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

About the time mobile devices became useful, I have to pull out glasses 
to read the screen. No where near as convienient. I cannot use the 
address list easily in low light. I use written phone books and enter 
the number. I may find the large screen phones useful, but this depends 
on designers, designing them for their parents, or hopefully there are 
some aging designers out there. I am hoping that a nice package, with 
phone, camera, player, data store, large screen, and reasonable battery 
and a small charger. I dont want to carry lots of devices. I need to be 
able to read a store of large medical books. These are packaged to Palm, 
the text is too small. I still use paper books because it is easier as 
the text is larger, despite having to locate them.
I am still that painful customer that goes to a dark corner of the shop 
and finds that the phone is not readable to me.
I have hopes that the latest version of phones may tempt me.

Ken


Mary Gardiner wrote:
> 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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