Leave my phone alone

In the last few years we've seen a lot of phones come out that do things distinctly un-phone-like. The camera phone trend has finally started producing phones on par with the most basic digital point-and-shoots. Music is making its way into handsets at surprisingly fast speeds, culminating with Apple's unveiling of the iPhone last month. And although e-mail used to be confined to hulking business devices like the BlackBerry and the Treo, it's moving into the mass market.

Java applications are getting more sophisticated, and it's even possible to have a decent Web browsing on a couple of devices now. There are even a host of companies trying to bring advanced vehicle navigation systems to the lowly handset. The trend is obvious. We're making the phone anything and everything for all people.

The idea is a welcome one, as we're a society that carries our phones wherever we go — the more functionality we can pump into a single device, the better. But I wonder if we're not pumping a little too much functionality into our handsets. I've always treasured my phone because it did one thing well: It made phone calls most anywhere and everywhere. Short message service is nice and certainly useful, and I'll snap the occasional grainy photo with my device's digital camera. But as we add more and more to these devices, it seems we're losing sight of their original purpose.

Multimedia computers, as Apple and other vendors are starting to call them, are starting to look like devices that do multiple things, but only at a mediocre level — all the while adding cost and heft to what was a small, singularly useful device. I'm not trying to stifle innovation here; I'm just trying to check it. If we go too far, too fast, we risk turning our most useful of machines into the fodder of early morning infomercials. It may slice and dice, but ultimately I want it to make phone calls.

ONLINE

Read “Net neutrality back on the table” to find out what the new Congress might do with this debate. www.telephonyonline.com/regulatory