3 Smartphone Features That Aren’t Necessary

“Smartphones? What do smartphones have to do with cars?”, you ask. Well, everything. For one, the 2 biggest smartphone operating system developers Google and Apple have Android Auto and CarPlay car infotainment systems respectively. Google is also testing an autonomous car and Apple is strongly rumored to be developing a car of its own. That’s as strong a relation between smartphones and cars as you can get. And especially for those in the urban areas, smartphones and cars are an integral part of life.

Which leads us to an informal observation that happened over several days in various spots in the Klang Valley. Standing on what’s technically a sidewalk, under the shade of a tree or in the open for a shot of Vitamin E, enjoying the tropical breeze and humidity and watching life roll by, here’s a list of 3 smartphone features that seem unnecessary to a majority of city drivers:

1. Bluetooth – whether it’s to pair the phone to a wireless headset or the car’s audio system for hands-free communication, it’s a feature that’s hardly put to use.

2. Speakerphone – you can tell by observing the number of drivers who have a phone to their ear that the built-in loudspeakers and microphones are either of poor quality, poor reliability or car manufacturers need to improve sound insulation in the cabin. Then there are those who use the speakerphone function but hold the phone a few centimeters from the face. That defeats the purpose really, because the ear is also just a few centimeters from the phone.

3. Voice typing - I admit to not having extensive experience with iOS or Siri but if you have a phone running Android Lollipop you’ll find that Google’s Voice Typing feature is quite accurate. It’s not perfect and it can’t understand all the slang, colloquialism and dialects we frequently use but it’s much improved. The Google Now app has also improved and saying “Ok Google” to your smartphone lets you do everything from making a call to sending a message to navigating to your destination – without touching the phone. But if you feel uncomfortable having a conversation with an object, think how comfortable you will feel in a decade or so when you’re chauffeured in a car with no driver.

Over the course of of this survey, only an insignificant number of drivers seemingly use these features – the ones who look like they’re talking to themselves, or their imaginary friend; some complete with lively hand gestures.

Perhaps we should start a petition for smartphone manufacturers (and operating system developers) to exclude these features and hopefully, without these, we can save a bit of money on our next smartphone.