Features not on mobile phones we would like to see…..

People are often complain mobile phones do too many functions, therefore become overcomplicated and consequently get unreliable and difficult to use.

I have personally thought a few things (as far as I am aware) that dont exist. I expect iPhone and Blackberry users may have some of these exist as additional applications, but here they are…

Battery Stretch.

Users of Lenovo’s (new name for IBM’s PCs after being sold to a Chinese maker) Thinkpads, have quite a handy feature called Battery Stretch, this is something you can turn on if you are working on the move away from a power socket and urgently need to get work finish before the battery dies. Its quite simple, all the superfluous features of the laptop can be turned off or adjusted in one simple control panel, to give you maximum operating time. This includes turning off, sound, bluetooth, wireless networking and dimming the screen, this same technology could be used when you need your phone just to make a critical call and the battery is low.

Underground maps.

Infrequent users of the London Underground like me (I like to go to London about 3 times a year) have to rely on the maps on the wall to work out where to get anywhere and know which lines to get on. Of course, phones and GPS units are useless many hundreds of metres below ground, but this can be worked around. Heres one of two methods with varying amount complexity: 1/ Just one large static map on the screen that can be scrolled around or zoomed in, with a search feature a user can enter the first 3 letters of a place to zoom in on a specific location. 2/ A fully working map that gives you a list of the required route to get from A to B, updates are beamed to the phone when you are in town so its always upto date. 3/ as 2 but with realtime information of pricing costs for normal tariffs and when using Oyster cards, and regular updates of engineering works and other disruptions.

Traffic and weather RSS feeder

As someone who commutes 1 hour each way to Southampton, traffic is often bad and accidents are frequent, I would like my phone to fetch some brief details of my journey to work and anything I need to know. I would like to enter a profile of my home and work locations, and receive quick information of traffic disruption and weather, the phone can send an alert earlier than normal if snow or heavy weather is expected so I can wake up and leave the house earlier or maybe even get the train.