What your mobile phone tells me! (The phony guide of phones)

Hi friends,

Welcome to another amazingly thought up guide from me, your host and best friend of the universe and beyond!

Today I wish to go into the technology that is the mobile phone. Many arguments are going on about phones on the internet. What is better, faster, more expensive and what will cause the most sexy brain tumor!

So while there are many phones out there I'm going to start at one of the first mobile phone I had ever seen.

Who remembers this image from TV!

So.. Many.. Dreams..!

No did not mean her, I mean this guy. (Sorry I had to search "Kelly" first!)

 Can you hear me now you bastard!

Mark-Paul Harry Gosselaar, also known as Zackery "Zack" Morris from the famous saved by the bell series was the lil' *Bleep* that actually had a cell phone. This during a period where aliens needed to phone home with landlines.

Extra cat on my pizza please, what you mean that not a topping?

His phone told me one thing, he was "The man". Almost nobody had a cell phone back then. The price for one was out of this world and the service plans where pretty much non existent.

 Wonder if it can get onto Facebook?

Here's a quick list of the top 10 mobile phone subscribers in 1990 just so you can get your head around the thought.

Mobile phone subscribers (1990) by country
# 1 United States: 5,283,055
# 2 United Kingdom: 1,114,000
# 3 Japan: 868,078
# 4 Canada: 583,766
# 5 Sweden: 461,200
# 6 France: 283,200
# 7 Germany: 272,609
# 8 Italy: 266,000
# 9 Finland: 257,872
# 10 Norway: 196,828

In 1990 the population of the United States was 248,709,873, this means only 1 in 47 people had a cell phone. And this was back when in the USA there was no recession and people generally where making pretty decent money!

Try to think of even 1 person you know that, right now, has no cell phone. I will give you 15 minutes while I wait and laugh at you.

Ok maybe you thought of a few but you get my point, ok back to the article.

These days cell phones are like pants, if you do not have one with you at all time you feel naked. But just like the pants you wear say much about who you are so does your cellphone.

Not sure what he is trying to say though?

The first phone I'm about to cover has caused the most cheer and anger in many people. The "trendy" find it a must have, a phone to rule them all. The geek find them pure and utter garbage, a phone that is over priced and lacks usage. The normal person finds it just easy to use, but expensive.

You guessed it, it's the Apple IPhone (tm)

The first IPhone version was released on June 29, 2007. Since then a total off 89,974,000 have been sold world wide. The phone popularity largely comes from the massive promotions Apple has done to make it look like a phone you need to be "cool" and "different". Apple actually buys rights into movies and series so that those only show the usage of Apple products. Ever wonder why everybody in certain movies suddenly uses an Apple computer and everybody got an Iphone? It is not because the real world is like that, no it is because Apple is trying to make you believe it is like that. Marketing is where Apple exceeds at, and it knows the game very well. 

The phone itself is stylish, well build and very easy to use. This is why the phone sells also very well towards older less "Technical" folks. Though the technology behind the phone is usually lacking and running behind. It is still a solid build phone. Of course, because it is Apple, you pay through your ass to own it. Apple always has been the company that loves to overprice everything and make it sound like you are getting a "Great" deal.

What this phone tells me about you right now? That you have too much money to spare! That you do not wish to read up on different phones and just buy what your friend has. You just want to be "cool" and fit in while still having you copied "Individuality". Well sorry, this phone stopped being cool by 2008, and you are just like the rest. It now is just another phone, with a price card you need a bank loan for to get. 

What we got next, well remember the big player that used to be (Still somewhat is, but loosing market share fast). The massive company that used to cater only to corporate and suddenly raced into the market with their phones to cash in on the social network boom. 

The blackberry, RIMs job (hehe, get it) is to connect you anywhere you go, at any time, for a "small" monthly fee.

