From: Jon Glass (jonglass_at_usa.net)
Date: Wed Jun 18 2003 - 23:30:00 PDT
on 6/18/03 3:05 PM, Eric L. Strobel at fyzycyst_at_comcast.net wrote:
> Ah, but the case I'm trying to make is that, no matter how elegant and
> simple Apple could make it, a useless feature is still a useless feature.
> And cameras, calendars, IMing, games, e-mail, and all that are useless
> features on a phone. I don't need or even want any of that extraneous crud,
> which is one reason I hang on to my 5 year old cell -- it's getting hard to
> find a cell phone nowadays that doesn't have all the non-essential garbage
> on it.
This may be true for you, and it may be true for me, but really, it's hard
to know before it happens. I have an ancient Sagem phone that is very
simple, including a simple, pain-to-use address book and SMS messaging
service. I never used either feature because they were such a pain in the
neck, and I hardly used the address book feature in my Kyocera phone in the
States, because it was such a pain to set up. . . Then I got my Nokia. For
one thing, its address book is actually useful. For another, writing SMSs on
it is a dream! It has intelligent, adaptive typing, so I don't have to type
the same key multiple times or hold down a key, just to get the letter I
want. For instance, if I want to write "when" I merely tap the "wxyz" key,
the "ghi" key, the "def" key, and the "mno" key--all of them only once. On a
normal, older phone, Only the "w" in "when" would have been a one-tap
letter. This little feature turned a service that I never used (SMS) into
one I use almost daily, and I use it even with friends out of the country.
Since my experience with SMS (which I always thought of as a toy for
teenagers before) I no longer limit my thinking when it comes to phones. I'm
willing to see what they can do, as long as it is well-done and thought out.
This is an area, as I said, where Apple shines. Again, I refer to the iPod.
I never wanted an MP3 player before, because, when I looked at MP3 players,
they were all kludgey. I wasn't willing to put up with them, and I
considered the idea a waste of money. Well, the iPod has changed my
perspective. I won't exclude anything at this point--as long as the
potential exists, and now I think it does. :-)
-- -Jon Glass Krakow, Poland <mailto:jonglass_at_usa.net> "They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." --Benjamin Franklin -- This is the NewtonTalk list - http://www.newtontalk.net/ for all inquiries List FAQ/Etiquette/Terms: http://www.newtontalk.net/faq.html Official Newton FAQ: http://www.chuma.org/newton/faq/
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