Mobile phones suck

Why is it that very simple things still aren’t implemented in mobile phones?

Maybe I’m out of date, or maybe I’m missing the rolls-royce of mobile phones, but there are some pretty basic things that I still haven’t seen in a phone (I currently have a Nokia 6230 – so last year). Nokia in my opinion clearly lead the phone user interface race, but race is a pretty kind term for it – more of a leisurely walk towards revenue-generating gizmos instead of quick and easy value-adding features for the common man!

Here’s some "no brainers" that I am still surprised do not exist on any phone I’ve seen:

1. You should be able to have the phone automatically change your profile based on the time of day. i.e. when I’m working on site it should be "General" from 7am-9am and 5pm to 10pm weekdays and all day (7am-10pm) at weekends, and "Silent" profile on weekdays 9am-5pm. Call me boring… but never again the embarrassing RIIIIIIING RIIIIING while you are in a meeting because you forgot to change profile. [I fully appreciate this is a simplistic scenario but it's a real one]
2. You should be able to assign a "breakout" of a restrictive profile for nominated callers, i.e. your wife and children.
3. When you send a text message to somebody in your phonebook, it should always use their mobile number! If you have a landline and mobile number in a contact entry, Nokias to this day still use the "default" number even if it is a landline. I don’t care if there is an SMS to speech converter on their landline, if I want to contact them there I will call them not send them an SMS.
4. When you take a picture with the camera, it should immediately say (unless you turn this off) "What do you want to do? 1. Send by MMS, 2. Send by Infra red, 3. Send by bluetooth". [oh, and 4. Upload to blog]
5. When your phone offers "Voice memo" recording, it should support "Attach audio to calendar entry" so that you can do what is natural on a phone – hear what your events are, not have to drill down and read them.

Come on phone UI guys, this stuff is really easy!