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Honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Who needs smartphones (Score:4, Insightful)
Smartphone = $$$phone to me. Prepaid phone that can text is all I need.
Quick Tethering Quiz (Score:5, Insightful)
Quick Tethering Quiz.
Which costs more and which puts more stress on their network:
1. A 1 kilobyte packet transmitted between my phone and the tower.
2. A 1 kilobyte packet transmitted between my phone and the tower.
(Please note in the case of (1) the packet was from my mobile browser, and in the case of (2) the packet was from my laptop browser.)
If I have a 2 GB monthly data limit, which of the following activities will use more data on the network:
1. Downloading 2 GB of data to my mobile phone?
2. Downloading 2 GB of data to my laptop?
IPhone (Score:5, Insightful)
I'm lazy, I admit it freely. I have too much work to take the time to tweak a lot of settings and load my own mobile phone software. I like sitting back and letting Apple make the major mobile OS decisions.
I like working with the non-jailbroken apps of my Iphone4. I like carrying my easy-to-read contacts, calendars, converters, and calculators. I like reading with the mobile e-book readers, roadmaps with the descent GPS capability, and rearranging my daily to-do plans on my phone.
Lazy, but loving my mobile anyway.
Re:Quick Tethering Quiz (Score:5, Insightful)
My ISP (sonic.net - so far, I'm quite happy with them) offers static IP service on DSL. For residential use, 1 static IP is free, 4 go for $10/month, and you can get 8 for $20/month. For business use, they charge $10/$20/$40 for the same 3.
One of the things I like about them, though, is that they're a lot more down-to-earth and upfront than most companies. From the CEO's blog [sonic.net]:
Wondering why business IP pricing is higher than residential? Honestly, it’s what the market will bear. There is a dearth of well-priced broadband offerings that incorporate static IP for business customers. Product designed revenues are not always a direct reflection of actual costs, and some things contribute to billing at a higher level than others. That’s just the way things go.
In almost every industry, there are examples of this, where there are two products that cost approximately the same to produce, but one charges a premium: Generic versus brand-name drugs. Top-tier versus regular gasoline. Celeron versus Pentium versus Core. Yes, there may be some differences between these (brand-name drugs might taste/dissolve/look better; top-tier gas has different detergents that may or may not help your car; a Celeron can be a high-end chip that has some of the cache or various features disabled - possibly because they didn't work, or just because you wouldn't pay more to have them enabled). But those differences aren't the driver for the price difference - the fact is, people will pay more for them. Intel may sell a particular CPU at 3.33 GHz, 3 GHz, and 2.66 GHz. These all cost the same amount to produce, but some of them are capable of running faster. Intel would be stupid to not charge extra for the faster ones.
Similarly, your phone company can prevent you from tethering, and can charge you to enable it. This is nothing new - they've long offered features (say, Caller ID) that cost them virtually nothing, but they charge you for them anyway. It's what the market will bear. If you don't like it, don't pay for it. If enough people don't like it, the market won't bear it - or another company will try to undercut your phone company by offering it for free.
Capitalism sucks. Just like everything else.
Re:Honestly... (Score:4, Insightful)
To make generalizations, you may be an extrovert and the prior poster an introvert.
Extroverts tend to communicate best by voice. Introverts, in contrast, tend to communicate better in a written medium.
Now, to show my bias, I perceive extroverts as people who never shut up and apparently lack an inner voice -- because all they do is unleash an unending, unfiltered stream of verbal garbage when they 'think aloud.' They bombard you with one idea after another without waiting for consideration or response. Even something as simple as, "Hey, how are you doing?" before they launch into their spiel. If you asked, why didn't you wait for a response?
Introverts, in contrast, tend to internalize and hash over a response before they commit it to the outside world. They think more about precise and appropriate wording. They don't respond as quickly, but they typically respond after giving due consideration to the question.This lends itself best to writing, where they can take the time to formulate their thoughts. An introverted friend of mine once commented that extroverts "are impatient and do everything and half-assed."
Introversion has nothing to do with shyness, although the two are more common together than with extroversion. Really, introversion and extroversion deal with how people receive and process information.
Increasingly inappropriately name (Score:5, Insightful)
At some point, we're going to have to accept that the devices we carry around with us aren't really "phones" anymore. They're powerful computers that happen to be able to make the odd phone call in between accessing the internet, playing games, taking photos and storing data.
