Here we are, at a world influencing show on digital and social media. More social brain power around than one can fathom and more than 300,000 event related check-ins so far. Every single one of these thousands of people carries a fancy, shiny, expensive smartphone.
It can do everything: from finding you the next location for a real espresso, giving you the time, translating weird looking augmented reality tags into spectacular 3D experiences, updating your status on a plethora of social networks, making embarrassing pictures of friends and clients and showing you the exact amount of aspirin to wash your yesterday’s social networking away.
Except…. It cannot. Because the smart people making these smartphones never actually had us, people who use them in mind. Going full force with any smartphone will give me a couple of hours. Then they die; lack of power. With my Blackberry Storm 2, I burn through 3 (three) battery packs a day. My iPhone4 lasts exactly 4 hours and 32 minutes. With the extended battery pack, I can go a revolutionary 7 hours without having to whack somebody on the head in an effort to steal his power socket.
People are bitching about the fact that most electrical cars do not get further than a miserable 350 miles before needing a new powershot. But nobody seems to find it abnormal that a 700 dollar phone barely makes through half a business day. All over Austin you see people crawling on hands and knees, desperately looking for a free socket where they can plug-in and get a few extra minutes of social life. Pathetic.
The social web is great, and I spent more money than I care to remember on geeky devices to connect-on-the-go. Can somebody now please fix the basics and solve the energy issue. No power, no connection, no more online social life.
It cannot be that difficult: wireless electricity has been around for a gazillion years. It’s called lightning.