I wrote on smartphones in the FT yesterday -- "Oh, that syncing feeling..." -- or rather, how some well-known difficulties make giving a smartphone as a Christmas gift a little bit challenging.
Dinner was fun: we used the iPhone to take pictures of everybody around the table and made calls to each other from several feet away.
Mary Branscombe contributes the relevant side-bar: "Ten tips for smartphone users". Here's my favorite of Mary's ...
2 E-mail set-up - You will need details from both your mobile operator and your internet service provider or e-mail provider to set up e-mail on your smartphone. Often, you will need to use your ISP to collect e-mail and your mobile operator to send it. You may also have to install a security certificate.
Does the pregnant irony of depending on TWO DIFFERENT PHONE COMPANIES to get your e-mail on a smartphone make you stop and laugh out loud (sometimes in random public places) like it does me?
Anyway, the PR agencies -- thanks -- had made it easy for me to check out a number of different phones through their generous demo programs ...
- Nokia N95
- Blackberry Curve 8310
- Blackberry Curve 8320
- Samsung Blackjack
... so, I'll be writing about some of my more hilarious escapades with devices I cannot even read. For sure there are a couple of non-starters on that list.
But to be fair, they are each aging platforms, made silly-seeming by the Galilleian leap of the iPhone. Each one is soon to be eclipsed by the next 4th-gen phones (of which the HTC Touch is the first example) which ape the iPhone's touch screen but will only very slowly begin to deliver iPhone's thorough, brilliant design -- characterized by a seamlessness between hard- and software.
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