By Kaylin Slakey
My smart phone is obsolete? But I just bought it last month.
This week, RIM announced updates to the BlackBerry Bold. Being a loyal BlackBerry user and a recent purchaser of a “new” Bold, I was a little annoyed. While I’ll admit the Bold was due for an update, I can’t help but kick myself for not holding onto my upgrade longer in hopes of getting the latest and greatest.
This is not the first time I’ve grappled with this dilemma. In fact, it would be impossible to count the times I’ve asked myself the questions, “Do I buy now?”, “Do I wait for the new version to come out?”, “Do I write an angry letter to Verizon decrying their two-year contract?”
It seems new smartphones are being pumped out faster than the consumer, and mobile carrier contracts, can keep up with.
Phone upgrades once every two years are enough to keep up with the times? Tell that to my friend hanging onto a broken down flip phone trying to wait out the iPhone5 or my coworker who bought two new phones in less than a year.
Even my mom (who has trouble formulating a text) was griping about having bought an iPad right before the iPad2 was released – even though she had only planned to use it for reading – thus proving that this frustration is not exclusive to the tech-savvy.
It appears we are not alone. A recent study by Retrevo uncovered that a whopping 62 percent of smart phone users feel that their phone is out of date – or that it will be before their contract is up. This isn’t hard to believe, considering the study counted more than 120 new smartphones released last year.
I guess smart phone vendors subscribe to the old adage, “If we build it, they will buy.” And apparently, we will.
A little bit about me: Interested in the business side of mobile as well as learning about cutting edge capabilities and new apps. I know the second part of that statement begs the question: “then why do you use a BlackBerry?”, but we will save that discussion for another day, another blog post.
By Kaylin Slakey
