jogging blackberry app
jogging blackberry app
I guess I’m dumb not to love a “smartphone”
I’ve not yet bought into the “smartphone” even though I know they kind of make sense.
Smartphone owners clearly subscribe to the belief that everything today is more urgent than it used to be (how is that possible?); they are the kind of people who want devices that guarantee the connectivity that allows you to work anywhere at all. The problem is that I really don’t want to work anywhere at all.
Gone is the brazen option of looking a client in the eye and saying their letter never arrived or their fax was garbled. Technology now tells them that you opened their email and either forgot about it or couldn’t be bothered.
I’m by no means a technophobe; my day job even requires that I advise clients on using social media. Even so my current inclination is to go into a telecoms store and ask “do you have any phones that don’t do very much?”.
Personally, I love apples and blackberries; it’s just that my preferred applications are pastry and custard or ice-cream.
Never mind that research indicates that even the most infatuated smartphone owner uses only a handful of the thousands of apps created by goatee-stroking designers. Still, sometimes obsession skews reality; last year a man tried to rob a Connecticut restaurant wielding an iPhone he claimed was a gun. He surrendered when staff responded with the low-tech “kitchen knives” app.
A speaker I heard recently said that kids today think a watch is lame because it’s a “single function device” (untrue; mine also tells me the date). They forget that many watches can also show how much money and how little taste their owners have.
My phone – which I believe the Smithsonian has its eye on — has no camera and can’t tell me if it’s raining. I don’t need it to follow the football because I’d rather avoid my rubbish team’s results. In any case, if I’m not at home I’m probably driving the car – and I’m no handset-brandishing felon.
Most apps seem aimed at the younger market. Why don’t they target the over-50s.? I’d buy a phone with an ear and nose hair trimmer. And interestingly, I’ve discovered a wonderful alternative to watching movies on a telephone — or even on a laptop screen. It’s called a television and generally it is accompanied by a much more comfy chair.
I don’t like people who send emails thinking I’ll be impressed that they were “sent from my iPhone.” I like to reply by saying “received in my Armani suit while sitting in my Lexus”.
And while we’re on iPhones, may I also say that I don’t care very much for iPods – or rather I don’t understand their owners. Why would you wear an iPod when you go out for a jog? Don’t these people want to hear birdsong? Or the squeal of tyres shortly before they’re catapulted into a hedge? Does anyone really choose a hotel because its rooms are “iPod ready” or buy a car for its “iPod connectivity”? Never mind the airbags, can I listen to Coldplay?
I don’t have a neat segue to Kindles except that they’re also increasingly popular – and, in spite of this, I suspect I shall one day buy one. I don’t think I will ever completely give up books and magazines made of paper – at least not until the world gives up producing them. The problem with a Kindle is that you will never be able to use it to fix a wobbly table. Or kill a mozzie.
It’s reasonable to assume that many people who own a smartphone, play their iPods too loud and don’t like paper in their paperbacks, also think it’s cool to tweet. In principle, I like Twitter because, properly used, it is a very effective business tool. I just hate people who tweet stuff like “just had pizza. Yummy!” or “bunions really hurting today”.
The technology of the 21st century has created a breed of people who love themselves dearly. Narcissus would gaze into a pond in self-adoration; his successors today dreamily reflect upon a screen. Then, convinced the world shares their passion, they start tweeting or invite you to be their friend.
The world now seems full of people who, in person, seem balanced, entertaining yet humble but become unfathomably self-absorbed when confronted by a keyboard.
Hang on…. that’s me. I think I’m in love.
About the Author
Bryan Matthews is a former journalist who now works with a Singapore-based stakeholder engagement consultancy www.watatawa.asia
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