Phones

[andrewducker]

I'm asking here about your own, personal, phone. If your phone could theoretically surf the web, but you don't have it set up to do so, then don't tick that box.

[Poll #1540141]

Comments

[ylla.livejournal.com]

But actually it mostly sends text messages. And wakes me up.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, mine is my alarm clock. And I haven't owned a watch in the better part of a decade now because I have one.

[ashfae.livejournal.com]

yep.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I only got one for the first time last month, after *ridiculous* amounts of pressure from my wife. She's the only one who has the number, or ever will have, and it has no credit on it, so it technically won't do any of the things you list. I hope the infernal thing breaks very quickly.

[andrewducker]

I'm curious as to where your aversion to small portable computers comes from.

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

Partly from growing up in the 80s, with mobiles being used by yuppies - it's a visceral thing.

But mostly because I hate being contactable. I think the idea that wherever I am, whatever I'm doing, I should be expected to speak to anyone who happens to have a number, is a terrible one. At least with landlines (which I also hate, but not as much) you can pretend to be out...

[andrewducker]

Mine has an off switch - it's very handy.

Not as handy as having access to Google wherever I am though.

(Or, indeed, making occasional use of my walk home in the evenings to talk to my parents)

[andrewhickey.livejournal.com]

I quite like having brief periods with no 'net access - I spend all day at work online, then most of my time at home. As for the off switch, if I turned mine off, it'd never get turned on again - I absolutely hate talking on the telephone...

[anton-p-nym.livejournal.com]

"I don't have a mobile phone." 1 (4.8%)

I R ooneek an' speshul!

-- Steve isn't willing to shell out for a mobile, given that he wouldn't use it much and Canada's cell market is one of the least competitive on the planet.

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

Phone calls and texts only - probably more of the latter than the former. And I don't even use predictive text.

[andrewducker]

You don't find predictive text faster and less annoying, I take it?

[randomchris.livejournal.com]

Nope - more annoying. I also find having to switch to digits very annoying, but that would be the same in both formats (due to this phone being particularly badly designed for anyone who wants, say, type 10:30 instead of ten-thirty).

[andrewducker]

I'm intrigued as to what you find annoying about predictive text. I always find it a bit annoying when I get a new phone, because I have to teach it words it doesn't already know, but once it's trained up it's just less keypresses to type words than it would otherwise be.

[despotliz.livejournal.com]

I only have facebook because Gravity does both Twitter and Facebook status updates. Technically I have chat because I have putty installed and I could use that for IRC/IM, but in practice I don't actually do it.

[autopope.livejournal.com]

I don't use chat/IM or facebook -- if I did, my iphone would be there.

(It also runs vi and perl. Don't tell Steve Jobs.)

[pete stevens (from livejournal.com)]

Mine has become wifi access point which is incredibly useful

[andrewducker]

Yeah - that was incredibly useful for me too, when I was away on holiday.

[phillipalden.livejournal.com]

My phone does all those things because it's an iPhone.

[andrewducker]

My phone does all those things because it's a Nokia.

My next phone will do all those things because it'll be an Android.

[poisonduk.livejournal.com]

My phone does all these things because it's an iPhone , however not multi-threading as it's an iPhone!

[zz]

My next phone will do all those things because it'll be an Android.

any model in particular?

[andrewducker]

HTC Desire.

[zz]

yeah, i've been refreshing the expansys page for that one to see the days count down. :>

[jsburbidge.livejournal.com]

I have two phones -- a personal phone and a work Blackberry; I answered re the personal phone (the BB would have been the same except for adding in GPS).

[bohemiancoast.livejournal.com]

It doesn't actually do most of those things. I do those things, using functionality on the phone. You might as well say that my sketchpad draws pictures.

[andrewducker]

And I might well say that, assuming that most people would understand me :->

[heyokish.livejournal.com]

in descending order of frequency: SMS, alarm, phone calls

It's not capable of much else. This is fine with me. One day I will have the internets in my pocket, but I use the phoning part of the phone so little--£10 a quarter or so--it seems crazy for me to link this up with a phone...

[fyrie.livejournal.com]

I do have a phone, but I don't know where it is :) There's no tickybox for that. Or "my mobile phone annoys my friends immeasurably, because they can't contact me on it, since I don't know how to use it" ;)

[draconid.livejournal.com]

Primarily I use mine for surfing, music, and text messages. Theoretically I could do all of the above, and I may every once in a while, but not enough to really warrant ticking the box.

[errolwi.livejournal.com]

Major uses of my iPhone are:
Podcasts, ebooks, TXT, Twitter. And other non-major stuff, but no Facebook or chat.

[cheekbones3.livejournal.com]

My phone was the cheapest I could buy about six years ago. It sends the odd text, makes the occasional call and needs recharged every week or so.

[cangetmad.livejournal.com]

Found this hard to answer - on its own account, it phones, texts and photographs. It *can* web surf, and does occasionally when connected to home or work wireless, but never when I'd have to pay for it.

[andrewducker]

Yeah, mine doing WiFi makes it much more usable. For a start, I can download music onto Spotify in the flat, rather than over the phone connection, which would be vastly more expensive.

[sageautumn.livejournal.com]

I think mine can do much more than I checked... for instance, I didn't click "surfs the web" because it doesn't surf like an iPhone would--but it does have a more limited/smaller version. (technicaly I suppose I could surf to anywhere, but it... doesn't.) It might play videos, I'm not sure if it can, I've nver tried ro. ... ..hrm.... ..it can TAKE video, so it probably can play it?

Anyway. Mine's a Nokia also. I won't have anything else.

[don-fitch.livejournal.com]

I'm in the small minority that doesn't have a mobile phone. Having become profoundly deaf (from only moderately so) in the past few years probably has something to do with this, as does being a bit behind the curve in learning that "mobile phone" is becoming synonymous with "tiny wireless computer". If fine motor function doesn't deteriorate (vide. "tiny", supra) there's probably one in my future.

[andrewducker]

They are handy. Worth trying out a friends to see if it would be useful.

[secritcrush.livejournal.com]

When it's charged, which is rare.

[momentsmusicaux.livejournal.com]

I plays music too but I can't be bothered to do that with it...

[blackmanxy.livejournal.com]

Everything but email (my phone doesn't support gmail), gps (I don't need it enough to pay $15/mo for that), and Facebook.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

Right now none of my phones do any of those things at all.

[andrewducker]

Phones that can't make calls are a pretty sorry sight.

[0olong.livejournal.com]

They really are.

[mooism.livejournal.com]

I'd use it to take photos and play music, but it can only transfer files using bluetooth, which I find a tedious process.

[missedith01.livejournal.com]

... and is a torch. You didn't have a box to tick for "Is a torch"!

[andrewducker]

Oooh, good point! I use mine that way sometimes at night, just because it has a bright screen, but I know people with phones with actual torches in them.

[ekatarina.livejournal.com]

Alarm clock, personal organizer, and occassional torch. (I giggle when I type that as in Canada that is something different. Love it!)

Ekatarina, who loves her Nokia and listens to Stephen Fry reading Harry Potter(DH) when she is folding laundry