That established, I'm pretty happy with my iPhone 4s. The glaring omission is turn-by-turn directions -- I consider it a public safety issue when I see people looking down at their phones trying to figure out what exit they need to get off on.
Re:Honestly... (Score:5, Insightful)
Take all time constraints out of the picture if you must and compare an asynchronous verbal exchange of anything resembling nuanced conversation to one in text, and you can not help but notice the failings of the latter. Enter a few more variables into the mix, say one party is texting the other and is using heavy sarcasm for effect, and the other is unfamiliar with the first persons habits... you have a recipe for disaster, as I have seen in person many times. There are so many cues in verbal communication that come from tone, cadence, and other aspects I'm missing, that are nearly impossible to communicate through text, it's not even a close race. (admittedly html helps a tiny bit)
Re:Goodbye iPhone, Hello Nexus (Score:5, Insightful)
My android, as well as most other upper tier, have a back button. Exactly the back function is something I find so amazingly annoying about the iPhone, that I am surprised you used that as an example. The look is more consistent though.
Re:Who needs smartphones (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Oh, you crazy wacky Americans... (Score:5, Insightful)
So many comments have been along the lines of "hurr i only want a simple phone that makes phone calls" and "oh I got rid of mine and I only use a landline" type of thing.
Why?
911 service. With a traditional POTS phone, it's attached to a physical address. If you need emergency service (fire, police, ambulance), dispatch can have someone on their way to the address attached to your landline phone even if you can't speak for some reason, and before you have an opportunity to describe where you are if you can.
Many places have E911 service for cell callers, and these work in two ways. If your cell phone has a GPS built in, it can send your coordinates to a roughly 10m radius, but without the E911 system uses cell tower triangulation with a resolution of approximately 300m radius. This may not seem like a big problem if you live out in the country, or are stranded at the side of the highway, but what if you're in a situation where you can't speak, and you live in high-density housing? E911 can't tell dispatch or the responders which apartment or suite you live in, and the time it takes to determine that information could mean the difference between life and death. By way of example, if you're alone in a 7th floor apartment in a 10-story building and are choking severely enough to require emergency assistance (in which case, you probably can't speak), which would you prefer to call from -- a landline that gives dispatch your exact building and apartment number, or a cell phone that can only inform dispatch that you're in or around the building? The extra time it would take emergency service to walk around the building and knock on all the doors in an attempt to find you would be the difference between you being found dead on the floor, or alive enough to be revived.
True, these situations don't happen to specific individuals all that often, but it just happens that that one in a million time when it does occur that suddenly becomes the most important thing in your life.
Yaz
Re:Honestly... (Score:3, Insightful)
On the other hand, there is significantly greater logical complexity that can be communicated in writing, especially if the proposition one is communicating requires nested quantifiers, modal operators, etc. Just try to do a math or logic lecture without anything in writing (it's not impossible; there are excellent blind mathematicians after all; but for most people, it's a lot easier to use writing).
So it looks like certain kinds of emotional complexity can be better communicated orally and certain kinds of logical complexity can be better communicated in writing. It seems like this is a case a where the medium should be suited to the message. And sometimes the best is a mix--there are conversations I wouldn't want to have away from a board or a piece of paper.
Re:Honestly... (Score:4, Insightful)
As an introvert, I'd like to say that our heads aren't all filled with the masturbatory trash in that article. You don't have to "care for" us, or make accommodations. I'm perfectly capable of removing myself when I need time alone. Sometimes that'll mean extroverts don't get the attention they want from me. Sometimes I'll suck it up and hang out even though I don't want to. We all make implicit compromises in this thing called society.
The point is I can take care of myself, and I'm not some special asshole snowflake, and I'd much rather hear noises about the weather than some navel-gazing douche spouting such fantastically un-self-aware lines as "The only thing a true introvert dislikes more than talking about himself is repeating himself." or "Are introverts arrogant? Hardly. I suppose this common misconception has to do with our being more intelligent, more reflective, more independent, more level-headed, more refined, and more sensitive than extroverts." I thought at first that had to be a subtle joke, but look at the article and check out the context--I'm pretty sure it's for real unless the whole thing is a satire that's over my head.