Smartphoneless

And So, This is the End of My Smartphonelessness.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 12:09:00 -0500

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

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

And So, This is the End of My Smartphonelessness.

Tue, 17 Apr 2012 06:41:00 -0500

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.

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

It’s a sad day for Dan Oshinsky. I’ll explain how we...

Mon, 16 Apr 2012 21:43:26 -0500

It’s a sad day for Dan Oshinsky.

I’ll explain how we got to here — April 16, the day my smartphoneless life ended — soon.

-Dan

Things That People With Smartphones Tweet.

Sat, 14 Apr 2012 12:30:35 -0500

When your phone won’t send texts. ««Doubt this tweet will even post. #stupidiphone
— Alexis Auslander (@AlexisAuslander) April 12, 2012

The Strangeness of Smartphone Elitism.

Fri, 13 Apr 2012 12:07:28 -0500

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.

"The hierarchy of things worthy of earning our focus has largely collapsed. If it glows, it’s..."

Thu, 12 Apr 2012 12:30:15 -0500

“The hierarchy of things worthy of earning our focus has largely collapsed. If it glows, it’s worthy.”

- YES YES YES. (Via.)

"Apple is a company that understands how and why people buy technology. It’s a company that..."

Wed, 11 Apr 2012 12:28:16 -0500

“Apple is a company that understands how and why people buy technology. It’s a company that understands the value of showing people how its technology can and will make the owner’s life easier, and it also understands that allowing people to have hands-on time with shiny bits of tech at Apple Stores tips people over the edge. All the specifications in the world – including tangibles such as size and weight – all fade into irrelevance when people are given some alone time to lust over a something that they’re considering to buy.”

- YES YES YES> (Via.)

Well, It's Come To This.

Tue, 10 Apr 2012 12:19:37 -0500

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

The Device That Makes It Okay For You To Use Your iPhone While You Poop.

Mon, 09 Apr 2012 12:31:14 -0500

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.

Things That People With Smartphones Tweet.

Sun, 08 Apr 2012 12:31:13 -0500

I love how my phone just deletes things by its self… #ugh #stupidblackberry
— Maria Franco(@Monkeyy_621) April 3, 2012

"Smartphones have utterly captured SXSW, and while there are certainly tablets and laptops to be..."

Sat, 07 Apr 2012 12:31:21 -0500

“Smartphones have utterly captured SXSW, and while there are certainly tablets and laptops to be seen, the outlets are ruled by smartphones. Glide along the walls and eventually you’ll trip over a charging smartphone. I’ve seen a few smart folks using USB or plug-in extended batteries or swapping out batteries, but it’s clear that folks need their smartphones and that the batteries aren’t lasting long enough.”

- An interesting discussion that came out of SXSW: What’s a smartphone user to do? Keep his/her phone on all day and suck battery and hope that nothing important happens once the battery dies? Or keep the phone idling while missing out the full power of certain apps/features? (Via.)

"Mobile devices (can we still call them phones?) are being packed full of sensors, processing power...."

Fri, 06 Apr 2012 12:29:54 -0500

“

Mobile devices (can we still call them phones?) are being packed full of sensors, processing power. They are animated by ever-more-sophisticated software, dedicated to understanding the world around them (in terms of advances in computer vision and context-awareness) and understanding us (speech recognition and adaptive ‘agent’ software such as Apple’s ‘Siri’)

They are moving – somewhat awkwardly – from being our tools to becoming our newest companion species.

”

- The piece gets a bit funky from there on out, but I thought that part was spot on. (Via.)

Things That People With Smartphones Tweet.

Thu, 05 Apr 2012 12:30:40 -0500

I forgot to take my phone into the bathroom and was SO BORED.
— Philip Kaplan (@pud) April 1, 2012

Blackberry is Dying.

Wed, 04 Apr 2012 12:25:34 -0500

One smartphone giant down. Two to go. (Via.)

"But there are lots of us, especially women, who physically cannot send a text on those giant phones..."

Tue, 03 Apr 2012 12:20:05 -0500

“

But there are lots of us, especially women, who physically cannot send a text on those giant phones with one hand. Do you know what an inconvenience it is to be forced into using two hands on a mobile phone? Let’s add to that the fact that these phones don’t fit into any pocket of a girls’ pair of jeans.

So just to clarify, roughly half of the population can neither text nor comfortably carry around these phones. And yet phone makers think that a honking display is somehow en vogue, likely because they simply follow each other in terms of trends.

”

- A killer argument against the proliferation of giant smartphones. (Via.)

THIRTY BILLION? BILLION?

Mon, 02 Apr 2012 12:27:49 -0500

Americans lost $30 billion worth of mobile phones last year. (via @CBSThisMorning)
— Mental Floss (@mental_floss) March 23, 2012

Can that number even be possible? Let’s say the average retail value of a phone is $300. At that price, Americans would have lost… 100 million phones last year.

Maybe I need to invent some sort of leash or tether for your smartphone. Apparently, there’s a market for it.

"Does This Smartphone Make Me Look Stupid?"

Sun, 01 Apr 2012 12:30:06 -0500

“Does This Smartphone Make Me Look Stupid?”

- Now THAT is a headline I can get behind. (Via.)

The Taco-copter.

Sat, 31 Mar 2012 12:31:05 -0500

This isn’t real, but if flying robots could deliver tacos to my office, and if the only way to order was via smartphone, then yes, I would be getting a smartphone pretty quickly.

"Samsung Gravity Smart Samsung Gusto Samsung Mezmerize Samsung Reality Samsung Replenish Samsung..."

Fri, 30 Mar 2012 12:30:05 -0500

“Samsung Gravity Smart
Samsung Gusto
Samsung Mezmerize
Samsung Reality
Samsung Replenish
Samsung Repp
Samsung Smiley :)
Samsung Suede
Samsung Transform Ultra
Samsung Vitality”

- That’s just a small selection of the seemingly infinite number of smartphones sold on the market today. I don’t know who does the naming of phones at Samsung, but they could probably use some help. Most of the smartphones listed above sound like they’re also Vitamin Water flavors. (Via.)

Yes, that is a woman operating two iPhones simultaneously....

Thu, 29 Mar 2012 12:30:05 -0500

Yes, that is a woman operating two iPhones simultaneously. (Via.)