but cell phones are the suck.
I read this Russell Beattie post a few days ago and kept turning it over in my mind for some reason. I like tech and all but I agree with the guys he was attacking. Why? Because we programmers like sharp tools. Or at least appropriate tools. I still use pine to read email. Should I be seeking out the absolute newest GUI email client?
Most cell phones still have lousy cameras, they suck for reading or transmitting text, their displays are crap for looking at photos. Then to make things worse, all those "features" mean crappy battery life. Most modern cell phones are toys, throwaway designs that are destined to be replaced months or weeks after their release. And all their onboard tech is still pretty much a novelty.
Sure, I can see a future where a phone is a good mp3 player, a decent camera, a PDA, whatever. But I still maintain that it'll take a shift away from "fashion" for any existing manufacturer -- save maybe PalmOne -- to make a phone that doesn't suck. And in the meantime, why would any sufficiently technical person want a bunch of blinky-light bullshit?
I bought a Treo because of some of the convergence stuff (mainly, I hated having all to maintain all my phone numbers in a Palm and a phone), but before that all I wanted was a rugged cell phone with 2-week battery life. Pine, in a phone.
Speaking of which, the Treo 650 is out and it sounds right sexah. (by "right sexah" I mean "it fixes some things that were annoying, like the low-res screen which makes it hard to use for email".) Except that my Treo 600 cradles, chargers, keyboard, whatever... totally uncompatible. Thanks Palm!
Is it ironic for me to bitch about phones then express desire for a new one?
On a lighter and probably more interesting note, I finally installed MT-Blacklist and turned comments back on. Have at thee.