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I Want My GPS!

My playing around with the spectacular (but suckily named) Windows Live Mobile Search 2.0 AKA WLMS2 got me thinking…

I’m being serious here.

There is absolutely no way in h-e-double-hockey-stick that I will ever buy an add-on GPS unit for my Treo, and basically strap up something that will turn my handheld into some insane monstrosity…and here’s why.

I’ll say this loudly and slowly, so everyone can understand…

MOBILITY = ALL ABOUT TEH CONVENIENCE!

Dragging yet another piece of equipment with me that needs a cable, or a charger, or whatever? Forget it. Bluetooth, shmootooth.

Hands up…how many of you still drag along a separate digital camera with you? Now compare that to just a couple of years ago, before the advent of integrated cameras phones. Yes…the quality of an embedded phone can be marginal to stinky. But it’s good enough for casual, kicking around town usage.

That’s how I’d use GPS. I wouldn’t be using it for mission-critical, must be able to paint a fly’s butt within a 6 inch radius kinda stuff.

I’m sure there are all kinds of reasons for not doing including GPS. Battery life, size, weight, blah blah. Those same arguments were used regarding integrated cameras, I promise you.

And between the 2? I’d use GPS features WAAAAY more often than the camera on my phone. Given that a data plan is pretty much a necessity for getting any value at all out of something like WLMS2, you’d think the mobile operators themselves would smell that opportunity and start flexing some muscle on their OEM partners.

Yep, I’m of the mind that device OEMs need to start putting GPS in phones as a standard feature.

As in right.hell.now.

|| posted by chris under hardware, mobility, opinion, tech hand || || ||