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Matt Jones: mobile devices are a super power.
He sees mobile as something of a super power device and described something he calls “bionic noticing” — obsessively recording curious things he sees around him, driven by this multi-capable device in his pocket.
Google has filed a patent that might eliminate the need for mobile phone users to choose a single network. Instead, a piece of software would poll all available networks and select the most appropriate one based on price.
Devices using the system would send networks a description of their requirements — for example, a phone call or access to the internet — and receive back bids with a per-minute cost, or flat rate, at which those needs could be met. Users can either manually accept the bid that looks best to them, or have the phone choose one automatically, based on pre-programmed criteria.
Besides being a brain-dead obvious idea — nice work once again, USPTO — if a system like this were put in place, calling Mom on Mother’s Day would get a whole lot more expensive, as would calls and data usage during other peak times or locations.
Update: I’m reminded that this is just an application, not an accepted patent, so my “nice work” comment doesn’t apply. But I would imagine that patents coming from Google have little trouble getting accepted. (thx, mike)
Attention American parents: Mobile phones and text messages are sexually molesting our children!!! Ah, CNN…
The Indian letter writing industry (for those who are unable to write themselves) is all but extinct because of near-ubiquitous mobile phones and text messaging.
Mr. Sawant mourns the demise of the letter culture. After dropping a letter in the box, he used to imagine its winding journey. Someone far away would open what he had written on someone else’s behalf; the reader would savor its kind words or its little secrets, then maybe file it away in a box, and perhaps revisit it weeks later in a burst of nostalgia.
But even Sawant admits that ringing his daughter on his mobile is much easier than writing a letter.
I once went through a painful, protracted breakup, conducted almost entirely over this LG phone. It wasn’t a bad phone, but to this day, even a picture of it is like a punch to the gut - its Major-thirds ringtone, the wallpaper mocking my heartache with its cheery blue sky. I feel a little nauseous even describing it (my description may just be nauseating, in fairness).
In 2001, I spoke to my father on this Kyocera smartphone from 8th Avenue, having run up the block from work just in time to see the first tower fall. I don’t have to go into all the emotional baggage which that implies.
Now, in my current phase, I probably don’t have enough perspective to characterize what of me is reflected in my current phone, but I think that in a while, I’ll have an idea.
Since the time began that we were never to be found without our mobile phones (or whichever portable devices, for that matter), I feel that somehow all of the memories of the current chapter of my life are being constantly averaged out and inextricably linked to the phone that I’m using.
Do you have any similar experiences to share? Do you think that linking my identity to my gadgets entails a sort of anthropomorphism? What do you think Proust would have to say about all this? (I’ve never read Proust, so I’m honestly asking.) Other insightful references to prior discussions or great thinkers would be helpful as well.
Update: Michael Leddy at orange crate art has been mining his Proust and has turned up an incredibly relevant passage to the discussion:
…a thing which we have looked at long ago, if we see it again, brings back to us, along with our original gaze, all the images which that gaze contained. This is because things — a book in its red binding, like the rest — at the moment we notice them, turn within us into something immaterial, akin to all the preoccupations or sensations we have at that particular time, and mingle indissolubly with them.
-Marcel Proust, Finding Time Again
The design of the iPhone is such that all other mobile phones, including those released after the iPhone, look not only old but antiquated and even defective. IMO.
Google recently announced that a bunch of companies (aka the Open Handset Alliance) were getting together to make cell phones that run on an open platform called Android. That was a couple of days ago so maybe someone else has already made the imperfect comparison between this and Mac vs. PC circa 1984, but if not:
Or perhaps Steven Frank has it right:
A 34-company committee couldn’t create a successful ham sandwich, much less a mobile application suite.
John Gruber’s initial assessment of the iPhone, a lot more thorough than mine.
- I’m kind of amazed that this thing lives up to the expectations I had for it. It’s an amazing device.
- To read RSS, just put a feed address into Safari and Apple redirects it through their iPhone feed reader. But it’s very much of an a la carte thing, one feed at a time. What’s needed is a proper newsreader with its own icon on home screen. Workarounds for now: Google Reader looks nice or you could make a collective feed that combines all the feeds you want to read on your iPhone and use that with the iPhone feed reader (Meg’s idea).
- I skipped the index finger and am right into the two thumb typing. With the software correction, it’s surprisingly easy. Or maybe I just have small lady thumbs.
