Monthly Archives: November 2009

At the end of this year Terry Wogan will be stepping down from his morning radio show. If you don’t know who he is check out this link. He has led the morning radio slot, on and off, since 1972 and is considered by many in the UK to be a national treasure. My morning drives to work are always accompanied by Terry chatting in the background and despite his advanced years he still makes me laugh every day. One quote I remember was when a listener asked him if he was good at cooking and he duly announced that “You will never find me straining my plums in the kitchen!” So, what does this have to do with smartphones? Bear with me on this.

The way in which Terry (Sir Terence to us mere mortals) delivers the news and commands two hours of radio broadcasting every day is second to none; he is effortless in his delivery and appeals to people of all ages with his wit, intelligence and opinions which are sometimes not overly popular. It is all about the delivery- a mixture of broad Irish married to an eloquence you could never reproduce digitally. It is of course possible to be eloquent in printed words as many authors, poets and commentators have shown, but the information we receive on a daily basis is so varied and diluted that it is hard to see past the words.

We live in a world of RSS feeds, websites and news channels and have so much access to information that the need to ‘get it out there’ quickly is often more important that the need to make it worth being there in the first place. The lack of character on the internet is wholly apparent because anyone can have an opinion not worth reading, like me:), and it can be delivered immediately over the magic of wireless communications. I read a lot of information during the day and little of it reaches the credibility or class you would find in a newspaper or on a radio show like Mr Wogan’s.

There is still a lot of quality writing on the internet and in theory we have better access to this quality than ever before, but I still feel like the personality gets lost somewhere along the way. Just as I will be saddened by the loss of Terry’s voice every morning on the way to work.

I was having a BB Messenger chat with a friend of mine last week and he mentioned how difficult it was to keep customer databases and sales and vehicle logs updated on his BlackBerry. When you consider this, they really are not the kind of tasks you would expect to undertake on a smartphone, and maybe more so on a BlackBerry. Having all of your updated information on a smartphone that is with you at all times is of course very useful, but we can find ourselves spending hours squeezing the information into a small space which makes the task of using this information more difficult.

I have gone the other way and tend to use the simple BlackBerry memo app for my needed information alongside the standard calendar and contacts. Ascendo Money and SlickTasks are my only third party additions and this still leaves me with a setup which works for all of my needs, and one which is ultimately very stable. My BlackBerry does not crash, is always responsive and on the busiest of days comes into its own when time is short.

In the past I have loaded up my smartphones with far too many third party apps, just because I can. I have tried to cover every conceivable part of my life with a phone and it doesn’t work. Pages and pages of icons that I rarely use only slow down the whole process and leave me with a clunky and confused experience which is not what the phone was designed for in the first place.

Do you use your smartphone for too much and have you ever tried to streamline your mobile needs?

1/ What smartphone are you using at the moment and which ones have you owned in the past?

I’m using an iPhone 3G.  I haven’t upgraded yet because we don’t qualify, but maybe I’ll hold out now until new hardware is announced?

It’s my first smartphone.  I was a die hard Palm PDA fan.  Liked graffiti better than a keyboard, so I had a T5 before my iPhone.  I had an iPod Touch first, because I really didn’t see a personal need for the connectivity of a smartphone.  I’ve completely changed my mind now–you really see what you can do with one, once you have one.

2/ Which smartphone is the best you have ever owned?

I’ve used a Treo before, but did not like the keyboard.  I do really like my iPhone a lot.  I use it for most everything.

3/ Which smartphone is the worst you have ever owned?

I had a test device–the Motorola Q, which was particularly difficult to use.

4/ Could you survive without your phone for a month? If not, why not?

I would be lost!  It’s my connection to everything.  I’ve grown more and more dependent on it than ever.  Plus, it’s a great distraction for my kids when we are somewhere boring (like the doctor’s office, or at one of the other kid’s karate classes).

5/ How would you describe your smartphone usage, and do you consider yourself to be ‘addicted’?

I carry my iPhone around with me everywhere.  I guess you could consider me addicted.  It’s just a very useful tool for me–I use it for both business and personal.

6/ What does PDA-247 mean to you?

247 is a community that I enjoy being a part of.  The news is great, but even better is the commentary–civil an intelligent discussion amongst those who are involved across multiple platforms and all over the world.