Maybe we've been brainwashed. We've been dependent on computers for so long that we've come to expect that all electronic devices should be wretched to use. You know: Click twice, right-click once, maximize the window, pull briskly on your left earlobe, hop once, hit Ctrl-Alt-Tab-Esc-F12, and pray. OK, I'm exaggerating; you can pull on either earlobe.

But I'm not here to rant about computers. I'm here to rant about phones: specifically, about cell phones being used as conduits for Internet content. It's as if we just can't help ourselves. Everyone's got a cell phone, which is a terrific device for sending and receiving calls, but that's about it. In fact, the basic interface of the phone--12 keys (who came up with the ubiquitous # and * anyway?) and a few other oddball buttons bearing incomprehensible hieroglyphics--isn't even particularly useful for the simplest tasks beyond dialing. My current phone still carries the default voicemail greeting, because I ran out of patience trying to use the keypad to navigate the maze of options. Or ponder the perplexities of typing in a name. For Bob, press the 2 key twice to select a "B," the 6 key three times for the "O," and the 2 key twice more for the final "B." Be thankful your name isn't Christopher-Jebediah, which is probably too long to read on a tiny LCD screen anyway.

So, given this nightmare of industrial design, what do we do? We turn our phones into Internet-ready computers. Yes, I realize that accessing content on the road--particularly scheduling and contact info, news, weather, and the like--is mighty handy. And people have demonstrated a willingness to jump through outlandish hoops to get to that information. Whenever I'm stuck in an airport, waiting for yet another delayed flight, I invariably spot fellow strandees hunched over their minuscule phone screens, checking stock prices or the latest sports scores. Whenever I try the same thing, my eyes twitch, my fingers cramp, and my frustration mounts. Or consider a colleague of mine here at CNET. He's enamored with PayPal, a Web application that allows him to send money via credit card to anyone from his phone, with, he insists, only minimal digital gymnastics. Another poor soul with low expectations, he's grown numb to poor user interfaces. But just because someone's figured out a way to graft wings onto a pig doesn't mean we should create a flotilla of flying porkers.

So forget the phone and anything based on the phone (for anything except for making calls). For wireless Web access, pick a device appropriate to the task at hand. The Palm and its ilk are great examples of devices designed from the ground up to do the things they do. Palm software is no slouch either. The Graffiti text-input software, for instance, takes just a few minutes to learn, and, once picked up, it's remarkably easy to use. I'm also inseparable from my Blackberry, a soap-bar-sized email and PIM device that features a highly readable screen, a serviceable thumb keyboard, and a brilliantly designed roller key that just gets the job done. The similarly sized Motorola Accompli 009 Personal Interactive Communicator, an email/fax/phone/browser handheld (due out in 2001), looks promising. Given their superior user interfaces, it's no surprise that the better-designed handhelds are becoming popular with consumers who want Web content. Yet manufacturers are pushing cell phones as the browsing device du jour.

Then again, I don't really believe the demand for Web phones is coming from consumers. Rather, phone makers, who have existing markets (some predictions call for 1 million cell phones by 2003) and a customer base comfortable with the telephone as a communications device, have a vested interest in extending their reach. The inevitable design sin known as "feature bloat," in which an ever increasing load of junk is bolted onto an existing product until it sinks under its own weight, dictates that phones will keep adding functions. Worse, customers will buy them because (1) they're there, (2) they're the "next big thing," and (3) they'll come free or nearly free with service plans. The reality: Users may be acquiring Web-ready phones, but they're not using them.