- After fiddling with it for an hour, I know how to work the iPhone better than the Nokia I had for the past 2 years, even though the Nokia has far fewer capabilities.
- I could use the Google Maps app forever.
- When I go back to using my Macbook Pro, I want to fling stuff around the screen like on the iPhone. It’s an addictive way to interface with information.
- Finding Nemo looked really nice on the widescreen display.
- You can pinch and expand with two thumbs instead of your thumb and index finger.
- The camera is not what you would call great, but it’s as good as my old phone’s, which is about all I want out of it. The lack of video is a bit of a bummer.
- I Twittered from on line at the AT&T store that the line was moving slowly because they were doing in-store credit checks and contract sign-ups, contrary to what everyone had been told by Apple beforehand. That was not the case. They were just being super careful with everything…each phone and the bag that it went into had a bar code on it and they were scanning everything and running phones from the back of the store one at a time. The staff was helpful and courteous and it was a very smooth transaction, all things considered. I was on line for 2 hours before the store opened and then another 2 hours waiting to get into the store.
- The alert options (ringtones, vibrate options, messaging alerts, etc.) aren’t as fine-grained as I would like, but they’ll do for now.
- I have not tried the internet stuff on anything but my home WiFi network, so I don’t know about the EDGE network speed. Will try it out and about later.
- The Google Maps display shows the subway stops but not the full system map. Workaround: stick a JPG of the subway map in your iPhoto library and sync it up to the iPhone. Voila, zoomable, dragable NYC subway map.
- Wasn’t it only a year or two ago that everyone was oohing and aahing over Jeff Han’s touchscreen demos? And now there’s a mass-produced device that does similar stuff that fits it your pocket. We’re living in the future, folks…the iPhone is the hovercar we’ve all been waiting for.
Update:
- The iPhone is the first iPod with a speaker. Which means that in addition to using it as a speakerphone, you can listen to music, podcasts, YouTube videos, and movies without earphones. Which might seem a bit “eh”, but won’t once you have 15 people gathered around watching and listening to that funny bit from last night’s Colbert Report. You know, the Social.
- I’m getting my mail right off my server with IMAP, so when it gets to the phone, it hasn’t gone through Mail.app’s junk filters…which basically means that mail on the iPhone is useless for me. In the near future, I’m going to set things up to route through GMail prior to the phone to near-eliminate the spam.
- Tried the EDGE network while I was out and about. Seemed pretty speedy to me, not noticeably slower than my WiFi at home…which may say more about Time Warner’s cable modem speeds than EDGE.
- BTW, all of these first impressions are just that. You can’t judge a device or an interface without using it day to day for awhile. I’m curious to see how I and others are still liking the phone in two weeks.
- Everytime I connect the iPhone to my computer, Aperture launches. Do not want.
As people exchange their land lines for mobile phones, phone books are getting smaller. “Americans have not been eager to list their cell numbers in phone books. Consumers and privacy advocates balked at the idea in 2004, when most of the big wireless carriers said they wanted to compile a nationwide directory. Cellphones may make it easier for people to reach each other, yet Americans are very guarded about whom they want calling them.”
Apple has released three new iPhone ads in advance of the device’s release date on June 29. The third ad is the money spot. The only remaining question: how likely am I to get one within a week or two of release without standing in line for hours on end? (via df, who notes that “No other cell phone is advertised by showing off the user interface.”)
Profile by Ken Auletta of Walt Mossberg, the WSJ’s technology columnist. It was interesting reading Mossberg’s opinion of the Sprint/Samsung UpStage. A couple friends of mine were testing this phone before it came out and it was one of the most poorly designed technology products that I’ve ever held in my hand. Who knows if the iPhone will actually be worth a crap, but Steve Jobs must rub his hands together with glee when he sees his competitors come out with stuff like this. Mossberg was too easy on it. Auletta has previously profiled Barry Diller, Pointcast, Andy Grove, and Nathan Myhrvold for the New Yorker.
Adam and David recently reminded me of pocket, an episode of 0sil8 I did back in 2001 (the second-to-last episode actually):
pocket was a broadcast mailing list for mobile phones. People signed up and then I sent them SMS messages on their phones periodically. As I recall it only lasted a few weeks before I shut it down; there just didn’t seem to be anything interesting about broadcasting short messages to a group of friends and strangers.
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