I remember getting my first cell phone like it was yesterday. It was my 15th birthday and the phone I was thrilled to receive was dumb, heavy and oh so cool all at the same time. Thirteen years later, I’ve had my share of ever-evolving phones from the Motorola Razr, to the very first iPhone, and so on. I have games galore, messaging apps and yes, I can still make the occasional phone call. And yet, has the phone lost its cool factor?
It’s no secret that we all keep our smartphones close, and they are the most personal of personal devices that are available to us. Indeed, on average we interact with our phones 150 times in a given day, which means that if we assume that we all get a decent night’s sleep, we reach for our phones every six-to-seven minutes during the waking hours. So what do we reach out and do first?
“Mr. Watson, come here, I want to see you,” said Graham Alexander Bell, as he made the first ever phone call 140 years ago yesterday. And, of course, I’m sure Mr. Watson came running from the other room, probably wondering why they couldn’t have invented video conferencing instead. How times change; when the landline phone rings at my house, the kids barely look up from their smartphones and no one makes a move to answer the thing. And so it rings and rings until voicemail finally kicks in…and no one bothers to check that either. If you want to talk to one of us, call us, not the house. And yes, we all have video conferencing, but on our own personal little screens.
Mobile World Congress has traditionally been the playground of the mobile OEMs, highlighting the latest and greatest devices, and creating the loudest buzz possible along the way. To some extent, this fact remained true at MWC 2016, but the real buzz was saved for VR headsets and the 360-degree cameras needed to help build some of this content.
The sensory overload of CES 2016 is over and most of us have made it home to appreciate the relative peace and quiet of anywhere except Vegas. As I think back on the sights, sounds and devices that I saw in the past week, few stand out as surprises. This year seemed to be one of incremental advances, rather than giant leaps forward.
There is a record store in my local village. It’s a tiny little store – technically half a store as it shares a street number with the store next door – but still, it’s there. In search of one last holiday gift a few weeks ago, I popped in to explore.
I know I can’t be the only one who’s noticed that children have become quieter and more well behaved while dining out with their parents. What used to be an ordeal, with the “under eights” raising a ruckus in public, has become much easier thanks to the smartphone and some streaming video.
Windows 10 launched with the key promise of creating a user experience that transcends the phone, tablet and PC. While this should, at least in theory, help drive the appeal of Windows-based phones, the reality is that it may be too little, too late for the mobile component. According to NPD’s Mobile Phone Track, Windows-based phones accounted for just 2.8 percent of U.S. smartphone sales in Q1 2015.
I tend to vacation off-the-grid, leave technology behind and turn the phone off. It’s a welcome chance to focus on the here and now, as opposed to the calls, texts, emails, and social sphere that links to everyone’s activity...
“My, that’s a large phone that you have,” said the lady. No, I wasn’t in a bar and it wasn’t a pick-up line. It wasn’t even aimed at me, but rather at my daughter who was toting around a gigantic Windows phone. Or as I like to think of it, her portable TV, since all she really uses it for is Netflix.
