Inventor of mobile phone says iPhone too complicated

Ahh, the happier days of 1973 when you could use a "mobile" phone the size of a bungalow to make phone calls. No text messages, mind, that'd be far too advanced.

Yes, Motorola researcher Martin Cooper made the first ever call from a cellular telephone, but he's not happy about how things have turned out.

Among his frustrations, aired at a keynote speech at the Embedded Systems Conference in Boston, are that the iPhone is overly complex. He thinks we should all be using simple, specialised devices -- not that he's promoting his wife's own creation, of course: a device called the Jitterbug designed for the elderly.

Apparently Cooper did try an iPhone, but was confused by its shape and gave it to his grandson instead (lucky kid).

"A phone that's an Internet appliance, an MP3 player, a camera and a whole bunch of other functions doesn't make a lot of sense," he said. "You try to build a universal device that does all things for all people, and guess what? It doesn't do anything very well."

Absolute rot, Martin. Perhaps you should look at why your old company isn't doing very well any more, and why the likes of Apple, LG, Nokia, and Samsung -- all building converged mobile devices -- are doing well.

Granted, a multifunctional mobile phone isn't for everyone, but it is for a lot of people. There's no law to say that you can't have a simple phone (some still exist), but don't knock innovation.

(Via Forbes)

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