Confessions of a Mobility Addict

Till a few days back, I was a zealous member of the growing community of
people who swear by their mobile phones. I believed that those who were debating
whether the PC or the mobile phone would be the primary access device for the
Internet were still living in the stone age. I thought that debate had already
been settled in the mobile phones favor long back.

I believed that in a country like India, it could act as the biggest change
agent. IT could be an economic leveler helping the rural farmer; it could be the
greatest socializing tool for the teenager; it could be the most important
productivity tool for the executive. It could be many things to many people.

The rapid developments on the ground supported and enhanced my belief. Here
was a company that demonstrated to me how it had implemented a solution where
rural farmers had gained significantly by using mobile phone for auction. There
was another which showed how the entire email could be backed up and accessed as
and when needed through a mobile phone. One of Indias top two political parties
promised that it would take the bank to the unbanked through mobile phones, in
its election manifesto. Like most Indians, I am skeptical of promises made by
political parties in general and their election manifestos in particular. Yet,
this time I believed it and hailed it in the pages of this magazine.

My belief in mobile phones was not restricted to doing a special issue on
mobile application companies in India in Dataquest or carrying more stories on
them more regularly. In my personal life, I use mobile phones for everything
that is possible. I use it to pay my bills, check my mails, get my way in a new
location, socialize (almost all my updates on Facebook and linkedin are on my
phone), play games (I have never done that in my PC in the last five years), not
to talk of the numerous downloads! I have often been very critical of consumer
companies that do not provide

But I now believe probably, my faith in the power of mobile phones was a
little misplaced.

Yes, numerous small firms around the world may have created really innovative
applications to tap the power of mobile phone. Numerous users around the world
may have given a thumbs up to those efforts by actively using those. But a
handful of companies still make the phone hardware. And they have done very
little to keep pace when it comes to battery life. If that does not happen, all
the great applications are meaningless.

Today, few mobile phones can run for four hours if you run always connected
GPRS applications. If you are in a remote location, and think you can find your
way by using GPS, you can probably get maps. But your phones battery will let
you down. If you are traveling in a long-distance train that does not provide a
socket to charge the phone, you can hardly use online applications, despite the
fact that these days you get good GPRS connectivity almost everywhere on the
way. If only the battery could last beyond three hours!

It is a terrible feeling. On one hand, you are always discovering new ways of
using the mobile phone. On the other, you are always living with the fear that
any moment your battery will go down. Then, all these innovations seem so
meaningless.

By the time I have realized this, as a user, I think I have gone a little too
ahead along the mobility path to retract back. And that thought makes me
desperate.

But I still have a lot of faith in the technology communitys ability to
solve this problem. Do you?

Shyamanuja Das

The author is Editor of Dataquest.

shyamanujad@cybermedia.co.in