My first touchscreen phone was the Samsung Glyde.
It was the only touchscreen phone Verizon had at the time and I was suffering from severe iPhone envy. I still wasn't in a Blackberry frame-of-mind yet, and my Palm Treo had become too obnoxious to use without a data plan. So I got the Glyde.
It sucked as a touchscreen, but the slide-out physical QWERTY keyboard was nice--real nice, actually. I liked the landscape keyboard better than the portrait style keyboard on the Treo. So naturally, when I got the Blackberry Drizzle--I mean, Storm soon after, I rotated that sucker into landscape mode just about every time I picked it up (and waited three seconds while the software followed suit--oh, how I miss you, Blackberry Drizzle).
(Yeah, not really)
Then, after the finance Gods smiled down on me, and I finally gave up on an under-supported, still-too-green Drizzle, I got the iPhone 3G. And there was a dilemma:
The iPhone didn't support a landscape keyboard (mostly).
I became a portrait guy again.
Fast-forward to when OS 3.0 was announced--the landscape keyboard would now be supported throughout: How exciting!
Fast-forward to when OS 3.0 was available for download: Can't wait to use that landscape keyboard!
Fast-forward to now: I never use the landscape keyboard.
Ever.
Except for the times where I think: Oh yeah, I could be using the landscape keyboard right now and rotate the phone to use it just that once.
Why did this happen? Because I was forced to use a portrait-style keyboard (that functions really, really well) and I adapted. And that's what I use, even when I have the option to use both, because it's what I like and what I'm used to.
I had the option to use both on the Drizzle--I didn't.
The portrait keyboard sucked.
And I promise, this all comes into play later.
--
So this morning, I was reading this article by Elinor Mills of CNET and that's what got me thinking.
I'm a iPhone fan. I loved the 3G and love my 3GS even more. As a matter of fact, I can honestly say that it's the ninth or tenth cell phone I've owned in my life and it's the first time I've never uttered the phrase, "God, I hate this thing" at some point.
I've used every major carrier, I've had flip phones, direct connect phones, smart phones, touch screens--everything. I went through the Nextel bleeping craze, the Palm PDA-to-phone craze, the text messaging revolution, the data plan revolution, and now the portable media device-as-a-phone revolution.
Still, to me, the iPhone is the head of the class.
Now, I've heard the complaints about AT&T's service. I've been told how much it sucks, how spotty the reception can be, the delays in text and visual voicemail, and I've got to say it:
I've never really had these issues.
Why? Am I am anomaly?
Do I happen to always inhabit a spot where AT&T's service is strong?
Is it possible that I'm so Apple-centric that I am blind to reasonable complaints and confirmed short-comings? (highly possible)
Or--
Am I experiencing technological evolution?
Because here's the thing--
I don't talk on the phone.
I know, I know--mind blowing, right?
But the reality is that I don't, or at the very least, not very often.
I pay for unlimited text messages. I pay for unlimited data. I have instant messenger, Facebook, and Twitter applications. As of this Friday, I'll finally even have access to MMS, which to be honest, I probably won't even use that much, also a result of my evolution.
Technology is a living organism. It doesn't exist in a vacuum. It takes into account what the user wants--our feedback and our complaints and our highlights and our lowlights--and it all gets filtered and applied.
I don't not use my phone as a phone because of AT&T's service. I use a host of other easier, faster options because they work for me, and from what I can see, a lot of other people too.
And this might be the reason why AT&T doesn't see the need to put out the "your service sucks!" fire as fast as some would like.
Think about it--the next time you text a friend, the next time you write on your sister's Facebook page, the next time you e-mail a picture to someone.
--
I forgot who said it, but I'm fascinated by the notion that humans tend to think of themselves as the end of the evolutionary line, when really, on a developmental level, we're still very much a beta version.
It's the same with phones--telecommunications now is light years away from where it was ten years ago, twenty years ago, fifty years ago.
It's no longer enough to say, "Kill or be killed."
More like, "Text or be deleted from contacts."
More soon.
JS
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