Despite constant talk about revolutionary
new devices and services that improve
the quality of our lives, we’ve really got
the basics wrong. Today’s mobile products, for
example, really don't handle communication
very well. The one saving grace is that we can,
at least in theory, dial any phone number in the
world from any other phone and get through.
Imagine if some phones could only place calls
to other phones sold by the same company,
or if one exchange suddenly cut off a new
competitor. While some operators have tried
to stifl e cheap VoIP services (and our own WLL
debacle of a decade ago isn’t entirely forgotten),
the telephone is still a common utility and a
phone company’s duty is to connect you to a
global backbone, not just its own network. You
make phone calls, not Tata or Verizon calls. Your
provider might promise better rates for calls
within its own network, but it cannot restrict
you to it. We’d never accept anything less.
SMS is part of the core of cellular networks
so it’s there whether you use it or not. It's a
standard users can rely on, and it works the
same everywhere. Messaging apps, on the other
hand, are branded commercial products and are
thus free to do whatever they please. WhatsApp,
Kik, Facebook, ChatOn, iMessage, Line, WeChat,
BBM, Hangouts, MessageMe and Skype are just
some of the better known ones. Very few of
them let you message people who don't have
the same app. Not one of them works on all the
platforms and in all the places you’d like. Some
are exclusive to certain brands or platforms.
Barely any have clear-cut privacy and security
policies in place. None of them can guarantee
that everyone you need to talk to can be
reached. Some of them display ads or require you
to use services that create detailed profiles of
your behaviour and preferences. Messaging is a
mess, and no matter how vehemently BlackBerry
and Google claim they will solve everyone’s
problems, they’ve just made things worse.
BBM is coming to Android and iOS later
this year. Tough luck if any of your friends use
Windows Phone—BlackBerry needs to ride the
success of iOS and Android, but has no interest
in strengthening its primary competitor for the
third-place slot. Google’s new Hangouts tool
promises to unify communication across Android
and iOS devices, and PCs running Windows,
OSX and Linux (with vague allusions to wider
platform support in the future—including Glass).
Still, Google won’t let you have it easily. You
have to be running Chrome if you want to use
it on a PC and you have to sign up for Google+,
an incredibly self-serving move. Plus, there’s the
constant fear of Google monitoring conversations
to learn what ads you’ll click on. Photos are
automatically saved to Google+ and chats can’t
be “off the record” by default. Google wants
to create as detailed a log of your life as it can.
Privacy and openness? Relics of the past.
None of the existing services are any better.
Some work fine
if you and your
friends use the same
platform (and only
that platform) for all
your fixed and mobile
devices—hardly likely
to happen in the real world. They all make you
pick and choose one of them depending on who
you need to talk to and what you need to send.
No one has bothered creating a chat app or
service that’s actually designed around how we
live our lives. Maybe such a thing can't be done
on a software level alone—it would have to
be baked into hardware to let us switch focus
from one device to another—and none of the
parties concerned seem interested in working
with each other towards a larger common goal.
BBM and Hangouts aren’t going to change
anything because they’re still arrogantly trying
to make people choose one messaging service
over all others and stay dependent on it all the
time—which is exactly the opposite of how open
communication needs to work.
new devices and services that improve
the quality of our lives, we’ve really got
the basics wrong. Today’s mobile products, for
example, really don't handle communication
very well. The one saving grace is that we can,
at least in theory, dial any phone number in the
world from any other phone and get through.
Imagine if some phones could only place calls
to other phones sold by the same company,
or if one exchange suddenly cut off a new
competitor. While some operators have tried
to stifl e cheap VoIP services (and our own WLL
debacle of a decade ago isn’t entirely forgotten),
the telephone is still a common utility and a
phone company’s duty is to connect you to a
global backbone, not just its own network. You
make phone calls, not Tata or Verizon calls. Your
provider might promise better rates for calls
within its own network, but it cannot restrict
you to it. We’d never accept anything less.
SMS is part of the core of cellular networks
so it’s there whether you use it or not. It's a
standard users can rely on, and it works the
same everywhere. Messaging apps, on the other
hand, are branded commercial products and are
thus free to do whatever they please. WhatsApp,
Kik, Facebook, ChatOn, iMessage, Line, WeChat,
BBM, Hangouts, MessageMe and Skype are just
some of the better known ones. Very few of
them let you message people who don't have
the same app. Not one of them works on all the
platforms and in all the places you’d like. Some
are exclusive to certain brands or platforms.
Barely any have clear-cut privacy and security
policies in place. None of them can guarantee
that everyone you need to talk to can be
reached. Some of them display ads or require you
to use services that create detailed profiles of
your behaviour and preferences. Messaging is a
mess, and no matter how vehemently BlackBerry
and Google claim they will solve everyone’s
problems, they’ve just made things worse.
BBM is coming to Android and iOS later
this year. Tough luck if any of your friends use
Windows Phone—BlackBerry needs to ride the
success of iOS and Android, but has no interest
in strengthening its primary competitor for the
third-place slot. Google’s new Hangouts tool
promises to unify communication across Android
and iOS devices, and PCs running Windows,
OSX and Linux (with vague allusions to wider
platform support in the future—including Glass).
Still, Google won’t let you have it easily. You
have to be running Chrome if you want to use
it on a PC and you have to sign up for Google+,
an incredibly self-serving move. Plus, there’s the
constant fear of Google monitoring conversations
to learn what ads you’ll click on. Photos are
automatically saved to Google+ and chats can’t
be “off the record” by default. Google wants
to create as detailed a log of your life as it can.
Privacy and openness? Relics of the past.
None of the existing services are any better.
Some work fine
if you and your
friends use the same
platform (and only
that platform) for all
your fixed and mobile
devices—hardly likely
to happen in the real world. They all make you
pick and choose one of them depending on who
you need to talk to and what you need to send.
No one has bothered creating a chat app or
service that’s actually designed around how we
live our lives. Maybe such a thing can't be done
on a software level alone—it would have to
be baked into hardware to let us switch focus
from one device to another—and none of the
parties concerned seem interested in working
with each other towards a larger common goal.
BBM and Hangouts aren’t going to change
anything because they’re still arrogantly trying
to make people choose one messaging service
over all others and stay dependent on it all the
time—which is exactly the opposite of how open
communication needs to work.
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