Tag Archives: iPhone

Why no iPhone for smays.com

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IphoneGiven my love of tech toys in general and Apple stuff in particular, I find myself frequently explaining why I don’t have an iPhone (or plans to own one). Put aside the fact that I might make or receive 5 mobile calls in a week… it’s really a matter of time.

The time it would take me to get up and running is manageable. But I know I would be tweaking and “playing” with the phone until Steve Jobs is called back to that Garage in the Sky. It would be all-consuming.

For someone with very few real-world responsibilities (kids, chores, community service, etc), my days are full. Work, reading, exercise, dogs and, yes, blogging. Oh yeah… and Barb. She doesn’t get her share of my time.

The iPhone would be one more digital child I don’t have time to raise, care for and play with.

Someone please tie me to the mast

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I make and receive about three phone calls a week. All to and from Barb.

"Want me to bring you some Chinese?"

"Pick up some dog food. We’re out."

"Did you try to call me just now? (No) Huh."

So I don’t really need a cell phone. Let alone an iPhone. But boy are those buggers cool? All my pals have them and love them. Can’t imagine going back to whatever they had before.

And next month we’ll probably see the new and improved (3G) iPhone and the flames of my iPhone lust will be whipped as by Santa Ana winds.

When asked why I don’t have an iPhone, I mumble some variation of what you just read. But the real answer has more to do with my MacBook Pro. I always have it with me and have big chunks of my life recordable or accessible there.

Motorcycle

Think of the MacBook Pro as a sleek, high-performance racing car. And the iPhone as a sexy, top-of-the-line motorcycle (Candy Apple Red).

It would be fun to ride the motorcycle (zoom! zoom!) but that would mean leaving the MacBook Pro in the garage. What a waste. Why not take both along? I could, but that would be like towing the motorcycle behind the sports car on a trailer. Cumbersome (and silly).

I’d love to see some data on this. Do new iPhone users tote their laptops less often? Perhaps at the molecular level, we are laptoppers or iPhoners. I think I’m the former.

iPhone users love mobile web

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Iphone150NYT Bits Blog reports the results from a January survey (of 10,000 adults) of media habits of iPhone users:

84.8 percent of iPhone users report accessing news and information from the hand-held device. That compares to 13.1 percent of the overall mobile phone market and 58.2 percent of total smartphone owners – which include those with Blackberries and devices that run Windows.

74.1 percent of iPhone users listen to music on their iTunes-equipped device. Only 27.9 percent of smartphone users listen to music on their phone and 6.7 percent of the overall mobile-phone-toting public listens to music on their mobile device.

Doc Searls: What’s Around the Bend?

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Doc Searls is on a panel (Public Media 2008) titled Technology and Trends: What’s Around the Bend? From his list of ten, here are three I found interesting:

  • Cell phones will be the new radios and televisions. This will start to happen in a big way the minute Apple opens its iPhones to independent developers of native applications (rather than just ones that run in a browser).
  • Websites will become as inadequate as transmitters. That is, both will remain necessary but insufficient means for reaching listeners and viewers, and for relating to them. “Live Web” methods such as streaming, file sharing, social networking and “rivers of news” will all play roles as well.
  • Archives will be the ultimate killer kontent. Stations and networks will come to value not only their own archives, but will work to make those archives as easy as possible to find, consume and otherwise use — and to open CRM systems for VRM tools to make it as easy as possible for listeners and viewers to voluntarily pay for the privilege. Bigger inventory, bigger income.

I couldn’t begin to guess the number of hours I’ve spent archiving material (I think Doc hates the term “content”). MissouriDeathRow.com; Legislature.com; Missouri Supreme Court oral arguments; and –once upon a time– Missouri State Highway Patrol accident reports. We saved damn near everything but I can’t say that I noticed a huge appetite for that archived material and I was never smart enough to make any serious money with it. But we’ve got it.