Why Ease-of-Use Matters in Mobile
February 2008

I'm really impressed with all the new wireless handsets that have come to market in the past year - from the Apple iPhone to the latest BlackBerry to the new Centro from Palm (as well as many others). All higher-end phones are getting more features and are able to do a lot more than just a year or two ago. But with all these advances, there are still major issues regarding ease-of-use that have not been addressed.

I currently have three phones: an Apple iPhone, a RIM BlackBerry 8820, and a Palm Centro. Each has some advantages, but also some disadvantages when it comes to ease-of-use. Let me point out some of the ease-of-use issues to give you a better idea why ease-of-use matters so much in mobile.

The RIM BlackBerry has a wonderful new 8800 series with a stylized shiny surface, improved keyboard, integrated GPS, and Wi-Fi. However, the BlackBerry user interface is based on a very basic menu system that evolved from early renditions of BlackBerry. It's solid as a rock technically but not nearly as easy-to-use as the Palm-based Treo/Centro or the iPhone.

I have included eight companion figures to this column to demonstrate a number of key ease-of-use features side by side. It may appear that I'm picking on the BlackBerry, but it's simply not as easy to use as the Palm Treo/Centro or Apple iPhone. RIM clearly needs to update its entire user interface with a more robust, easy-to-use environment, perhaps using Linux as a core, and a robust UI that will compete better in the market.
 

The Palm Treo and Centro has been the stalwart for ease-of-use for the past five years. Palm has always focused on the minimum number of keystrokes to complete a task. The entire menu system is very intuitive, and the speed dialing options are better than on even the iPhone. Notice also that Palm-based devices color the numeric key pad differently on the alphabetic keyboard to assist in dialing, but more important is the display of a standard 10-key numeric keypad on the display. Apple does this as well, but BlackBerry doesn't (or, if they do, I couldn't find it).

Probably the easiest to use system on the market is the Apple iPhone. The user interface is natural, meaning most people can figure out how to use it simply by looking at the display and selecting what they want to do. But, while it's clearly the easiest system to use, I've included a couple of examples of where they didn't get it right - at least not yet.

Apple needs to adopt more of Web user interface style outside the Web application with a "back arrow" in the upper left so that you can always go back a level from wherever you are in the system interface by hitting the back arrow in the upper left, just like you do using Web browsers like Microsoft Internet Explorer. And, while the iPhone on-screen keyboard does present word completion options (very good), you don't get the tactile feedback as you do with a physical keyboard. Thus, I believe that Apple will create an iPhone with a real keyboard at some point.

The Windows Mobile platform is currently running on Palm (700w), Samsung BlackJack, and Motorola Q, among others. It has an "OK" user interface, but you have to launch applications through the Start key, which is similar to Windows on the desktop, but somehow seems unnatural on a handheld. What Microsoft has done in Version 6 is make a lot of integration seamless so that it does more for the user. However, Windows Mobile just doesn't seem to be as easy to use at the iPhone or Palm-based products.

It appears that users somehow seem to adapt to a particular device even though it may be unnatural or not intuitive. Take the once popular RAZR. The five-way key made users crazy trying to remember what each one did at any particular time. But users seemed to like it when it first came out because it was so thin and had a lot of market momentum. But just a couple of years later, the entire handset world moved on to much more intuitive, graphically pleasing, and more powerful interfaces like the iPhone.

Going forward, we expect to see more work done on making handheld systems even easier to use than they are today. We'll see more service integration so that one application will seamlessly integrate with another. Setting up appointments in your calendar while you're in email is still difficult (Good Technology seems to have done this the best so far). And getting true seamless synchronization between the important information on your desktop, the Web, and your mobile handset is still very difficult to achieve, although folks like SoonR are working on solving that problem.

In 2025, people will look back at the handheld systems we used in 2008 and wonder how did we ever put up with them. Voice recognition, integrated services, and very intuitive interfaces will be the norm - not the special case that we have today. Thus, ease-of-use is, and will continue to be, very important in mobile. Kudos to those who have made so many breakthroughs over the past couple of years. But we look forward to seeing all major platforms much easier to use in the next few years. 

Written by:

J. Gerry Purdy, Ph.D.
VP & Chief Analyst
Mobile & Wireless
Frost & Sullivan