Mobile phone functionality is difficult - surprise

Reported by BBC news today, a survey of 4,000 people in the UK and US by Mformation reveals that the difficulty of understanding phone interfaces puts people off trying out new functionality. According to the report 61% found setting up a new phone as challenging as setting up a new bank account, perhaps begging the question why should changing bank accounts be complex, too.

Commenting on the report, Geoff Blaber of industry analysts CCS Insight recommends that phones' functionality should be immediately obvious to users and that operators shouldn't demand additional registration processes to access functionality.

Something else also worth bearing in mind that the costs of mistakes or failures (with little chance of compensation from service providers) are an additional deterrent to experimentation with functionality.