I had to pick up another mobile phone number, so I went looking for a basic phone to get to put it on. I called my cell provider, AT&T, and was pointed to the LG CF360. The physical design is good. It feels solid, the sliding is smooth and locks/unlocks easily. It’s got Bluetooth support and has a micro-SD slot.
The UI is an utter piece of crap, and that is an insult to crap, which can be put to good use as fertilizer.
It’s a fornicating phone, being able to access my call log would actually be useful, so what ever brain dead software “coder” working in what ever sweatshop he/she/it deserves to stay in decided to leave that functionality out.
If I ever get my Razr back from one of my kids, I’m moving the SIM card over to the Razr.
Filed under: cell phone tech | Tagged: AT&T, cell phone |
Urbin Technology 
[…] Originally posted at Urbin Technology. var a2a_config = a2a_config || {}; a2a_config.linkname="Just a bad phone UI design"; a2a_config.linkurl="http://urbin.net/blog/?p=1889"; […]
You know, I’ve got two old iPhones I’m not using at the moment — want to borrow them?
Thanks, but I’ve been down that route already. My first thought was to get a new sim card and put in my old first gen iPhone, use as a phone, and any data traffic would be over the WiFi.
Not an option according to the AT&T/Apple cabal! No smart phones on the network without a data plan! Even if I got a sim that was configured for just voice, I would still have to “register” the phone through iTunes to get it working. At that point, I would be forced to get a data plan before the registration would finish.
Now, I could jail break the old first gen iPhone, which is fairly easy to do, and that would solve this problem.
Part of the problem is that AT&T, and the other carriers, are not that interested in selling “phones” any more. They want to sell data platforms. Data traffic has exceeded voice traffic on most networks in the US now, and they are still charging high profit margin rates for data. It only costs $10 a month to add another voice line to my account, but the data plan will set you back $30 (or more). I don’t want a data plan on this line, because I already have one on my personal smartphone. I don’t want to pay for a second one I don’t plan on using.
Oh well. There’s got to be something I can do with ’em — I’ll think of something.