Smartphoneless

So I gave in. I did what I most feared.

I bought a smartphone.

I bought an Android phone — the Galaxy SII. It has a super high-res camera and it tweets and it checks email and transcribes my texts for me and all that.

I have had it for 24 hours, and I hate it already.

I didn’t want to get a smartphone. But two things happened:

1. Having a Dumbphone Was Getting Expensive.

My bill from AT&T last month was — I kid you not — $80. EIGHTY DOLLARS. I’ve been making a lot of calls from the road for work, and apparently, even though I have thousands of anytime and rollover minutes, I went over. And at $.45 per minute over my plan, AT&T got me good. I paid eighty dollars for a phone that calls, texts, and sometimes correctly calculates

So I gave in. I did what I most feared.

I bought a smartphone.

I bought an Android phone — the Galaxy SII. It has a super high-res camera and it tweets and it checks email and transcribes my texts for me and all that.

I have had it for 24 hours, and I hate it already.

I didn’t want to get a smartphone. But two things happened:

1. Having a Dumbphone Was Getting Expensive.

My bill from AT&T last month was — I kid you not — $80. EIGHTY DOLLARS. I’ve been making a lot of calls from the road for work, and apparently, even though I have thousands of anytime and rollover minutes, I went over. And at $.45 per minute over my plan, AT&T got me good. I paid eighty dollars for a phone that calls, texts, and sometimes correctly calculates my tip. (Sometimes.)

On a normal month, my bill was nearly $60. For a dumbphone, people.

I got lured in by Ting, the new carrier that’s piggybacking on Sprint’s network. They promised me a bill that was $33 month — for which I get 500 minutes, 1000 texts, and 500 MBs of data each month — before taxes.

The numbers made sense.

2. Work Demanded It

The project I’m working on this summer is going to require some serious logistics. I really do need my Google calendar out in the field. Having a good camera is a major plus. Being able to actually take part in some of the multimedia experiences I’m putting on? That was big, too.

And I’ll be driving all around the Ozarks, getting lost. I can only get turned around so many times by printed out Google Maps instructions. This phone has GPS.

So I gave in. I upgraded.

But I still won’t do one thing: I won’t check my email on there. Absolutely not. I will not let my day get sucked away checking email on a three inch screen.

Still, I wish I could’ve hung on longer to the smartphoneless life. It was a good life.

I’m going to do my best to stay distraction free, and to only use the smartphone for good — not for mindlessness.

I hope I have the willpower to stay true to that.

I ask you, please: Don’t judge me by the new phone at my ear. Judge me by what’s in my heart.

And at heart, I’ll always be a dumbphone user. It’s just who I am. It’s who I’ll always be.

-Dan

When your phone won’t send texts. ««Doubt this tweet will even post. #stupidiphone

— Alexis Auslander (@AlexisAuslander) April 12, 2012

There is a strange thing happening within the smartphone community. There are really three types of smartphones out there: Those made by Apple, those made by Blackberry, and those powered by Android.

The Blackberry is dying, and quickly. They’re just not innovating fast enough to keep up.

Apple’s iPhone, the market seems to believe, is the “in” product. It is the top-of-the-line smartphone. There is an exclusivity that’s associated with the iPhone.

That doesn’t apply to Android. Android is the anything-goes world of smartphones. There are an insane number of Android phones, and I can’t tell you the difference between any of them.

What I can tell you is that iPhone users — and to a lesser extent, Blackberry users — tend to look down upon mere Android users. I don’t really understand why. Both types of devices are equally expensive. Both types of devices run on the same networks. Both have apps and cameras and texting. Both, occasionally, can be used to make actual phone calls, though I think that’s a rare thing.

But in the same way that Mac users tend to laugh at the sight of PCs, iPhone users scoff at the mere presence of an Android phone.

Anyway, look no further than last week’s release of the Instagram for Android app for proof that there’s a certain class warfare happening even within the smartphone community.

Here’s a good read on the matter: “Why Android Won’t Ruin Instagram.” It is a response, naturally, to feelings from iPhone users that Android users will somehow screw up an app that allows you to render photos of your breakfast in sepia.

That being said, what I can say for sure is this: Smartphones seem to suck up much of your free time. But I suppose smartphone users will always have a few spare minutes left in the day… to argue over smartphones.

Per Nielsen: Exactly one out of every two Americans owns a smartphones. Soon, us dumbphone owners will be the minority.

I guess we should’ve seen this coming:

Some say they do their best thinking in the bathroom, so it’s no surprise so many of you text, tweet, and talk while on the throne. But here’s the stinker: research shows that 16 percent of cell phones have fecal matter on them. Eww.

Even so, sanitizing our germ-riddled smartphones probably isn’t something we do regularly (in fact, this writer has never done it), unless you’re germaphobe. But what if were as easy as charging your phone?

Enter the PhoneSoap. Created by four germaphobic entrepreneurs, it’s essentially an enclosed box that blasts your phone with harmless UV-C rays. UV-C light is able to kill 99.9 percent of bacteria and viruses by penetrating cell walls and disrupting their DNA. The light is switched on for three to five minutes at a time, and there’s no heat generated, according to the PhoneSoap’s makers.

I love how my phone just deletes things by its self… #ugh #stupidblackberry

— Maria Franco(@Monkeyy_621) April 3, 2012