I have a confession to make. Please don’t think badly of me. I don’t have a smart phone.
At one point I considered buying one of those Gitterbug phones - the ones aimed at the elderly with poor vision and a tremor. They have giant keys and you can only use them to make a phone call. You can’t control all aspects of your life remotely. They force you to actually live your life rather than comment on what you are doing from second to second.
My wife’s new phone looks like a Swiss army knife or something that 'Q' sent her since it has so many little doohickies that can open and fold out to assume some completely mysterious configuration. I fear that one is a ray gun. So many buttons and panels.
I like the iPhone for that reason. It has no keys and looks clean when it’s turned off. It’s black screen is less accusatory than all those buttons and panels that the android phone has that can make me feel completely worthless and weak even when powered down. Makes me feel like I should turn it on and read the instruction manual.
My current phone outclasses Captain Kirk's from TOS, but not much else. And it is awful for texting.
Texting actually has some utility in my world. We used to have these texting pagers that had a mini-keyboard. Turned out that we pages less but communicated more. You could more easily work with the team without having to sit around paging and waiting. Of course the hospital got rid of them.
With my ancient phone, texting is a lot like talking to Steven Hawking. My daughter and now my wife, have wondrous phones with full key boards that allow them to whisk off lengthy texts before I can select, ‘ditto’ from the old style of my phone. The language of Shakespeare reduced to textual grunts more akin to the lexicon of a caveman.
I find myself automatically texting ‘k luv u’ in response to almost anything as a simple expedient. Much like a dog rolling over in response to just about any human sentence. I may need a new phone before my daughter is old enough to text “can I buy a new car with your Amex?”
At one point I considered buying one of those Gitterbug phones - the ones aimed at the elderly with poor vision and a tremor. They have giant keys and you can only use them to make a phone call. You can’t control all aspects of your life remotely. They force you to actually live your life rather than comment on what you are doing from second to second.
My wife’s new phone looks like a Swiss army knife or something that 'Q' sent her since it has so many little doohickies that can open and fold out to assume some completely mysterious configuration. I fear that one is a ray gun. So many buttons and panels.
I like the iPhone for that reason. It has no keys and looks clean when it’s turned off. It’s black screen is less accusatory than all those buttons and panels that the android phone has that can make me feel completely worthless and weak even when powered down. Makes me feel like I should turn it on and read the instruction manual.
My current phone outclasses Captain Kirk's from TOS, but not much else. And it is awful for texting.
Texting actually has some utility in my world. We used to have these texting pagers that had a mini-keyboard. Turned out that we pages less but communicated more. You could more easily work with the team without having to sit around paging and waiting. Of course the hospital got rid of them.
With my ancient phone, texting is a lot like talking to Steven Hawking. My daughter and now my wife, have wondrous phones with full key boards that allow them to whisk off lengthy texts before I can select, ‘ditto’ from the old style of my phone. The language of Shakespeare reduced to textual grunts more akin to the lexicon of a caveman.
I find myself automatically texting ‘k luv u’ in response to almost anything as a simple expedient. Much like a dog rolling over in response to just about any human sentence. I may need a new phone before my daughter is old enough to text “can I buy a new car with your Amex?”
4 comments:
In homage to this post, I am making this comment from my phone, a Motorola Karma (yes, the name is why I bought it). it's a decent phone. It's a bit awkward at times, but that appeals to my caveman sensibilities ;-) The keyboard is small enough that I can text with one hand if I wish (making it so much easier to text while driving large vehicles ;-). I dunno, texting is nearly addictive for me. I find I am quite fond of it's email capability. that's where Karma is really a bitch !
LOL! OMG Pliny!
I empathize.
I would reply with via my phone, but why do that when I can vicariously reply via my computer through my phone to demonstrate true versatility. I'm currently working in IT and find myself bound to email, my file server, my laptop, and many other devices. VNC through SSL (with a few customized settings for security) into every single one over any wifi connection (faster) or 3G (slower, but pretty much anywhere). Couple this with Swype and text-to=speech and speech-to-text for text messaging (texting while driving this way is perfectly legal) and I'm pretty sure my phone is more high-tech than anything shown on Star Trek.
You, of all people, I did not expect to be so behind in the technology region considering your work. If you ever would like my advice on technology, my e-mail is always available.
Thanks Jared., when I get around to getting a new phone I will need some help. I suppose my reticence has had more to do with monthly costs of service than anything else. Plus the more connected I become the less actual work I can get done ;)
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