Overzealous apple users.

[Andara Bledin]

The most I use a phone for is for calling and texting. Why do I need these features if I got a computer at home and a gameboy?

Have you ever been out and thought to yourself, "Oh, hey, I should look that up when I get home" and then gotten home and never looked whatever up? Have you ever been out and gotten hungry and wondered where the nearest restaurant/fast food joint/deli/etc been? Have you ever gotten lost while looking for some place you've never been before? Have you ever though, "wow, that looks neat, I wish I had my camera with me."

You may not need a smart phone, but having one is incredibly convenient.

Of course, mine was free after rebate (well, I paid tax on $200), so other than the extra that I'm paying for the full data plan, it was well worth it.

Plus, most of the games are free.

^-.-^

[AdminAssistant]

I wish Fiance and I could afford two data plans. He uses his Windows phone all the time.

[fireheart17]

I actually get a kick out of people who have Macs and then have an Android based phone.

My boyfriend has a Macbook Air and an Android phone as well (Samsung Galaxi SII). Yet he also has a PC at home which he uses for just about everything on the planet (including gaming -.-).

Fortunately boyfriend works for an ISP so he doesn't get THOSE calls.

[Ginger Tea]

Kind of reminds me of a former coworker of mine who smirks at people who "still have flipper phones" because apparently everyone should now have a smart phone that can browse the Internet, stream videos, and all other various things that no one 20 years ago would have ever dreamed a phone could do.

A guy at work recently replaced his old Nokia brick, with another Nokia brick.
He has little to no need for all the flashieness of a modern phone, or even a few years older fliptype with camera and colour screen.

Edit:
iTV comming soon? scoff we've had that since the 60's or so over here

Re Apple and Droid
IIR when the first iPods came out, they and iTunes only worked on Mac's.
Someone in the company realised they could sell to everyone else and steal a chunk of the market that could have been dominated by the likes of Creatives DAP (a 6gb discman sized player from a few years before) and Sony and other electronic companies.
I've said before that I only really got the classic as it was a 160gb beast and for the money I could only get 64gb flash based players by the big names, if it was Apple for Apple then I would never have gotten one.

Although to develope on iOS you need a mac to work on (or atleast you did have to, I don't know if they laxed that), I frequent a forum where a cross platform edition was released that could build to iOS/droid/windows/linux and mac and the first few months of its announcement were talking about having to buy a mac to develop on iphones/touch devices, yet for droid they had their development machine already set up.
double edge in a way, few iOS devices so you know what to target, too many droids so you wont know what is supported.

Re PC' upgrades
I think were are getting close to the point where graphics hardware is slowing down, sure you can add more cores and other stuff, but new cards would come out every month in years gone by, one of the aforemeantioned coders states he can run game X on highest settings on GFX card Y even though it is a few years old.
half a decade ago it felt like you couldnt run a new game without a new card that was beefier than the best listed on the box.

[powerboy]

I am actually be going to get the newest iPad when I have the money to spend on it.

[SongsOfDragons]

I agree with the looking up of stuff. Highly, highly useful. I have a Nokia Navigator that lets me get on the internet should I need it - and if it's charged.

In face, that's another rant...

My phone lasts for about four-five days. My iPod classic lasts for quite some time and it's about three years old. My housemate used to have the same phone as me, but it broke recently and she got a Samsung Galaxy Ace. I have a 3DS. My mum has a digital radio, Housemates mum and brother have iPhones. None of these four items have batteries that last more than a day!! FFS, they design these things to be awesome and useful, tell you to keep them on all the time and carry them with you for all the speshul features - then give them batteries with three and a half burps so they die when you're doing what they advertise them to be able to do. I don't think wireless or portable means 'for half of the device's life you'll be shackled to the plug'!! Surely battery technology has developed a little? Or do we all need to go back to a bank of gravity cells in shot glasses?

Baaah.

[mikoyan29]

I agree with the looking up of stuff. Highly, highly useful. I have a Nokia Navigator that lets me get on the internet should I need it - and if it's charged.

In face, that's another rant...

