HTC Desire Review: The Digitall and the Digicool

Posted on October 8, 2010 by Scott Gould

I spent some time recently with the HTC Desire with my new reviewer hat on, not just wanting to say how I feel products are, but also how they affect our lives. Right now, I am using an old style phone, you know – the ones without predictive text, internet, and touch screens – and it is amazing to see how many habits I have picked up because I’ve been using the iPhone for two years.

So I think it stands to reason that by reviewing technology, we’ll get a better handle on how it’s changing how we communicate and how our minds are working.

The Digitall and the Digicool

I did two reviews for this phone, one with me (a Digitall), and one with my friend Anya (a Digicool). If you don’t know what I mean by these phrases, check out this post where I lay out four profiles of digital users. In short, a Digitall is someone who users the latest digital devices for all they do – your typical innovator and early adopter, like me. Digicool is someone who uses new digital technology because it’s cool, it’s current, and makes financial commitments based on lifestyle and the fashion status of digital devices. So let’s being:

The Digitall Review

So let’s deal with the elephant in the room: as I held it for the first time it felt like an iPhone clone. This of course isn’t true – Apple didn’t invent the touch screen, and the app based view has been around for at least 10 years with the Nokia Communicator – but the iPhone did make touch popular and they canonised many of the ‘laws of touchscreen’ like the gestures, how it should feel and respond, etc.

This is undoubtedly an issue for any touch screen smart phone, because the moment you being to use pinch and zoom, you feel like you’re copying the iPhone. So with the Desire, I felt that whilst some things were similar to the iPhone, others were totally different, as if they on purpose said “let’s make that different so that we’re not the same as the iPhone.” (This is detrimental, and part of the reason why I’m excited about Windows Phone 7 which appears to have created a new UI and way to engage with your phone.)

Another example of this is the fact that a touch screen phone has 5 physical buttons, which confused me beyond belief. I can’t understand why we have to be confused like this – either make it all on the screen (even the iPhone’s top button confuse some people), or make it buttons. Don’t confuse us.

On the other hand, what I really liked when using the HTC Desire for the first time was the beginning tutorial – genius. Helping someone quickly learn how to use your phone is an excellent idea. Trouble is, there are no online videos to back this up (or if there are, I couldn’t find them in 2 searches.) What I totally lacked is a support network to get into this phone. This is an important point for anyone these days. The product is not enough. We need warmth as well as light.

The Digicool Review

So Anya really liked the HTC Desire. What she didn’t like was how long it takes to learn it. After over a week with the phone, she still wasn’t comfortable with it. Having said this, she was fond of the customisable home screens.

The big selling point for the HTC Desire is how customisable it is. Considering I couldn’t find any videos on HOW to customise the phone, HTC have failed in my opinion. My friend Tendai tells me that “if you read the manual, you’ll learn how to use the phone.” You don’t need to say how much that statement tells us about the poor usability and support. If you need a manual or guidance, then the product won’t last in today’s market - a lesson I’ve learnt recently with Like Minds this month.

Anya seemed happy to plug away with it – in a trail and error kind of way – but she didn’t read the manual. I guess I had forgotten about trial and error because I haven’t had a new phone in so long. Now that I have this awful little £10 phone (because my iPhone broke), I’m seeing how horrible it is to have to learn how to use a device again.

What both Anya and I both liked was the Google integration. Our contacts, calendars and email were all synced with one entry of my email and password, without any further options. This is a beautiful thing, and it’s a shame that the rest of the phone doesn’t employ this same ease of use when it comes to settings.

The biggest clincher for Anya though was the price. It’s a very competitive option (both on the price of the handset and the monthly tariff) when compared to the rip off price of the iPhone. If HTC do win, it’s because they’ve done a good job here and they tie into people who just can’t afford £50+ a month on a contract or a £500 handset.

Bonus: A Pirate Review

If you want a far more in-depth review from someone who really knows there stuff, check out the review by my friend Glenn Le Santo. Glenn’s a bit of a pirate and a fantastic writer, and his take is very insightful and useful if you are considering the Desire as an option.

