Some years ago, I worked on a magazine for users of Lotus 1-2-3. Younger readers may not know this, but Lotus 1-2-3 was once the most popular PC spreadsheet application in the world.

At first, we ran hands-on tutorials on setting up management accounts systems. But, as time went on, the content of the magazine was stretched thinner and thinner as the contributors found it increasingly more difficult to think up new projects. In the later issues, I remember a tutorial that showed you how to turn 1-2-3 into a paper-tape desktop calculator (perhaps not the best use of £330 software) and another that made 1-2-3 act like a word processor.

Lotus 1-2-3 was nothing if not adaptable but these macro applications were clearly getting daft. “What next?” the editor would grumble, “A macro for using 1-2-3 as a pair of socks?”

The smartphone has been getting like this, at least until this month. Today’s smartphone is a poor digital camera, a rubbish web browser, a second-rate email client and a half-baked personal information manager, all in one. They also allow you to make outgoing phone calls, though at the risk of inducing repetitive strain injury as you scroll through your address book in search of the right name.

If you are using a smartphone as your chief business tool, I can’t imagine you have much to say or do. More likely, you’ve bought a smartphone on the basis of it bristling with buttons and featuring an advanced (that is, unfathomable) range of applications. Besides, everyone else has one.

Naturally, I have been following the coverage of Apple’s iPhone launch with some interest. Most pre-launch commentators thought the iPhone would be a dismal failure because of a lack of features. This turned out to be inaccurate, so most commentators now believe the iPhone will be a dismal failure because of its simplistic interface.

To be honest, I couldn’t give two hoots about a mobile phone that lets me listen to Bob Dylan, watch Pirates of the Caribbean or put pictures on my desktop. What I do want is a smartphone that can automatically switch between cellular and Wi-Fi, and offer PIM applications that can match those on my desktop and both grown-up email and big-screen web browsing.

I expect many current smartphones will end up like Lotus 1-2-3 as the result of inflexibility. After the launch of Windows 3.0 in 1990, users rapidly lost interest in clumsy DOS programs with idiosyncratic user interfaces. By the time Lotus belatedly shipped a Windows version of 1-2-3 several years later, the company had already lost its customers to Microsoft Excel. The iPhone might do the same to other handsets.