Superior Tech: Tablets, Smartphones and How I Learned to Hate the iPhone
I hate the iPhone 4S.
Something happened to me last October. I fell victim to the hype machine. I like Apple and the rest of the “enlightened” convince me that the iphone 4S was the mobile coming of Jesus Christ. I was sick to death of Android’s lag and crashing. Even the brand new Bionic crashed the 2nd day I had it. I returned that device and instead, I bought into this Apple hype with actual time and money. I waited in line at the Apple Store. I flirted with my sexy Australian sales person, then I proceded to make the stupidest decision of my life.
They were out of iPhones for Verizon. I had a choice to make. Simply get the phone later, or ditch my shared account with and strike out on my own with an iphone on a different provider.
You know what decision I made.
Granted, there were other reasons I wanted my own acct at the time. I had a deteriorating relationship with a plan mate and a girlfriend that was always pushing me to make premature decision that I specifically was avoiding at the time… but that’s another story.
In any case, I went home with my brand new iPhone 4S on my brand new carrier Sprint… I can hear the collective head slaps every time someone reads that sentence. Regardless, things started off well enough. The phone was quick. It was new. The network left quite a bit to be desired, but I was making it work. Eventually I moved into a new place all by myself (another misstep at the time), and as soon as I did, I realized why people hate Sprint so much. I couldn’t get service. My battery would drain so quickly at home that I’d lose 15% power before I got out of the door in the morning. Still, there was something else that was bugging me.
The iPhone was so boring. Everyone’s phones look exactly the same. They run exactly the same. We all accepted subpar features, smaller screens, slower web, and restricted media consumption. Sure, the phone is stable, but what good is stability if I can’t teach it new things or enjoy the experience. It’s a phone for babies. It has 1 button and anybody can use it. Give your grandmother an iphone in the morning and she’ll have it figured out by the afternoon. That’s a great and wonderful feat, but for a moderately tech savvy 30 year old, it is the most boring and uninspired piece of tech that I own and I have a 10 year old Sony Boombox.
Basically, I paid all this money for a device that bores me, bothers me, and ties me to the most hated of all apps… iTunes… God do I hate itunes. I can put things on my phone but I can’t take them off. DRM is madness. It just gives me more steps between doing whatever I am gonna do anyway. Worst of all, I keep going back to Google’s superior apps. I’m using Chrome, Google Maps, Calendar, and Drive. I tried to use Apple Apps, but they just plain don’t work as well.
I want back into Android. It’s not perfect, but it grows and changes and speaks to me. It gives me options. It interfaces via the web. I can integrate it with any device I get in my hands. Of course, I’m trapped in this iphone/sprint cesspool until October 2013 and I’m poor. What do I do?
I am going to zig instead of zag. That’s what I’m going to do. My salvation lies within the Nexus 7. I think I’m ready for a tablet. It hit me. I don’t actually NEED a smartphone anyway. Web on the go is nice, but not really for what they charge for it. Even with web, I still want to consume media more comfortably. Reading on iphone screen is like trying to read a flea’s tshirt. I want something bigger and more fun that affords me more flexibility for what I can use it to do.
My first thought was to sell the iphone and buy out of my sprint contract, but upon further inspection I thought that maybe I could go back to having 2 devices. Use one expressly to talk and text, and the other to read and play. I pretty much only use my mobile web to avoid talking to people anyway. Not to mention how addicted I am to checking mail and twitter and all those other updates. What if I were to go back to wifi, use a small tablet, and a lower powered phone with a significantly better battery?
Yes… This is what I am going to do.
Bikinis and Pancakes 