On a recent Saturday night my wife and I went out shopping for cell phones. (I know, I know, doesn't sound like much of a date.) I'm going to replace my Treo 650 and my wife wants to replace her Motorola RAZR with something that's easier for texting. We stopped by the local AT&T store to see what's on offer. (Although my wife's on Verizon.) Lots of choices but still pretty frustrating. There are phones that have On a recent Saturday night my wife and I went out shopping for cell phones. (I know, I know, doesn’t sound like much of a date.) I’m going to replace my Treo 650 and my wife wants to replace her Motorola RAZR with something that’s easier for texting. We stopped by the local AT&T store to see what’s on offer. (Although my wife’s on Verizon.) Lots of choices but still pretty frustrating. There are phones that have 3G GSM and Wifi (but weigh too much) there are phones that have a great user interface (but no keyboard) there are phones that have a camera (but no wifi or vice verse) and phones that have all the right features but you’d never be able to figure them out. I got to wondering a very basic question: why do cell phones suck so much? My thesis is that they suck because they’ve been designed by committees. I tried out several Windows Mobile 6 phones and they just seem to have the user interface wrong. Maybe I’m too used to the Palm Treo at this point to switch. But should it really take so many clicks to send a message? And why do I give up so much screen real estate for fancy windows borders, buttons? You get the feeling that the user interface is designed by someone who has no idea what the underlying hardware will be. And of course, that is how it’s designed. So while there are lots of good Windows Mobile phones (AT&T Tilt, Samsung BlackJack II, Samsung I760 among others), they never feel like the software is designed for the hardware. More of a one-size-fits-none solution. Maybe I could get used to the user interface, but it’s not always obvious how to do even basic tasks. You’ve got to guess your way through menus and options and I found myself unable to get back to where I started without going back to the Windows menu. It’s worth contrasting that experience with the iPhone. You can pick up an iPhone and figure it out in a couple of minutes. It works the way you would expect it to work. I don’t know if this is because Steve Jobs is a relentless micromanager sweating every detail of the user interface. But that’s my guess. And if it isn’t Jobs doing it, he’s instilled a culture that cares deeply about these things. (And that’s pretty much the way things were at Palm and why I love the Treo user interface.) I’m not saying it’s easy to design a smartphone; it’s the embodiment of deeply conflicting user interfaces and objectives. You’ve got to balance things like phone usage, battery life, screensize along with interfaces for a range of applications like email, text messages, web browsing and calendars. Not an easy task. I think in the end it all boils down to a couple of things. If you want a good product, have a small team that cares deeply about the experience. It’s worth sweating the details. Maybe that’s the reason Microsoft bought Danger… Open Source