The contract for my mobile phone is up at the end of the month. So I’ve started looking around for alternatives, starting as ever with consideration of what I want it to do, because that’s what I do you see, research, plan, consider… I am gently mocked for this by my own wife and friends, but I knew they would, you see, having considered their reaction to my over-pondering of things, see how this works? iPhone
Having spent many years with a Windows Mobile phone (varying models), I grew used to having contacts and calendar sync’d, keeping me on track during a busy day and giving me the comfortable fallback of having enough information at my fingertips that I didn’t need to carry anything other than my phone.
18 months ago I decided to simplify things a little and try and rid myself of gadget lust. It seemed to be working:
I find that I’m not using my new mobile phone for much more than phone calls and text messages (sorry txt msgs). This, in part, in because the phone itself isn’t as functionality complete as my old phone so I’m just not using the same set of features. Yet the thing is, I’m not missing anything and it’s liberating to NOT be able to check my email at a moment’s notice. The way I use my mobile phone is regressing back to being, largely, just a phone. However that’s more the technology forcing me to make specific decisions so isn’t quite the same.
Alas the last line of the above quote is the most telling. iPhone
Increasingly unreliable, recently it’s stopped ringing at all it seems, the Samsung D900 has been (form factor aside) a failure. Whilst it looks good and feels good in the hand, the software provided is shoddy and managed to triplicate my contacts as well as randomly delete some with no rhyme nor reason. Being without a reliable calendar or having any confidence that my contact list was up-to-date has led me to hack my way to some semblance of a workable system. Thankfully having most of such things covered online (contacts aside, why HAS no-one cracked that yet?) it’s not too bad… but even that is made worse by the grindingly slow internet browser that comes with the Samsung.
Basically, my experiment failed so straight to the top of my list are the ability to easily talk to my calendar and to keep my contacts sync’d safely and to be able to browse the internet. The latter requiring a nicer, bigger, screen than the Samsung offers. iPhone
OK, a quick question, has anyone read this far and NOT figured out where this is heading? iPhone
Cutting to the chase, it looks like a straight fight. In the (red) corner (geddit!!) we have the new iPhone 3G, in the blue corner the, Windows Mobile based, HTC Touch Diamond. Both are touchscreen and… well they both do pretty much the same kinda thing. Feature wise the HTC is the richer, but since when has any Apple purchase been down to features?
Having had a quick shot of the current iPhone, and the iPod Touch, there is a lot to be said for the way it “just works” – an awful phrase that one. The iPhone also gets free bonus points for being associated with the same people who made my MacBook and the operating system which all so “just works”.
Ohh hell, who am I kidding, come July 11th I’ll be yet another ‘fanboy’ touting his iPhone around. I don’t care if it has flaws, I don’t care if it’s not the best fit to my needs, I know that everyday I pick it up I’ll enjoy using it.
Which, in contrast to my current phone which makes me want to throw it off the balcony in our office into the fountain below, and then fish it out, stamp on it then run over it with a tractor… is a good thing I think.
If nothing else it’ll help keep my blood pressure down (ahem, worst argument ever?).
Ohh and once I DO get said iPhone, I promise I’ll try not to go on about it too much.
Hey, I said “try”…