Re: [Fwd: Introducing iPhone 3G. Coming July 11.]

On Wed, Jun 11, 2008, david wrote:
> Personally, I'm old fashioned enough to like a phone that basically
> makes phone calls. Is that narrow minded?

I don't think so, but it's sometimes a bit irrelevant to bring it up.
It's a cool toy you don't want, which is good for your budget but not
really a discussion point on its own.

It's sometimes interesting to think about why though. In my case:

 1. I'm always a slow adopter (relative to this group) of consumer
    electronics. I got a mobile later than many people my age (I got one
    in 2000, when I was 19), a wireless router later (2005), a laptop
    (2004), a digital camera (I didn't have my own until 2006), a games
    console (2007. I still do not have a portable MP3 player (or rather,
    I don't use one, my phone is one now). It's mostly to do with having
    a pretty high threshold for parting with my hard-earned cash.

 2. I have had enough typing pain as it is on full-sized keyboards and
    currently have a case of Mario Kart thumb (thanks to having to
    holding down the accelerator button, dumb decision Nintendo). I am
    extremely reluctant to become a regular user of any keyboard-like
    input device smaller than a 13–14" notebook (which is a shame
    because otherwise I very much see the appeal of the eee) until they
    develop not just nifty interfaces but pay serious attention to RSI,
    and judging from the recent past, they never will.

 3. Judging from my family history, I will develop both hyperopia and
    arthritis in my hands about the same time I finally get used to
    smartphones, and, frankly, I see even less attention being paid to
    that than to RSI sufferers. (OK, this is just cranky, I have a few
    decades to go, but when I see MY current phone being advertised as
    for your "elderly female relatives" and look at the kind of hand
    movements my elderly relatives can actually make, and how far they
    have to hold printed typeface from their eyes to make it out, it
    makes me angry at designers and reviewers.)

 4. When I do buy things like cameras I want them to be of a quality
    that mobile phone cameras do not yet currently meet. (I do have a
    camera in my phone, I've never taken a photo with it that I liked
    even in a lofi kind of way. I'll use a phone camera when they
    approach the quality of the medium price-point digital point and
    shoots.)

 5. My parting-with-cash problem (or virtue) is particularly acute when
    it comes to buying bandwidth from mobile providers. I currently pay
    about $20 a month for my mobile plan and consider that far too
    high[1]. I'm really not up for spending the kind of money that I
    believe regular use of smartphones currently calls for.

 6. I do tend to get more of certain types of work done when I do NOT
    have Internet access, there's a whole series of tasks that are
    currently done on my train trips.

Except possibly for the "you must be totally able-bodied to use our
phones" problems (and you know the bar is high when I'm worried about
ME) I suspect the case for either a smartphone or a very small notebook
will get compelling fairly soon.

-Mary

[1] Systemically, I am not looking for recommendations for a better plan
thanks.
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