phones

i hate mobile phones. this shouldn’t come as a surprise to anyone as i pretty much hate everything so why should cell phones get away unscathed.
my hatred has grown a notch this week, as i need to get a new phone. i am not hundred percent sure why i need to get one but i kid myself that having one is necessary i have been seduced by the dark side of consumerism. in fact the only uses i have for a phone is to wake me up, to send derogatory emails to jay and to text people that i am running late – this is when i use it the most.

so the week i need to get a new phone is about the time that apple are about to launch their iphone. now apple are the kings of product launches. if one thing separates apple from the rest is their design aesthetic. their products look beautiful and carry out their tasks well.
but do i want an iphone? hell no.

oddly there was an article in the daily mail (i know i know i shouldn’t admit to reading it but….) that i had some sympathy with. it uses the advent of the iphone to go off on a rant about modern technology. there seems to be two main thrusts to the article. first that much of modern technology is badly designed (not a charge that can be laid at anything that apple do) but we can all look around to see pieces of technology that not only look ugly but seem to be designed in such a way as to make using them harder than necessary. secondly that much of modern technology is packed with features and functions that you don’t need and will probably never know how to use.

this is especially true of the mobile phone. who really needs all the functions that come with the phone? not me. frankly i want to kill all the designers who decided that an mp3 player in a phone was a good idea. it doesn’t matter how much the kids pay for their phone (or how cannily they target the phones they are going to steal) none of it gives them taste when it comes to choosing music – so every mobile phone that plays music ends up playing some urban shite that all sounds the same and just becomes a dull nagging irritating noise.
doesn’t anyone listen to doris day?

as i mentioned earlier in this rambling piece i need to get a new phone. i just need it to make and receive calls, do texts and that is pretty much it. my first trip to the shop shows that pretty much all phones come with more than that.
i have two other criteria when it comes to choosing the new phone: the first is that there are no bits that slide or open on the phone. i want a one-piece thing that i can’t break. the other criterion is that it is cheap.
with those factors in mind it becomes easy to track down a phone. i have. but then i walked out of the store because i just thought: do i need this?
the funny thing is it will do all i want, so all the other features are bonuses if i choose to use them, and if i don’t use them then it is not like the phone won’t work.
how i wish that all those people around me would ignore the other features of the phone…

surprisingly the one major complaint that anyone can have against modern technology is that it means we are always available. just because i have a mobile phone it doesn’t mean i am going to answer it. i love the microsoft ads that go on about how you can have a version of “office” for your mobile so you can pick up work emails… fuck let us enjoy some time away from work!
i was in coffee@ (the best coffee shop in the world) the other day. two people were sitting chatting to each other; both of them had their phones on the table in front of them. implicit in this was the fact they were both telling each other that no matter that they were deep in conversation that if the phone rang they had to pick it up straightaway. you had to wonder if they kept score, so that later in the evening they could brag to their friends “i got 5 calls, he only got 2… two i ask you…” or if they never received a call do they go home and sulk? do they then phone themselves just to check the phone works?

in writing about mobile phones i am indulging in something i dislike in other people: conversations about their phones. “my phone does this” “i wish my phone did this” “i don’t like the screen on my phone”… no no no more. boring idiotic talk.

all of this wouldn’t be so bad if most of the phone conversations you have no choice but to overhear where of any more substance than “yeah, yeah, innit”, but guess what? most of the time it is just moronic witterings that can’t leave anyone with the feeling that they have had a decent conversation.

i blame margaret thatcher for pretty much all the ills that beset britain.
but the mobile phone is a close second for why we are a less tolerant and polite society.

dialling 999 to tell them there is a rant in progress, but it will only work if i do it in txt spk.

i hate the mobile.