One of the greatest thing about smartphones is that they’re….smart. In many cases, they can completely replace a personal computer – indeed, it’s quite telling that today’s tablets (which are being pitched as an ultraportable laptop replacement) are mostly running smartphone operating systems, or are least based on smartphone operating systems. Given that, I’m quite surprised and frustrated by how dependent some of today’s smartphones are on a personal computer for even the most mundane tasks, like updating software.
I have an HTC HD7 – a Windows Phone 7 device for T-Mobile’s network. It’s a decent phone, and the OS has some promise now that Nokia is behind it. Microsoft recently (through the carriers, natch) released a software update, nicknamed ‘NoDo’, for my HD7. What’s better, I even got a handy-dandy popup on my phone’s screen to let me know that the update is available. Awesome.
Unfortunately, the notification simply told me the update was available and that I would need to connect my phone to my PC in order to complete the update. Even worse, I also had to install Microsoft’s Zune media software on my laptop in order to stumble through this software update. Kid you not.
So, today’s smartphones are increasingly marketed as a PC replacement. In fact, when Steve Jobs announced the iPad 2 recently, he now-famously said we had entered into the ‘Post-PC’ era. That’s all well and good until you realize that his iPad (as well as the iPhone) has to be connected to a PC in order to be activated for the very first use. You also must connect your iDevice to a PC in order to update the software, which happens roughly every 6 months or so.
On Nokia’s recent Symbian-powered smartphones, such as the N8, you can actually update the firmware over the air, as it should be. Unfortunately, you can’t do *all* updates over the air. There are a number of extras – free games, etc – that are only available when you update the Nokia N8 through Nokia’s craptastic Ovi Suite application (the one that uses 150MB+ of RAM when IDLE!)
Even some Android-powered smartphones (at least the ones from the carriers) often require a PC in order to complete major updates, such as going from Android v2.1 to v2.2. It has been a while since I’ve used a BlackBerry, but I wouldn’t be surprised to find that they too, require at least minimal PC interaction from time to time.
As smartphones continue to take over the mobile world, I can’t help but wonder if they’re being limited on purpose? I mean, in a world of 4G networks from all corners, it’s really rather silly that the most powerful mobile devices on the planet must still be tethered to their grandparents (if you’ll allow the comparison) in order to improve their functionality.
Even if 4G isn’t the answer (and it probably isn’t), there are markets such as India, Africa, heck, even rural America, where an actual computer simply isn’t available, and a smartphone is someone’s only connection to the rest of the world. Can you seriously tell me that companies as big as Nokia, Microsoft, Apple, and Google can’t figure out how to download a software update and deliver it over the air to the same device? It’s completely absurd.
Don’t believe that there are technical limitations, either. If my smartphone can detect when I’m at work and automatically enable WiFi, connect to my work WiFi network, disable Bluetooth, send a text to my wife, and adjust the ringtone to a more ‘professional’ volume, all without my interaction, then surely it’s no problem for it to update itself without needing assistance.
For those of us with computers, imagine if you had to connect your Windows laptop to another Windows laptop every Tuesday to download all 15 security updates from Microsoft? Linux nerds, what if you had to hunt down another Ubuntu machine just to update your packages? It’s an absurd notion, just as it should be on smartphones, as well.