Blackberries are true "Connect me to the digital age" anytime, anywhere, devices. They are so much so that some people have gone insane from them being constantly "available". Blackberries have the "Ping" service which allows them to communicate to other blackberry users for "free" anytime (Need to pay monthly service fee). This only works  though for people with blackberries talking to other people with blackberries. So in essence they must recruit you into their collective so they can talk to you for "free" anytime, anywhere.

Resistance is futile, you must join our network!

Blackberries usually have old standard hardware, they mostly run 2 years behind the latest and greatest of phone hardware. Their service plans are outrageously expensive (At least on Curacao). The phones themselves however are of solid build quality, but suffer from bad battery performance. Still for a business these phones are a must have as they offer some of the safest communication backbones available! For personal use it is nothing more then an instant messenger that happens to be a phone.

What this phone tells me about you? That you are so disconnected from the real world that you constantly need an update from your friends. You can not stop talking, chatting or typing. You are hooked to being always on. If you could you would never sleep, blink, pee or shower. And if you ever lose your phone it would most likely almost kill you as you would need to make actual human contact again. Your phone is nothing but an annoyance! Stop using it in meetings, stop using it in the car, and stop using it while your partner wants to make love! Facebook does not want to know what position you are doing right now!

Next is the phone that is trying to run over all the others. They claim to be open, claim to be good, they claim to be the next best thing since sliced meats!

 

I'm sorry, Dave. I'm afraid I can't do that. 

Googles android OS, it's an "open" source code project from Google. I say "open" as it basically allows phone makers to create their own versions for their phones of the OS. I would guess a user could re-code the android OS also but that would take an immense amount of time and most people these days are to busy on Facebook. The android OS has come a long way, so has Googles support of it with their own App store and a large selection of phones to choose from. Usually the android phones are also on the forefront of latest and greatest technology. This makes them "wet dream" material for phone geeks. This basically also means, think what you want on your phone and there's most likely an android out there waiting to serve you!

 And it calls also, mostly names but ok!

So what could be wrong with Android phones then, you would ask, well plenty really. Because there are so many phone makers out there each running their own custom made version of the Google software, there is so a huge fragmentation of different version numbers. And if you are un-lucky the phone maker might never update the software for your phone! This means you are missing out on some great potential stuff! This also means for programmers that it is hard to make apps that work for your phone, with so many form factors and differences between the phones out there. It creates a pain to look for apps for your phone. And if you do manage to find one that works for you it might not for your friends android.

What does an android phone tell me about you. You tried to be different but still failed, as now a lot of other people also got an android phone. You most likely do not know how to use it to it's full potential as I see you yet have to root your android. You are no geek, but hey at least you know that your phone got GPS and can tether right?

Lastly we get to one that is late to the party, the person that waited to long and decided "Ok maybe we should try to get some of this multi-billion dollar pie"!

Me just as good as the rest I promise!

The windows 7 phone! Windows basically tried to redefine what a phone could be, set up a minimum requirement the hardware should be, did a little beta testing and failed in making something that could even be called slightly revolutionary. Don't get me wrong it a great OS, it works smooth, and is very intuitive, but it is still largely the same we seen before. The phones are of good quality, battery life is pretty decent, and the OS is not hard to use. Still it feels like it could be so much more. At this time it still lacks many basic features, but who knows with time they could grow to a nice market share. Microsoft has an App store that is growing, what is in there who knows I don't know anybody with a Windows 7 phone yet. 

One can only hope that Microsoft does not give up on this OS and continue to support it. It also needs to start marketing their phones more if they ever plan to sell well (Maybe time to look some more in the Apple hand book of marketing mister Balmer?)

Nokia has started a deal with Microsoft to use the Windows phone 7 OS on their phones. So it is very likely that soon a lot more people will be running around with Windows phones.

Our phones are more "magical" then yours!

What does the Windows phone tell me about you? I will let you know as soon as I see anybody use one!

Well friends, that it for now. I hope you enjoyed the phony guide of phones! 

What did I learn today?

No matter what phone you buy, you are still an asshole when you use it in the movie theater!

 

DICK!