Ha! I had a number of "non-smart-phones" back in the late 90's and early 00's. After a while they'd develop some sort of problem that destroyed their usefulness. Sometimes it was general software crappery, occasionally it was something like the battery door had come loose and it'd jostle in my pocket and shut it down. On too many occasions I looked at the display, everything seemed okay, but it turned out the phone was frozen and needed the battery removed to be rebooted. I could not rely on these phones to act as an alarm clock, that's how bad they were. I eventually got a Palm Treo. It was less reliable than those, but at least it made up for it by having access to email and web browsing... sort of.

When my contract was up with the Treo the iPhone was on its second revision. I didn't expect much but I switched over to it. It wasn't long before it became my primary alarm clock. I can honestly say that I have never had an alarm on any of my iPhones fail to go off*. I've never missed a call because the phone decided not to tell me. (That happened a LOT with my "not-smart-phones".) In the last 7 years I think I've only done a hard-reset twice. If I had to do it again I'd have to look it up.

What I'm saying is I didn't have a reliable phone until I got a smart phone. Frankly if I had to switch to Android at some point, I'd go in quite confident I'd end up with a similar tale to tell.

Now was it all sunshine and roses? No. Wifi is finnicky on Apple devices. It's a common complaint and I can tell you I've personally experienced it. Also, between iOS 7 and 8, the quality of the operating system has gone down. I don't know what's going on over at Apple, but either the switch to 64-bit was a much bigger problem than they let on or they're just not giving a shit. Yes, my phone always rings and my alarm always goes off, but it's only recently that I've actually seen glitchiness on these phones. Apple's promising that iOS9 is the 'reliable' version. I hope for their sake that they manage it.

But I'm sorry, I found your comment funny. Maybe I'm not representative of a large group of people, but dumb-phones generally are crap.

* I do, however, be extra careful when daylight savings time comes and goes because Apple has screwed that up multiple times. I don't know why it takes three tries to write alarm code that can survive an hour disappearing or reappearing.

Because there's a gazillion piece-of-shit phones that identify themselves as 'Android' and that's the only qualification you need to count them.

Heh. You supported my point but phrased it as a rebuttal. Nice.

You should read the comments from the people who have been there.

Heh. Yeah, *I* intentionally misinterpret stuff, that's me doing that in this discussion. Right. Anyway, in case you're curious, where I was going with that is that there are no statistics on GPS-use causing accidents because they fall into the statistical noise of accidents caused by passenger distractions and messing with the radio. It hasn't happened enough to get an actual number on it. Your approach of seeing a few stories on the news and multiplying it by a million turned out to be inaccurate. This is either because you're seriously misinformed or you're such a careful driver that you have useful safety tips to share. (Frankly I was hoping it was the latter.)

    Okay, I'm done, have a nice weekend. :)

For the same reason nobody wants to use Linux or OSX. Software.

Where'd that come from?

You mean you've used it like once or you've actually spent time with it? I'm just asking because you're unaware of the device being hands/eyes-free and oblivious to people using suction mounts.

... moving goal posts? Do you really really think I was trying to claim that people listen to GPS directions like they'd listen to a radio in the car? I wouldn't mind, but even after the first correction you even tried to go down the path of saying: "See, that's a distraction!" In all seriousness you'd have to ignore several posts I've made about how GPS's work and how people use them to actually believe that. Moving goal posts, indeed.

Oh, and speaking of trying to look smarter after a mistake, you've driven us away a few blocks from the topic. Ready to head back, yet? I still haven't heard the details about how you've removed a radio from your car or how you insist that passengers in your car keep their mouths shut, because, you know, you're so worried about distracted driving on the same level as the accidents GPSs cause.

Heh, yeah. Remember when all the fanbois lined up in Cuptertino so they could own a phone that automatically negotiates for their optimal data connection?

Who said that? I'm not sure you can even do that on an Apple watch. You certainly can't on a Pebble Watch.

Here's an actual scenario:

There's plenty of reasons to not like smart watches, you don't need to make shit up.

All I know is that I enjoy going home the same time every day and that I don't have to deal with panicky situations that arise from not getting the memo.

I apologize, I thought I was talking to somebody who has used a GPS before. Would you like me to go in-depth describing what that's like so you can understand enough about this topic to have an informed discussion about it?

These watches do not connect you 24 hours a day, they merely reflect what your phone is doing. These devices don't create the problem you describe, instead they reduce impact of it.

Yeah yeah, I wish everybody'd do things my way, too. So where is that line in relation to debating that with people on Slashdot?

Later in life, some time after you leave your parents' basement, you'll find that free-time comes at a premium. Everybody deals with it in different ways. That's why we have a broad range of computing products from desktop computers to laptops to smartphones to tablets to the gaming card you have in your computer, even Arduino.

'Laziness' is a poor way to describe any given technology and indicates that you do not understand the purpose of it.