A phone is just another thing that checks email, holds information and schedules events, and which has to be carefully kept in sync with all the other crud in your life that checks email, holds information and schedules events. The difference? This one likely has a 240 pixel-wide screen and a shabby interface spawned from the hellish loins of Windows CE.
Totally agreed...except I think that's a good thing!
The sync features of Windows Mobile have made my life so much
easier. Why should I have to manually enter data in three places, and manually keep it up to date, when I can enter it in one, and then plug in a cable to automatically make the changes on the other devices?
I can enter an appointment right while I'm talking to somebody instead of waiting to get home to do it.
Or I can enter phone numbers and email addresses on my computer and have them all ready on my cell phone automatically.
The "has to be carefully kept in sync" completely drops the context of the fact that the whole arrangement is a net
benefit.
Windows Mobile is full of bugs but on balance I'd rather have it than not. If you don't like the bugs, then I recommend the iPhone, which has much of the same benefits, but fewer features, but lacking the bugs!
It knows where you are
GPS is in every box, but you can't use it for much. The government loves to watch them without warrants or probable cause: if it's in your pocket, you are Robocop and The Man is Dick Jones.
Completely not true. The GPS is not
running unless activated. It uses a huge amount of battery.
It's a red herring, too. The cell phone providers know where you are just because of the towers. They don't need GPS. So this is a valid privacy point, but that's the tradeoff that people have to decide.
It encourages stupid people to become a public menace
It turns you into a public annoyance
Hell is other people's ringtones.
Perhaps true on the first, but give me credit on the second for keeping my phone speaker off
all the time.
It makes you perpetually available
If it's on, they can get you. If it's off, they wonder why they can't get you. It's a lose-lose situation for your Zen.
This is the one that annoys me the most. I
want to be perpetually available, on
my terms. If I have a business or personal relationship with somebody, I
want to be reachable. Unless, of course, I hate my friends, and my job. Which speaks to a deeper problem that has nothing to do with the cell phone. (I am not implying that the stated reason is why anybody would not want email on their phone. That's just how I
personally see the tradeoff.)
The big point is you can choose not to answer the phone, or respond to an email you get on it. When it comes in, at least you have the choice--and the other party doesn't know whether you've read it and are putting them off, or just are unavailable! Also, there's an understanding, for people who have email on their phone, that they will make their own judgments on how they structure their time throughout the day and waiting to respond to an email doesn't mean it's being ignored.
There's a meme in our society, which no doubt dates from before we had voice mail and email, that you unquestioningly have an obligation to answer a ringing phone, regardless of what you are doing at the time. I, on the other hand, by default,
don't answer a phone if I am having an in-person conversation with somebody. The in-person conversation takes priority.
If you don't use a phone, then you don't even have the
option of knowing whether somebody is trying to contact you, even if you would otherwise think the issue was important!
As for the issue of cell providers sucking, agreed on most points. I think this problem will eventually take care of itself. Already, operating systems that have been written by the
software industry, such as Windows Mobile, the iPhone software, and likely Google's upcoming phone software, are radically shifting the balance of control to the users directly and away from the carriers. On nearly all Windows Mobile phones you can install whatever software you want without the carrier even knowing. This has the effect that it no longer matters what carrier you use--the "experience" is the same on all of them, even if you switch phones. There will be a sudden turning point, and I don't know when it will happen but it will happen, in the next 2-10 years, where enough phones use Voice over IP over unlimited data plans instead of metered "minutes", have Wi-Fi and function equally whether they are on the cell network or not, and when all communications traffic is encrypted by the handset and cannot be examined by the carrier, when the carriers suddenly realize they are irrelevant.
Experienced computer users can already do this today. You can use a Windows Mobile handset with encrypted email and Skype for Windows Mobile so you have "unlimited minutes" by using the data connection, and Wi-Fi so it doesn't matter whether you're on the cell network or not. The options will only continue to increase.