My phone lasts for about four-five days. My iPod classic lasts for quite some time and it's about three years old. My housemate used to have the same phone as me, but it broke recently and she got a Samsung Galaxy Ace. I have a 3DS. My mum has a digital radio, Housemates mum and brother have iPhones. None of these four items have batteries that last more than a day!! FFS, they design these things to be awesome and useful, tell you to keep them on all the time and carry them with you for all the speshul features - then give them batteries with three and a half burps so they die when you're doing what they advertise them to be able to do. I don't think wireless or portable means 'for half of the device's life you'll be shackled to the plug'!! Surely battery technology has developed a little? Or do we all need to go back to a bank of gravity cells in shot glasses?

Baaah.

Battery technology has probably improved but you are asking the battery to do more and more. You only have so much space.

[Andara Bledin]

Most people don't think about it, but sound amplification is one of the faster ways to kill a device's battery. The boyfriend and I can be doing the same thing with our phones, and he will run out of juice before I do every time because I keep my sound nearly off and he's usually around the halfway mark. And different features have different drains. I know that turning on the GPS will drain your battery pronto; my phone warns me about it if I turn it on.

^-.-^

[HYHYBT]

I've recently come into possession of an iPod Touch (since this thread began) and, I admit, despite reservations about the touch screen even for music and doubts I'd use the rest outside an emergency, I can barely make myself put it down. Even when my readily-available laptop would be faster and easier, though that should wear off in a week or so. The battery seems to hold up well just doing music through earbuds. Less well through the speaker, and of course constantly using the wifi drains it faster yet. But best I can tell, if I only were to use it as I did its click wheel predecessor, it would last as long on a charge. And I've more than once forgotten to pause that one when getting out of the car, only to find it still playing the next day.

[Ginger Tea]

I keep my phone playing songs over night too mostly by accident, if I want midnight backing tracks i put the volume way down low, but others I forget to hit pause when I take the phone out of my pocket and untangle myself from the headphones, luckily I have not gotten to the stage where I have no charge by the time I go to work as I've mostly been on 11am starts so can charge enough when I wake up around 8.
Starting at 6am however, probably not.

Since getting the phone, I have hardly used my classic iPod and I might unsync every song and just use it as a HDD.

[Iseeyouthere]

Have you ever been out and thought to yourself, "Oh, hey, I should look that up when I get home" and then gotten home and never looked whatever up? Have you ever been out and gotten hungry and wondered where the nearest restaurant/fast food joint/deli/etc been? Have you ever gotten lost while looking for some place you've never been before? Have you ever though, "wow, that looks neat, I wish I had my camera with me."

You may not need a smart phone, but having one is incredibly convenient.

^-.-^

If I want to look something up, I wait till I get home. If I don't remember, it wasn't important enough. Or the interest has past. Never bothered me.

Oh yea. I have been out and about and gotten hungry and wanted food. But instead of getting a device and looking down... I look up and use the two natural radars installed before birth called 'eyes'. They still work.

Rarely get lost as well. I don't go out enough to need a GPS for every single step I take.

Got a camera in my phone. Crappy one, but hey... don't need to take a photo of every single thing.

I fail to see it as "incredibly convenient".... perhaps "sometimes convenient" would be closer. It all depends on your lifestyle...
For me... I don't see it as convenient. Just pointless when I still got tech I can use. I consider it wasteful, IMO.

[Silverharp]

Edit:
iTV comming soon? scoff we've had that since the 60's or so over here
.

Wait...you've had a TV from a company that didn't exsist until the early 80's since the 60's?! Damn you Jobs and your time travelilng ways!!

[Andara Bledin]

Just pointless when I still got tech I can use. I consider it wasteful, IMO.

I obviously view my time as rather more valuable than you view yours.

To each his own.

^-.-^

[lordlundar]

Battery technology has probably improved but you are asking the battery to do more and more. You only have so much space.

Actually, no. Battery tech has not improved. The batteries you use in your every day devices is the same types that were used 30-50 years ago.

Have they been made more efficient? To a degree yes, but the plateau has been hit at least a decade ago and new technology is needed as opposed to optimized current tech.

[HYHYBT]

I'm pretty sure they didn't have lithium ion batteries in common use 50 years ago.