Your Leading Thoughts

First of all, if you do own an HTC Desire feel free to speak now and balance this review out. By no means is this complete at all and I’m sure I’ve missed a lot.
Secondly, what do you think in general about phone user interfaces? Think back to how phones were to how they are now. How you would you like them to ideally work?
Thirdly, how has your phone changed your habits and defined your life?

Innovation Over Tradition

Posted on July 26, 2010 by Scott Gould

Have you ever wondered how on earth moving your mouse makes a little pointer move across your screen? I actually don’t know, but I do know that the mouse, and the idea of a Graphical User Interface (GUI) were both controversial and criticised whilst they were being developed. Why? They changed the way things were in the name of moving towards something better, and both helped make computers accessible to the masses. In other words, they valued innovation over tradition.

Sometimes it’s easy for us to get lost in the hype of technology, especially in an age where talking about technology is made easier by the very technology we are talking about – it creates a perfect circular, the most pertinent example today being “I’m using social media to tell you how great social media is.” But as thinkers, we need to be able to step back from the buzz and think about the bigger picture – otherwise we run the risk of becoming clones and drones.

Clones and Drones

You know what I mean by clones and drones. The countless score of self-proclaimed ‘experts’ and ‘consultants’ out there, creating more noise than a batch of early 90′s servers. I’ll be honest with you – when I started out, I was one of these. I bought the myth of the digital personal brand and was trying to ‘create product’ to ‘ship’ to those who read my blog. I was using Twitter to ‘influence’ and ‘network’ in order to get exposure and sell my product, because someone else had done it successfully and now I was buying their 10 steps to do it myself.

This copycat behaviour has created a flocking effect that has widened the gap between those who are what I call ‘digitall’ and those I call ‘digicool’ – something some aliens once noted about us. The digitall are those who use tech for ‘all’ – their iPhones and iPads are filled with apps, their blogs overflowing with widgets (well, hey, they actually have blogs), they check Twitter infinitely more than they do Facebook, and they know what Augmented Reality is. The digicool, on the other hand, are those who use technology solely based on how ‘cool’ it is – like my wife who has an iPhone because it’s cool, is on Facebook because it’s cool, but doesn’t use Twitter because, unfortunately, it isn’t cool.

At the head of the digitall are the digeratti – the princely likes of Scoble, Rubel, Gray and the rest, who akin to the developers of the mouse, are challenging us to think in new and innovative ways. In actual fact, Scoble et al are just the ones telling us about the innovations – like the early days of Techcrunch where every Web 2.0 site was listed and reviewed. These technologies have changed the way the internet works – Wikipedia, Skype, Facebook, eBay, WordPress, Google – and in doing so, they have changed tradition.

The thing is, it isn’t the digitall that helped change tradition. It was the masses of digicools – the general population, if you will – that helped Facebook spread, realised the worth of Wikiepedia, and used Google because they couldn’t remember URLs (unlike the digitalls, who did). And here lies the decision for us all: are we going to talk about innovation and tradition, or be the ones who actually help put innovation over tradition?

The former only requires us to tweet, like, comment, retweet, blog. The second requires us to think. To think how we can take the wonderful innovations that are being used by a comparative handful of digitalls, and present them in an easy to understand way the digicools.

As far as I’m concerned, that’s the gap that needs filling, and the hands that fill it will not go unrecognised.

Your Leading Thoughts

First of all, confession time: which are you? Where are you? Are you talking, or innovating?
How, practically, can we fill this gap?

Influencers And Translators

Posted on November 4, 2009 by Scott Gould

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oZUJ7D5zjxg&fmt=18

Yesterday over brunch John Harvey (Exeter City Centre Manager) was telling me about the above mentioned case of Twitter, and the offline momentum he gained from a single tweet. It’s a great (and digitool, not digitall) example of what I think is the greatest use of Social Media for business: engaging and envisioning influencers. Continue reading →

Digitall, Digicool, Digitool and Diginots

Posted on July 16, 2009 by Scott Gould

Earlier this year, some aliens visited earth. They came to do some research and enjoy a Starbucks – but unfortunately for them, they left this research behind at the table they were sitting at and I happened to pick it up. Lucky me.

