My contribution to the legend

When Siri is trying to find something, it asks Chuck Norris.

Unfair practices in the mobile phone industry

I think there are many things which are unfair in the cell phone industry. The following are the ones which annoy me the most:

1. Liquid submersion indicators (LSI)

When you send your cell phone for replacement or repairs, the manufacturer performs a check for user defects (drops or internal damage) and checks the liquid submersion indicators (LSI) for water damage. A white LSI means no water damage, while a red LSI indicates water damage, making you responsible for the cost of repairs and replacement parts.

Only the manufacturer knows where all the LSIs are. This information is often not given to the customer in promotional materials or support documentation.

This is extremely unfair because, unlike the manufacturer, you would not know where the LSIs are, and would not be able to check for water damage when you receive the phone!

How would you know when the LSIs were triggered? You could have bought a phone with a triggered red LSI because of extreme humidity or internal condensation, and still be blamed for it because you did not know how to check for damage.

It is even worse if you bought your phone online because you would never have had the chance to check for damage, even if you were given the information and the right to do it.

SOLUTION: Tell buyers where all the LSIs are and how to check if the phone is defective upon arrival. Include the information on websites, support documentation and include a pre-use guide with example photos of a phone in good condition.

2. Opening cell phone internals voids the warranty

Manufacturers will always check the internals upon receipt of your cell phone. This allows them to determine if the phone is in the condition you described as terms for a warranty claim.

However, they do not give you the same right to check the phone when you receive it. This prevents you from checking the condition of the phone when you buy it, which is especially important in an online purchase.

You are not accorded the same rights as the manufacturer to ensure you have received a product as described.

This means, even if the customer service representative or technical assistance specialists told you where the LSIs would be, you could not check it upon delivery. You are not allowed to look at it. This is like stating, "If you open the car to check that it has an engine, you void the warranty."

SOLUTION: Make all internal phone plastic transparent so that users can easily see if anything was broken or if LSIs were triggered. This avoids the need for opening the internals to perform the checks. Include photos of what a properly working phone should look like in support documentation or pre-use guides. When users first start using the cell phone, it should tell them what to check and how to check it.

3. Mobile wireless service providers falsely claiming coverage

Wireless providers are notorious for claiming coverage in places they have little to no coverage. A provider would claim to cover 90% of a country, but it is irrelevant if you are in the 10% that is not covered. Often people check coverage maps (which very few countries offer publicly) and it appears they are covered, however, the quality of service is often weak or non-existent. The providers get away with this with a vague clause such as: "Signal strength depends on other factors such as network use..."

This is extremely unfair because you are being billed whether or not the service was delivered or relevant to you. You are being charged for an unused service and have no alternative option.

Absurd examples:

(a) If a steakhouse said they have stores which feed 90% of the nation, does it automatically mean you eat there?

(b) Can you insert a vague clause into your cell phone contract which says: "Bill payment reliability depends on other factors such as monthly income..."?

SOLUTION: Prominently displayed coverage maps on promotional materials should be an industry standard for all providers. Consumers should have the option to select plans which charge on a time-weighted, average-coverage basis. So if a user spends 90% of their time in an uncovered zone, their bill should only charge for the 10% of time in a covered zone. Also, a customer on a fixed-rate subscription plan should either be refunded or given credits for the amount of time service is down while the customer is in the covered area.

4. Mobile wireless service providers claiming "up to XYZ" speed

This is something else which is extremely unfair. The wireless companies claim their network can achieve up to 7.2 Mbps, with a clause which states, "depending on network conditions and number of users.."

This is not rocket science. They have the data and they know how many people are online at a time, the ability of the network to handle the traffic, and the average and maximum throughput by location.

If 90% of the users, 90% of the time never achieve speeds anywhere close to 7.2 Mbps, should a provider be allowed to keep marketing its services in this unfair manner? Should you even be billed for service quality which was never delivered?

If users can achieve a download rate of 7.2 Mbps only when there are no other users online, and we know there will always be other users online, this means you will never achieve 7.2 Mbps, in spite of the claim of "up to 7.2 Mbps."

This is like claiming, "My product is unbreakable as long as nothing solid, liquid or gas, touches it."

Also, charging variable rates by data size without consideration for speed or connection quality is extremely unfair. A user who keeps getting dropped packets could be charged more for data simply because the network interprets the users is requesting excessive packets, when it is network congestion which causes the problem.

SOLUTION: Consumers should have options to pay on a time-weighted-average-speed basis. They should have the means to select plans based on their data consumption, speed requirements and connection quality. If you are in a bad coverage area, with low speed, or a connection which keeps dropping packets, why should you be charged the same for it?

Consumers should have the right to pay "up to $20 a month, depending on network conditions and number of users..."

Deprivation is the mother of innovation

Necessity is the mother of invention. How many times have we heard that?

But time and again, Apple releases products which are initially unnecessary, but eventually become indispensable.

Over the past few months, I watched as Apple released a highly limited product called the iPad, much like the very limited iPhone and the iPod when those products were first released. As always, the skeptics, myself included focused on the limitations. But over time, something else happened. The products became useful.

The users of the iPad for example, began to devise their own solutions to the limitations. The first was the iPad printing solution: photocopy the entire iPad. Obviously it was a joke, but certainly, it was a different solution to a problem. While everyone was thinking of printing to a cloud, USB transfer, or emailing, someone thought about things in a different way. Then of course came other solutions: camera card reader kits, iPad stands, etc.

Apple is well known, not for inventing, but innovating based on existing technology and implementing it in a more user-friendly way. Steve Jobs is the master of picking the right technologies to use; thinking about things differently. However, without existing and new cutting edge technology to feed on, Apple would never be able to innovate. If things remained stagnant, like their closed ecosystem, how would new features come into being?

Apple's solution: Deprivation.

Just like how they omitted arrow keys on the Mac, the floppy on the iMac, the physical keyboard on the iPhone, and the USB on the iPad, I suspect that Apple intentionally cripples their products to stimulate new ways of looking at old problems. By re-framing the problem, new innovative solutions emerge, which Apple would eventually natively support.

Apple is indulging in creative destruction. It wipes the slate clean and forces new perspectives by routinely killing old solutions which once worked, but now, as Steve Jobs would say, "suck."

In my freshman year of college, my math professor told me, as part of a job application, he was required to learn an entire book on aeronautic engineering in a week, pass a test on it, and then he was told to come up with a solution which did not use any of the concepts he was required to learn.

Perhaps that is the real step forward for our world. What if in an effort to solve other problems, we simply deprived ourselves of some peripheral tools? In trying to solve our traffic problems, we said, "No new roads will be built." Could we think differently then? In trying to solve our security problems, we said, "No additional troops."

Maybe to truly unleash our potential, we must deprive ourselves, step out of the comfort zone, so that we are forced to innovate.