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0 pointsmasklinn15y ago0 comments

> Are people still showing off their iPhones in 2010? To me, all an iPhone says nowadays is "I may be out on the town right now, but if my boss emails me I'll be able to reply within seconds."

I disagree for a number of reasons, but the main four are:

* I am directionally challenged and informationally hungry. A smartphone is both a lightweight GPS (which saves my life) and a direct pathway into wikipedia in my pocket (which feeds my brain). Can't get that with a low-end phone.

* I use my phone to keep up with various mailing lists (not my boss, professional mail account isn't even on the phone)

* I use my phone for offline articles reading via InstaPaper, it's often far more confortable (and simpler) than doing it on a laptop, and I can get 10mn of reading any time I have no current activity

* Because I have an iPhone (though it's a lowly 3G) I have quite a number of pretty nice video games, so the phone doubles up as a lightweight portable console and avoids having to carry around a DS or a PSP (though it does severely dent the battery life of the machine)

And other, more social people, will no doubt be using their phones for their twittering, facebooking and all other multicast communication channels which are entirely unavailable on a Nokia 3310.

Not saying this couldn't breed a backlash due to information overload, but seriously userland "smart" phones have been going strong for nearly a decade in basically every first-world country but the US. Only in the US was it confined to the business side until 2007 and the iPhone broke free from the idea that smartphone = business.

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sliverstorm15y ago

Plus, look at computers. They have almost never regressed, because they are a tool like phones. While select few (myself occasionally included) will always seek old-fashioned simplicity, not only is that rarely the overall trend but it almost never applies to information-age hardware. I like having stupid-simple hand and power tools, for example, but you will rarely catch me asking to have features removed from my computer. I suspect this is tied to the fact that actual physical tools have one job and one job only, whereas a computer/phone/etc is a multi-tool.

There is the netbook trend, and that whole minimalist trend might hit cell phones some time. But notice netbooks are rarely any 'stupider' than a full blown computer- they are just smaller, a bit slower, and cheaper. Yet, a modern netbook will still blow a 8-10 year old computer out of the water.

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sliverstorm15y ago

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