Thursday 8 July 2010

The Problem With Smartphone Users



...and by ‘users’ I mean addicts. If you have ever tried to have a conversation with a smartphone user then it’s likely you’ll know exactly where I’m heading with this one.

It’s also likely you have a smartphone.
And likely you think that it makes you cool.
But more than likely it just annoys everyone else.


Yes, the smartphone is indeed the technological manifestation of that nerd in school who knew way too much and really should have been bumped up a year. His hand was raised for every question; he did his science homework; he was reading newspapers during lunchtime while the boys played football. The teachers loved him, the girls thought he was weird, and the guys just wanted to punch his face in.

Universally, smartphone users tend to have a knack for involving their smart(ass)phone in every conversation. The two main culprits are uncoincidently also the market’s two leading competitors; BlackBerry and Apple’s iPhone.




BlackBerry Users – The Over Nurturing Mother

With their phones reaping in instant messages, texts, emails, facebook alerts and much more from who knows where, it’s no wonder the baby won’t stop crying. Instead of giving it a good slap or dare I say putting it on silent, BlackBerry users continuously cut you off mid-sentence to attend to each individual beep and rumble as if waiting to hear from Supernanny herself. What’s worse is that they do it with a cringe worthy reticent grin on their faces. The face a mother might give her child the first few times they look up and splutter, ‘mama’, completely blown away as if each time was the first.

iPhone Users – The Proud Father

With an app for almost everything – literally – iPhone users see every conversation as a platform on which they can show the world what new (and often useless) app they have acquired. Congratulations, you’re long faced child is now walking, talking, reading, writing, graduating, working or getting married. We’re very pleased for you, but can we now get back to the matter at hand?

iPhone users fail to grasp that those of us who don’t own iPhones don’t particularly care that if you shake your phone hard enough it will lead you to the nearest Starbucks. Go dunk your handset in a skinny latte.

World War 3g

It’s the ever perpetuating Apple v BlackBerry clash all over again. And once again it’s a bout that can’t be settled in the 12 billed rounds. I would leave it to the good old public to decide but general elections and X-Factor competitions strongly suggest otherwise. My scorecard (the only one that counts) is in, and it couldn’t be any closer. Apple’s iPhone couldn’t take this on its own merit, but thanks to the supposedly ‘already revolutionary’ iPad – that I haven’t seen a single person with – I have to give it to them.



Years of research, development and design was put into making the iPhone the most complete and compact handset on the market, so what did Apple then go and do? They threw buckets of cash into making a bigger and more obnoxious version! Now not only do Apple have two products that can seemingly do everything, they have a much larger one which is utterly impossible to ignore and will no doubt be filled by it’s users with millions of apps that will bore the rest of us stiff. Congratulations Apple, you win again.

With patience I await the unveiling of a BlackBerry twelve times the size of my Bold 9700.

A to the . . .

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