology, but it's a perfect example of just how hard it can be to return faulty goods.

Last weekend a friend of mine went into a thrift shop and bought a pair of gloves. Four hours later, one of the fingers fell off. The gloves only cost £3, but lasting only four hours the cost-per-wear was significantly higher than a £30-£40 pair of leather gloves, which would see you through several seasons.

Rather than wave goodbye to his £3, my friend decided he should go back and swap the gloves. He walked in and said, "Hi! Do you remember me from this morning?" (Wisely he planned to get the shop assistant early so there would be no backing out of this...) Yes, the assistant did recognise him. And we're off the starting blocks....



Customer: "Great - I bought a pair of gloves from you this morning...and the finger has fallen off the left hand" *holds up hand wearing the glove with one finger uncovered*

Shop Assistant: "Oh. That doesn't usually happen."

Customer: "No, I didn't think it did. Could I swap them?"

Shop Assistant: *sounds bemused* "Well...that doesn't usually happen."

Customer: "Quite. So can I swap them?"

*silence*

Customer: "I bought them from you four hours ago and the finger has fallen off...can I swap them?"

Shop Assistant: "Well, not really...that doesn't usually happen."

Customer: "OK, it doesn't usually happen, but that's kind of irrelevant as it has happened. So can I swap them?"

*silence*

Customer: "You sold them to me four hours ago and the finger has fallen off, I'd like to swap them please."

Shop Assistant: "OK, listen...this time, I'll do you a favour..."


Sound familiar? We've all struggled to legitimately return faulty goods. I understand that some folks out there are not that honest and retailers need to protect themselves, but similarly they need to drive repeat business.

You buy a DVD player (for example), set it up, all is dandy, then 3 weeks later it's skipping. Something's gone wrong and you need to return it. It's still within the retailers 28 day refund time, so that should be your first port of call. But it's never that simple; do you have a) the original packaging, b) the receipt, c) own your own home and d) your postal addresses going back 10 years.

On the off chance that you do actually have all of the above, you take it back, only to be met by someone who patronisingly says, "Oh yeah, we get that all the time with this model, you really should have bought this one."

Thanks for the insight.

Who's Got The Power?

Opening my shiny new Zen Vision:M, touching its sleek black keys with their beautiful blue back-light, I loaded it up with EVERYTHING. I use it to back up all my photo's, videos as well as a music player. And I love it. I've had it for ages and I've never had one hitch, it works like a dream. Does exactly what I want it to do and is tough enough to take on the rest of my handbag's contents.

My only complaint? I couldn't charge it unless I connected it to my PC. That makes it useless for travelling unless I take my laptop. Quite an oversight when selling a portable device like that. My phone managed it well, not only did it have a power adaptor in the box...it was a travel adaptor. Blimey...someone was thinking when they boxed that product. Anyway, I ended up forking out for a separate power adaptor kit because, guess what, the power adaptor of my husbands old Zen Micro wasn't compatible.

So why not sell a product with the whole kit and kaboodle? And why not make power adaptor's compatible from one device from the next?

To make a product appealing, manufacturers will do everything they can to get it to a certain price point - the under £100, under £200 and under £300 marks are extremely significant, even if the difference is only a penny.

But why strip out essential cables and connectors? It seems mad to me. I guess my experience with my Zen is no different from opening my old Nintendo Game & Watch one Christmas morning only to realise batteries were not included.

So we accept it as the norm, deal with our moment of disappointment before finding the compatible cable we want online and ordering it.

Personally, I'd be happier to pay a few extra quid in the first place to get everything I need all in one go.

Who made that call to take out the power plug? Who decided that most people who buy that product will be happy to recharge via USB only? I'm wondering if it's that focus group again, with Jim from marketing and Jean in accounts?

Although I'm surprised at Jean - she ruined Christmas once when she forgot to get a pack of AAA batteries to go in her son's new Light Sabre...she should know better.

How Far Would You Go?

I'd go all the way. Nothing gets me more annoyed than a company ill equipped to deal with a customer issue that hasn't been anticipated and is so lacking in initiative they can't find a way around it.

Like the time I bought a new kitchen from Kitchen Italia. Little did I know that the Electrolux oven I was being sold in the UK was in fact Italian and Electrolux in the UK couldn't get the parts for it. Was it Kitchen Italia's fault? Electrolux's? I don't care - I paid money in good faith, and I just wanted it to work.

So when it broke after less than a year of having it installed, I went through 3 months of agonising pain to try and get it fixed.

It was this horrific cycle of Electrolux sending out an engineer to diagnose the problem, ordering the part, the part takes too long to arrive so Electrolux cancels the order, I phone up to find out what's going on, Electrolux say they'll send around an engineer...you see how this is going to go don't you?

After the third time of them cancelling the part on order and not telling me, I lost it. (I'd say I'd been more than patient enough, wouldn't you?)

But where do I go from here?

Luckily for me, working in PR I knew some people who knew some people and after one mildly intimidating call to Electrolux's PR department from a well established journalist friend of mine, I received a call from the head of customer services at Electrolux offering to upgrade my oven for free and have someone come and install it within the week. Woo Hoo!

But what about average Joe? I guess he can write to the papers and hope someone cares...Watchdog isn't much of a threat, especially if your problem is unique.

But until companies empower their customer support staff to actually do the jobs they're hired to do, my best advice is don't give up; don your suit of armour and head into battle.

"Hi - who should I speak to to say 'thank you'?"

