It is just over a year and half since I got rid of my old flip phone and acquired a smartphone. I think I have mentioned before that I am a laggard when it comes to gadgets. I held on to my little basic cell phone for many years and it was a curiosity for many colleagues at work. When I made the switch, or should say leap, it was a bit of news around the office. One person remarked that I had finally crossed over.
A curious fact about smartphones caught my eye recently. I found out that Nikola Tesla had proposed the idea of a smartphone (though he did not use the term) in an interview as far back as 1926 - he said, "we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." (there is much more in that interview on the phone and many other topics). In passing, let us note that it is not 'smart phone' but 'smartphone'. Does this imply something? I leave that for you to ponder.
Over the course of owning this phone, I have come to appreciate a few very useful things. Yes, these are all pretty obvious and are hardly new. Finding my way around new places for instance, is now quite simple. I can get to my email anywhere. There is also the app that tells me how many steps I walk and how many flights of stairs I climb. The camera on the phone is pretty good and ready to click at a moment's notice (I am just waiting to record the next viral video sensation). I can do my banking on the phone. So far so good.
I can play music on it but the sound quality over the earphones is still sub par. I can watch TV shows but I am not crazy about the miniature screen. And holding the phone in your hand to watch a show is pretty tiring. Stiff hands and neck are guaranteed. Ditto for playing games. To be fair, I never was fond of video games anyway. But a lot of people are fond of games and some even addicted to them be it 'angry birds' or 'fruit ninja'. And if you want to be rid of the addiction, there is bound to be an app to cure that too!
I seem to have quickly reached a point where I am not sure what else I can do with the phone. This is no doubt due in part to my own lack of embracing new trends. The picture of people constantly bent over their phones with the thumb scrolling the screen resembling someone rolling the beads in a rosary is after all quite common. While not exactly aspiring to join them, I am looking at expanding the use of my smartphone.
I don't even know where to begin when it comes to apps. I know there are tens of thousands of apps available for free or a small fee but do I need them? Many of the apps seem just a novelty and do not provide any real benefit. Take the many apps that have sprung up to let you track everything you do to keep fit. I don't know how they actually help you to exercise though. But if you do exercise, then you can record details of calories, distance, and so on. I was curious to see an app which measured your pulse rate. I took a look at the free version of the app which asked me to place my finger on the camera lens - probably not a good idea to smear the lens though. But the free version was not really free. There were ads and tons of them. They kind of made it almost impossible to use the app. Worse the annoyance actually caused my heart rate to go up. Anyway, with a stop watch which is already included in the phone, one can easily measure one's pulse so I really did not see the need for the app and I quickly deleted it.
I have tried a few other things. The other day I decided to take notes in a meeting on the phone. Surprisingly, this turned out to be very productive. The phone provides prompts and auto-completes which make for less key strokes and faster typing while occasionally providing a chuckle with some unintended corrections. And yes, you could quietly text, check the news and such if the meeting gets to be tiresome.
Determined to make better use of the phone, I wanted to go farther than these simple apps. With the new year, I resolved to learn a language using an app. Learning a language is one of the things recommended to keep the grey cells from decaying. With advancing years, I can certainly use all the help I can get. Besides, living in California, I think a little Spanish will be quite handy. So here I am, all set to go and hoping that this does not go the way of usual new year resolutions.
¡Feliz año nuevo!
'appy New Year!
A curious fact about smartphones caught my eye recently. I found out that Nikola Tesla had proposed the idea of a smartphone (though he did not use the term) in an interview as far back as 1926 - he said, "we shall see and hear one another as perfectly as though we were face to face, despite intervening distances of thousands of miles; and the instruments through which we shall be able to do his will be amazingly simple compared with our present telephone. A man will be able to carry one in his vest pocket." (there is much more in that interview on the phone and many other topics). In passing, let us note that it is not 'smart phone' but 'smartphone'. Does this imply something? I leave that for you to ponder.
Over the course of owning this phone, I have come to appreciate a few very useful things. Yes, these are all pretty obvious and are hardly new. Finding my way around new places for instance, is now quite simple. I can get to my email anywhere. There is also the app that tells me how many steps I walk and how many flights of stairs I climb. The camera on the phone is pretty good and ready to click at a moment's notice (I am just waiting to record the next viral video sensation). I can do my banking on the phone. So far so good.
I can play music on it but the sound quality over the earphones is still sub par. I can watch TV shows but I am not crazy about the miniature screen. And holding the phone in your hand to watch a show is pretty tiring. Stiff hands and neck are guaranteed. Ditto for playing games. To be fair, I never was fond of video games anyway. But a lot of people are fond of games and some even addicted to them be it 'angry birds' or 'fruit ninja'. And if you want to be rid of the addiction, there is bound to be an app to cure that too!
I seem to have quickly reached a point where I am not sure what else I can do with the phone. This is no doubt due in part to my own lack of embracing new trends. The picture of people constantly bent over their phones with the thumb scrolling the screen resembling someone rolling the beads in a rosary is after all quite common. While not exactly aspiring to join them, I am looking at expanding the use of my smartphone.
I don't even know where to begin when it comes to apps. I know there are tens of thousands of apps available for free or a small fee but do I need them? Many of the apps seem just a novelty and do not provide any real benefit. Take the many apps that have sprung up to let you track everything you do to keep fit. I don't know how they actually help you to exercise though. But if you do exercise, then you can record details of calories, distance, and so on. I was curious to see an app which measured your pulse rate. I took a look at the free version of the app which asked me to place my finger on the camera lens - probably not a good idea to smear the lens though. But the free version was not really free. There were ads and tons of them. They kind of made it almost impossible to use the app. Worse the annoyance actually caused my heart rate to go up. Anyway, with a stop watch which is already included in the phone, one can easily measure one's pulse so I really did not see the need for the app and I quickly deleted it.
I have tried a few other things. The other day I decided to take notes in a meeting on the phone. Surprisingly, this turned out to be very productive. The phone provides prompts and auto-completes which make for less key strokes and faster typing while occasionally providing a chuckle with some unintended corrections. And yes, you could quietly text, check the news and such if the meeting gets to be tiresome.
Determined to make better use of the phone, I wanted to go farther than these simple apps. With the new year, I resolved to learn a language using an app. Learning a language is one of the things recommended to keep the grey cells from decaying. With advancing years, I can certainly use all the help I can get. Besides, living in California, I think a little Spanish will be quite handy. So here I am, all set to go and hoping that this does not go the way of usual new year resolutions.
¡Feliz año nuevo!
'appy New Year!
