The Mobile Experience Challenge!

The Mobile Experience Challenge: HTC Trinity
The Mobile Experience Challenge: iPhone

I came up with an idea, a test for the ultimate mobile experience. The contributors and I are obviously very passionate about our choice of smartphones and our mobile experiences. I wanted to see if I can rely on my smartphone for 1 week without the use of a laptop to carry out day-to-day tasks. For those familiar, you'll know that detaching myself from my laptop is nearly impossible. This test will confirm if today's mobile technology is advanced enough enhance our lifestyle without the use of a computer. We may be a little early, but I think we are getting close, lets find out together.

Here are the parameters for the mobile experience challenge:

1. Not allowed to use a laptop or other gadgets at home for 1 week while performing basic tasks
2. I'll use my phone to take on every task that comes up: look up restaurants/menus, directions, GPS, listen to music, take pictures, blogging, shopping, paying bills, movie time, watch youtube, etc... I won't go out of my way to test a certain function, only if it is part of chores during the one week span. If a bill came during this week and I normally pay via online, then I will attempt to do the same using my smartphone
3. The phone function can play up if need be, for example, if I can't login to a bank account via mobile web, I am allowed to call in to check my balance (old school technology baby!)
4. As soon as I am forced to use a laptop for whatever event, I will fail the test for that device
5. Exception1: I will use my laptop for Skype video conference during the week
6. Exception2: I will continue to use my laptop at work... hey, it pays my bills
7. Exception3: The test is mostly confining to the day-to-day "necessity" tasks, ie. bill pay, directions. For advanced tasks (web design, adobe photoshop, compiling codes), should be excluded; so carry on with those routine tasks with a laptop if need be.

The test has been planned for the following weeks:
week 2/27 to 3/4 - Apple iPhone
week 3/12 to 3/19 - Nokia N95
Other test potential: AT&T Tilt, BlackBerry...

This test stemmed from a shift in mobile usage from my household. Every morning when I wake up, I used to turn on my PC to check email and weather. Now days, I just use iPhone's weather widget... the load time is faster than anything I have experienced. Sometimes when I am sharing a story about a Youtube video, I'd rather use N95's Youtube app or iPhone's youtube widget instead of waiting for my laptop to boot. When my daughter was born, I snapped a bunch of photos using AT&T 8525 and emailed them real-time to friends and family immediately.

As you can see, day-to-day tasks are being replaced by our smartphones and I want to know if we can rely on it completely. Most of my friends I ask to participate already believe we are very close and Japan is obviously moved on to this behavior.

I welcome anyone who's interested to doing this test from their home to submit their results. I will post your story on this blog. Enjoy!