Why This Phone Is My Last

End of the road for me

The humble mobile/cell phone. My how you've grown! You are all singing and dancing and texting and Googling and and oh everything! Im certain in years to come you will be bundled with jetpacks and auto pilot applications that drive our cars while we try to beat that hi-score on Angry Birds and the world will be giddy from the wonder of it all. But not me, im bowing out before I lose my soul forever.
You see I went through a few so called 'smartphones' before I finally settled on my current phone, the iPhone 3GS and this will be the last one I ever buy. (I was tempted by the newer iPhone 4 but after using both, preferred ios3.) The reason for this shouldn't be hard to see: iPhone 3GS has everything (and more) that I will ever need from a mobile telephone. I have no desire for the futures snazzy new iPhone 10. With or without jetpack.
How things change from the early days of mobile phones. Dai Jakes first one was the classic 'brick' type and you couldn't even text on it. It had a black and white screen, could make/recieve calls and erm....that was it. Perhaps you could change the ringtone but I never tried. There wasn't even a calculator and they seem to be on everything. It was a true mobile telephone, whereas these days mobile personal assistants is a more accurate description. Combine internet access with over 500,000 apps which have everything from blood pressure checks to whale alerts (I kid you not) and phones today almost do your life for you.
And thats why im stopping the one I have now. I don't want something sinister sounding like Siri telling me on iPhone 4 that I may need to take an umbrella to the park, or whatever else it suggests. Its too much and I am capable of thinking for myself thank you very much. Its neither cool or clever, only further proof of our decline as a species.
I have news, videos, music, sports, retro videogames, weather,, route finder, yada yada yada and that lot will do for me. Newer phones will only have the same but a bit more polished and I don't need further distractions from real life. Now if you'll excuse me I have a planet to kill in Plague Inc.

** Currently No Signal **

Cue tumbleweeds

Its been five days since I had my paws on mobile phone (cell phone to US readers) and it must said, im not missing it one bit. Well not strictly true, I do miss the camera/video capture and my tunes but other than those, nope! I can go walk in the countryside or along the coast and nobody can reach me. So liberating! And don't get me wrong, im not some hippy type who is unhappy being hooked up to technology which follows me everywhere I go. Ive just had a gut full of phones. Heck I spent the first 25 years of my life without one so it wasnt hard to get shot of it.
I will keep updating this post to show how im getting on.

P.S. I'll still carry a mobile, but only an older one and purely for the camera/video feature. The SIM won't be active.

Oh Foulest Blackberry, Begone!

After months of headaches, I have finally kicked the Blackberry smartphone (smart? Yeah right!) out of my bed and moved on. Good riddance to it, the horribe f**king thing! If ever a gadget needed execution, the Blackberry is it. But at least I did a good deed out of getting rid of it by selling it to someone on EvilBay for a mere £15. Hell you can't even get a basic mobile for that price these days so his Christmas came early. Yes I could have gotten more for it but I wanted to sell it cheap to show my utter contempt for the crappy company. (Plus a good deed is good for halo points and Lord knows I need 'em).
I hope the buyer has more happiness than I ever had with it but I could stand it no longer. And now I know why the cell phone shop made customers sign a document barring them from asking for refunds on Blackberry, which is why I won't be dealing with that store again either. I don't mind naming them, its the Orange shop in Carmarthen and my advice would be to stay away. (Is it even legal to make customers sign such things? What an offensive policy).


Blackberry: you have a message

Anyway I care not because I wouldn't own a Blackberry again if they threw in a seven bedroom house and a French maid to go with it. Lousy camera, loading start up times from hell, unreliable service, cheap knock off apps, appalling battery life, quiet music volume, etc etc. Just a horrid horrid little mobile phone. They don't even make decent accessories for the things. Tacky looking tat like the kind you commonly see in pound shops and the like.
So buh bye Blackberry thou infectious swag-bellied baggage!
Thank you Shakespeare for such a grand insult.

iBerry ~ When Life Gets Too Much

Soon the new iPhone 5 will be launched onto a public, eager for another toy to finger and cool! I like techy toys as much as the next nerd but when will all this end? Or is it at and end already? I mean just what kind of new bells and Apps can be added to mobile phones? I find it hard to believe anyone can muster enough excitement to get them to the phone shop these days because Smartphones are already filled to the pinging gills with everything you need.


The nuke app proved popular among teenagers

There are Apps for everything! Weather, news, money, temperature, blood pressure, fingernail growth checker, etc etc. (Okay I just made the fingernail app up but it will probably happen soon). What can Apple possibly conjure up for this new cell phone? How can they get better than they are now? Are Apps going to cook us dinner? Hoover the house? I would love one that can clean my deep fat fryer, horrid job!
Also, do we need Smartphones to be our personal assistants? Have our lives become so busy that we need a helping hand? Sure they are convenient and after a shaky start with my Blackberry, im enjoying iits many uses but I highly doubt my life would collapse into a shambles if for some reason mobile phones suddenly disappeared.


When phones were real phones

I had a brick like that one in the above picture and the only thing you were able to do on it was ring someone. *Shocker* I occasionaly wish for such simple times back again.