I had a good read and discovered that they were researching social media. They mistakenly called us humans Digi’s, and accordingly they observed 4 different social media users:

Firstly, the Digitalls. I am, and some of you are, in the Digitall tribe. We use technology for everything. We use multiple social media sites, experiment continually, have lifestreams, and are on FriendFeed. Trouble is, most of the Digitalls – who are early adopters of technology – are trying to imitate the elite group of innovators. They copy their blogging habits, produce more and more content for other early adopters, and create plenty of noise. Thus, the gap between early adopters and the early majority is increasing in size because it is getting harder and harder for the average Digi (the ones with the money) to understand what the Digitalls are talking about.

Watch this video, made by the Aliens, which interviews the Digi on the street. I don’t just like it because the interviewer is called Scott, honest.

httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=o4MwTvtyrUQ

Cue the Digicool. They are some of these people. They don’t know what a ‘browser’ is and they don’t care – but they do know that Google is not synomous with Internet Explorer. They have Facebook. And they have it because it’s cool. My wife has an iPhone, because it’s cool. They might have a Twitter account, and probably only make use of it if they can link it to their Facebook status – why? – because it’s cool.

Digicools are an a giant untapped resource. As the early majority, they appear smart to most people (largely, to parents), but appear slow and sluggish to the Digitalls. They would use services like Flickr for their personal photos if they knew about it – but, they don’t. Everyone is up in arms because a 15 year old Digi researched 200 friends and discovered that teens don’t user Twitter. But the reality is there is a huge gap between the Digitall and the Digicools, and only the daring few are stepping beyond Facebook or Bebo into these new waters.

The iPhone app Shazaam is a great Digicool product. As a party piece, my wife loves to use it. But unfortunately for Shazaam, she’s never bought anything through it, because once it’s told her the track, it’s no longer cool. She hasn’t parted with any money for a digital service. And Digicools seldom do.

The Gap Widens

In the late adopters crowd we have the Digitools. My father-in-law is a Digitool who uses Skype purely for the utility of speaking to his daughter in Australia. When he isn’t calling his daughter on VOIP, Skype is switched off. It’s a tool for a job. My mother-in-law uses Facebook to keep in touch with friends. If she isn’t thinking of that friend in Canada though, weeks go by without her status changing.

Digitools aren’t bound to generation. One of my brothers, a 23 year old in Australia, will also use Skype and Facebook when he needs to communicate, but no more. And this it he hallmark of the Digitools – need to. The aliens did observe that this need does change according to what the Digitalls did five years ago and the Digicool did two years ago – so it’s not absolute need. But the strange thing is there are few from the Digitalls who try to empower this majority – they are content to rather ramble with other Digitalls than engage with these slow, but faithful late adopters.

This group is confused over what a browser, Google, the internet and search is. The mixing of an address bar and a search bar also confuses them, and accordingly, they are subject to phishing from time to time.

Finally, it is the Diginots – not the ‘Digifools’, through it rhymed – who hear about everything all the other Digi’s are doing, and decidedly don’t understand it. They are not social media users, in the modern sense. A computer, Microsoft Word and the internet are all the same thing in their mind. And every time they sit down at a PC, it is the computer that does something wrong; not the user.

They peaked at DVD, and occasionally, with assistance, can navigate the website of their favourite sports team. But when finished, they call their teenager child technical advisor to close everything down for them.

In Conclusion

So that’s the report I found. I hope it’s been enlightening for you as it has been for me. The one thing I am convinced of, though, is I must start looking more at the Digicools and their market share, than pandering to the fickle nature of the Digitalls. Because if I start talking to them, I have plenty of opportunity to be the one who bridges the gap – because few others are.