iPhone 5 Tryout Reveals That Smartphone Ergonomics Need More Thought

NEWS ANALYSIS: The tale of the sad end of my brief fling with the Apple iPhone 5 illustrates the equally sad state of smartphone ergonomics where cool design trumps usability.

By the time I left Richmond after a few days of constant use of the iPhone, it was taking me longer to type out a brief text message than it did on my old Motorola RAZR (the original, not the Android smartphone).

So when I got home, I carefully packed the iPhone in its box and I drove to the Apple Store and returned it. I wasn’t sure what kind of reaction I’d get from the normally professional employees, since I suspect that nobody besides me returns iPhones. As it happens, the Apple employees were polite, understanding and helpful. They helped me extract the nano-SIM so I could go to the T-Mobile store and trade it for another, larger, SIM for another phone.

So what am I going to do next? I knew I didn’t want a Galaxy Note II, which is too big to carry in my shirt pocket and too fragile for my back pocket. The Samsung Galaxy S III, which I reviewed for Another Magazine is easy enough to type on provided you can get used to the fact that sometimes a letter on the keyboard gets triggered without actually touching it. Worse, a week or so after the review, the S3 started crashing with mysterious errors.

I thought really hard about the Nokia Lumia, but there are some apps that I use a lot that aren’t available for Windows Phone 8 (are you listening, Weight Watchers?). So I’m kind of stuck. The BlackBerry 9900 that I’ve been using is something I can at least type on, but the screen is too small to use for much in the way of Web browsing. But I have an iPad for Web browsing if I’m not at the computer on my desk. And the BlackBerry is a lot easier to type on than the iPhone.

But all of this points out a huge problem with the smartphone explosion. Ergonomics, it would seem, it taking a back seat to flashiness. The focus on smartphone design these days seems to be on what looks cool and on how many features can be stuffed into the thinnest possible package.

The problem is that actually using those coolest possible features is becoming more and more difficult unless you plan to travel with your smartphone’s user manual. Oh, wait. Your smartphone doesn’t have a user manual, does it? So those features will remain undiscovered unless you have time to experiment.

Meanwhile, the primary features for which you buy a smartphone, things like text messaging, email and—oh yes—making phone calls seem to be getting less and less convenient. Maybe the next hot phone will be one that actually does the basic functions well and will tell you how to use the cool stuff if you ask.