Matt MacQueen

John Biggs over at CrunchGear is editing a nice series called Smartphones Now.

His rant about the sad state of user experience with most smartphones is well articulated in: 10 Things I Hate About Smartphones. A little oversimplified, but hilarious and convincing for us who groan over these shortcomings daily. Highlights from 3 of the his top 10:

9. Quick Access to Important Functions – Nah

Need to delete all your emails in Windows Mobile 5.0? Sorry. Need to turn up the volume in the T-Mobile Dash while talking and the phone is locked? Sorry. Take it away from your ear, press a few buttons, and then TRY to use the volume buttons. Need set up an email account in Symbian? Call your IT guys, because you’re going to need all sorts of crazy info. Then, no matter what, you won’t know if you’ve succeeded or why you failed.

…Oh, and put on a damn mute switch. A physical switch. No menus, no buttons. A switch.

5. The UI is a Vast Wasteland

Many smartphone applications are like cockroaches — they scurry at the first sign of movement. Pick up almost any smartphone — Palm OS devices excluded — and you’re offered a “start page” full of arcane symbols and strange readouts. Need a real app? Figure out which menu button to press, drill down through menu after menu, and start it up. Need to take a call? You’d best remember where you are, because you might not find that app again.

1. Windows Mobile 5.0

Oh. My. God. Could this thing be any worse? It’s like a telephone menu system without the nice lady telling you what to do. Press 9 to go to setup. Hit 1 to delete an email. Press 4 to run miniWord! Press 8 to slow things down to a crawl by adding more than 50 contacts in your address book! Write once! Run everywhere! Sure, if you reduce your UI to a list of characters on a screen topped by a shiny icon. Windows Mobile 5.0 must die and let us be the ones to bury it.

Check out the whole thing, a fast and entertaining read.