[LINK] WAP on the nose

[Jan Whitaker]

in the Age:
http://theage.com.au/news/national/2001/11/15/FFXTZ95ZZTC.html

Internet-enabled phones a bad call:
                    study

                    Thursday 15 November 2001

                    Young people have given Internet-enabled mobile phones 
the thumbs
                    down, preferring to stick with text messaging instead, 
according to a
                    study released yesterday.

                    The study of 30 people aged 16 to 22 found they were 
quick to ditch
                    phones with wireless application protocol (WAP) 
technology after
                    finding they could not access all websites or use 
e-mail conveniently.

                    Jane Peck, program manager of the study, said by the 
end of two
                    weeks "in every case the Internet use went down 
monumentally".

                    Despite being given free use of WAP-enabled phones, 
many went
                    back to using their own handsets to send text messages.

                    The most popular WAP functions were simple ones like 
the checking
                    movie times, weather, surf and ski reports and sport 
results, Ms Peck
                    said.

                    The favorite feature of the free handsets - the 
speakerphone - was not
                    even part of WAP technology. The function was often 
used when
                    making prank calls to friends.

[snip]

JLWhitaker Associates
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
jwhit@primenet.com  --  http://www.primenet.com/~jwhit/whitentr.htm