When I do a good job at work, I like to get praise. Yes, I'm paid to do a good job, but praise keeps me going. It gives the person doing the job a reason to keep plodding on through sometimes very thick mud.

But how many of us really take the time to reward good service? I'm not suggesting you send a bunch of flowers, but when that poor sod in the call centre actually gets to say "computer says yes" all they have to look forward to is the hope that maybe this time they won't get shouted at.

Companies with good customer service, the kind that goes above and beyond, thrive. Nothing beats the word of mouth viral effect of a good experience. I can't stop telling people how good the staff were in the John Lewis in Kingston the day I had to return a load of things delivered from my wedding list...and I hate department stores.

Recently I was forwarded an email by one of my clients, Sling Media. It was an email sent by a customer to a generic customer support email address on the website. I had a very brief sinking feeling before realising that this was one seriously happy chappy. So happy that she'd been compelled to let someone else within Sling Media know.

It worked - her email was forwarded to everyone and the guy who had taken the time to go above and beyond got company wide recognition, being called out by name in her email for his efforts.

I expect he'll keep up the great work for a long time to come thanks to that one little email. And all credit to Sling for not ignoring it. Because that's the problem. It's too hard to speak to companies to complain, let alone bother to say thanks. And even if you do - does anyone care?

Failing to Connect

I went to a roundtable event last week. It was all about the WiFi rejuvenation expected for 2009, hosted by Devicescape – a company that has a nifty little application that will automatically log you on to your WiFi hotspot without having to fiddle about with inputting passwords (which is a real bugger on my Blackberry Pearl…for some reason when I’m browsing it’s not easy to change characters once I’ve typed them, and given I auto-default to predictive text, when I type a password it means I often have to change characters).

So, what the hell does this event have to do with this blog? Well the conversation turned to what subscribers want and the simple conclusion was that they didn’t really care as long as it worked, and worked well.

*Ta Da!*

What was interesting was the perspective of one of the attendees. He knows a heck of a lot about the telecoms world, but therein lay the problem. He was so caught up in his own world that he was too far removed from what Joe Bloggs on the street thought about it. Everyone else around the table agreed that Joe probably didn’t think twice about his connectivity options – as long as it works and isn’t complicated.

Of course the other thing was that there were no hidden charges! We’ve all heard the horror stories of poor ol’ Joe browsing the Internet on his mobile phone only to get slapped with a £500 bill because he went over his fair use policy that he didn’t even know he had. But that’s another story.

So maybe that’s where companies go wrong? They’re so caught up in their own experiences, that their focus group of them, Jim from marketing and Jean in accounts isn’t really a fair picture of what the rest of us, who wouldn’t know our HSDPAs from our HSUPAs and frankly wouldn’t even care, think.

This guy is smart, but is so caught up in what he does, that the concept of someone else wanting to browse the Internet for any length of time on their phone seemed like madness to him. But I love it. I love the fact that I can sit on the sofa, unlock my phone and it’s there. I don’t have to get up, get the laptop out of its case, boot it up, fanny about trying to get it to connect to the Internet… my phone is there – already on. OK, the screen isn’t that big, but for emailing, looking up details, checking out Facebook – all the things I do online – it’s perfect.

I’m sure I can’t be just one of one out there. I think Informa did some research a while back which showed that the majority of Internet access via a mobile phone was done at home, so sounds like it isn’t just me.

Think outside the box, look out of the window, and be prepared to be amazed that the rest of the world isn’t just like you.

Links: MobileIP

What's It All About?

A well known journalist who has a regular Watchdog style column in a national newspaper once described me as a ‘real consumer champion.’

I’m not. I just want things to work. And if they don’t, I don’t understand why it can’t be straight forward to get it replaced, or get my money back. I’m British, so don’t like to make a fuss. But I work hard for my money too, and so if I make a big purchase, I expect it to work and be guaranteed against faults. But I’m also style conscious and against my better judgment am often swayed to buy the sexier product over the technically better product.

Damn me and my fickle consumer ways!

Once I’ve made the mistake, and bought the pretty product that won’t even switch on, I realize that more than anything all I want it to do is work, and work well. I’ve spent my hard earned cash on the product that won’t do the job it was built for. And why won’t it work? Is it a one off fault – hey it happens – but if so, why did it have to be the one I bought? Now I have to drag myself back to the shop, which typically is somewhere I’d rarely go or is awkward to get to.

However, more often than not when you do drag yourself back to the shop it’s a simple and fairly painless exchange. As long as you still have the receipt and a copy of your mother’s birth certificate.

The real challenge comes when you’ve had a product longer than the 14 or 28 day store refund policy and you have to deal directly with the manufacturer… *psycho music plays*

I won’t go off on one just yet with some horror stories; instead I want to take a moment to think about why this keeps happening to me – why do I seem to buy so many faulty products? I’m very careful with things I own, I’m material, and I like them to stay nice and shiny.

My step-father hit the nail on the head: “They don’t make things like they used to.”

And he’s right. They don’t. But he was talking about the manufacturing process. Sure – that’s changed too, but mass consumerism means that had to change. But that doesn’t have to affect build quality. The reason these products don’t do what they’re supposed to do is because manufacturers put their entire R&D budget into whether a silver casing would sell better than a black one and forget about making it actually do the job it’s supposed to do. The irony is that their research about design is usually off too, especially when trying to make a product appealing to a female consumer.

Although I must admit my Olympus µ-mini is a beautiful silvery pink…sent from the Gods of Handbag-Sized-Sleek-Gadgets…but it’s a bloody good camera too, so that makes it OK.