Smart(er) Phone
It looks like we’ve been behaving more like those idiots who inadvertently established self-imposed brand loyalty shelling money without self-realization. Stranger than fiction this truth changed the land scape of human relations. People take their brands to their hearts and arguments, debates and comparisons have dominated simple, loving, caring and thriving relationships. I personally do not have a favorite phone, because technology evolves and so does we. My calculations are obviously simple, do we get what we want for what we pay? However simple this may sound, the current smart phone market has changed the way we think about phones. Very unfortunately, Apple the company well known for their quality designs have completely changed the way people perceive their devices. I hate Apple more for making a smart phone a smarter phone. The phone is something that does what we want and how we like, however, we started liking what it does and what it gives. This is sad for civilized people who make decisions based on brands. I don’t own an Apple product because I hate it, it is simply because it is an useless product for me. I would rather prefer to buy a desktop/laptop, printer, web cam, good set of speakers, a 22″ LCD, smooth and wide keyboard and a mouse which responds to the way I want rather than buying a Apple Laptop for double the cost for these combined stuff. The math doesn’t match my requirements, that’s all.
No two people think the same, but when thinking is dominated by stature and the stature is dominated by a brand, you loose yourself. Many of my peers think iPhone is a superior product without even bothering to see if there is competition and how they fair with one another and ultimately what is it that makes more sense to them. Again, there are no comparisons here.
I have a Blackberry Pearl, i picked it up as a choice in one amongst the others that I was getting FREE for signing up a 2-yr contract with AT&T. I never had plans to check my email on a phone nor browse internet over it. And the so called APPS (most people think that Apple invented APPS, dumber!) were available on my Blackberry even then. For some stupid reason AT&T goofed up my monthly charges simply because I gave my BB to my wife as I started using another touch screen phone which I borrowed from my deceased cousin (a memorabilia of sorts). It took me 15 calls and 8 hours of talk-time to fix the issue (hopefully fixed). I bought a cell phone for being able to call someone from anywhere, whether in need or not. The current day so called smart phones have defeated that purpose. People are fascinated with their GPS on their bright LCD, but still carry a stand-alone GPS, they are fascinated by their browsing capabilities on their phones, yet 99% of their browsing is done when a convenient and a faster PC is available within their reach. Or they would simply browse something that makes no sense at all. People are buying APPS for money without realizing if it makes sense or not. Smart phone are now smarter and smarter people are now smart, actually dumb.
Why would a person stand in a line for days to buy a phone? I simply does not get it. I would like to ask that person what is it that made him happy at the end, having that phone or its usage? Of course humans are extremely smart for justifying everything they do. My friends ask me, “if iPhone is really not that great, why would people buy it with such craze?”, I do not have an answer that will satisfy them, but I do have for myself. Because, they are buying a smarter phone and not a smart phone.
Now its my turn. I need a phone, just a smart phone and nothing more than that. Why? Because I could not do somethings that I would like to do over the internet when I am at my office. This is ridiculous because you are supposed to work and not browse when you are at office, isn’t it? Anyway, as I said before, we have our own explanations for everything and anything we do. I am not buying an iPhone because it costs me more, I am not buying an Droid because it costs me more, I am buying a EVO (most likely) because it costs me less.
I hate to see any company dominating the land scape of technology because its simply is not in our best interest. I love Microsoft for not its products but making our lives simple over the period for much less that we get from the competition. Google’s Android is picking up not because its better than iPhone’s iOS4 but because its open and available. Microsoft is coming up with their Windows Phone 7 OS, which promises better integration between APPS which simultaneously helping enterprises incorporate their WAP, wireless based technologies work in tandem. Most managers love to check their emails on their BB, come Windows OS, I guess they would love to check their Outlook directly without mediation.
I hope to see one day we just buy smart phones and become smarter. Long live civilization.