REGULAR readers will know that last year I reached an “end-of-history” moment with mobile phones.
John Griffiths.
Then the Android operating system was upgraded and the microphone died, again.
I had walked this path before. A phone call to what was either a strange human or a not-quite-there computer (when dealing with Google who can say?), a replacement phone was shipped to me. I missed the courier and spent an afternoon traipsing around Toll depots waiting for people to find my package and going through page after page of paperwork to ship the dud phone back to Hong Kong.
At issue, as far as I can tell, is that even in a given model of phone the sub-components, such as the microphone for phone calls, will vary and can be incompatible with different software upgrades.
At the same time, since Apple last year went big with its phones a lot of people I respect have been toting the big iPhone 6 plus.
Rather than face the Google returns rigmarole, footloose, fancy free and off contract, I went down to my telco’s shop in the Canberra Centre and said: “I’ll have an iPhone 6 plus, please”.
The contract was more expensive than what I was on, but offered more data and a nicer $10 a gigabyte excess charge if I go over my limit.
It’s a big beast of a phone. It’s so wide I worry sometimes it’s going to catch the wind and fly out of my hand like a small, expensive and fragile kite.
But it still fits in my pocket, and I can still hold it in one hand and work it with that hand’s thumb.
I don’t feel stupid holding it to my head to talk like I would with an iPad.
But, oh, the joy of using it. Everything slick, and fast. A battery so capacious that I don’t have to worry about it crapping out on me halfway through the day.
While some things are less sophisticated than Android, the iPhone still has that old Apple magic of “everything just works”.
When held sideways the keyboard even has cursor keys and buttons for cutting and pasting; a game changer for doing real work.
In fact the first draft of this column was written entirely on the phone!
A phone that serious writing can be done on is a big step forward.
Also, with the large screen, I can work it while walking, which I grant is a mixed blessing, but the dogs seem to enjoy the more protracted rambles.
It’s still not quite there for doing serious work, but the iPad isn’t quite there, either.
Web research companies have noticed that since the iPhone 6 came out those users have reduced their iPad use enormously. My own experience matches this.
The iPad for me now is largely for watching videos in bed with the headphones on.
Six-inch phones seem to be where it’s at right now, one struggles to see pockets coping with much bigger. Laptops as well as tablets might be on the way out.
But when I really need to write, I’m still going to want a full-size keyboard and a big display.
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