Colin McEnroe Show: Must Have Smartphone Tech
What are must have apps for the nearly-sentient phone in your pocket?
Published: Dec 29, 2010
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The eerie glow of your smartphone ...
Photo:Flickr Creative Commons, bennylin0724
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Colin McEnroe Show: Must Have Smartphone Tech
I'm pretty sure my new Android smart phone can do anything.
I really mean it. The device could probably do just about anything I wanted it to, although you know what it's really not all that good at? Being a phone. I mean, in terms of hearing the other person and having the other person hear me. Whatever. Not important. Being a phone has become a very peripheral function of being a phone, if you know what I mean.
My Droid could solve thousands of different problems for me and supply me millions of bits of information. Patrick's phone is set up so that, if he holds it up in front of any notable building -- let's say Saint Francis Hospital -- the phone will tell him what he's looking at. But is there, in this devil's bargain, some sacrifice of the state of mind in which you actually know what you're looking at? Philosophy meets smart phones on today's show.
Leave your comments below, e-mail colin@wnpr.org or Tweet us @wnprcolin.
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Honest Steampunks. Also, EULAs.
If Steampunk were honest, any news of it would be communicated solely by telegraph and party-line phones.
But seriously, I'd have enjoyed more on this show about useless, designed-to-not-be-read EULAs, and various ideas floating around about actual government regulations enforcing "plain language".
Smartphones are now spreading beyond the "natural Lifehacker audience", so to speak. Used to be every family had a 10-year-old who was asked to hook up home electronic systems. Now every family needs some geek pre-law type who can suss out every EULA ("toolbar install required", anyone?) and set things so the scintilla of privacy remaining remains intact.
(And Lifehacker is a great hive to get advice on much of that stuff, BTW.)
Evernote vs Dropbox
Dropbox sounds similar to Evernote. Why would you want Dropbox if you have Evernote? Also, hilarious song about 1/3 of the way through the podcast! You should make a YouTube of it; it would go viral.
E-mail from Dave
Bill Curry just spoke about lost deep thinking and contemplation that used to be the norm. My observations over the last few years lead me to believe that these terms are being re-defined through the technology and that smart phone users, sending and receiving incessantly, believe that they are thinking and contemplating deeply.
E-mail from Mickey
Please mention the app - NPR ROADTRIP - it finds the nearest three or four public radio stations so a long distance driver is wihout great radio !!
E-mail from Elizabeth
I love my old school Filofax... It takes me less time to enter an event or meeting than my colleagues with their pricey Iphones!
E-mail from Cynthia
I'd love to call and tell you how great my Android phone is , but it's so hard to hear on!!! ;-)
Seriously, my HTC Hero by Sprint is a great device. I use it constantly to text, email, take photos or video, jump online, download/use apps, games, etc., but it is truly painful to use it as a telephone for actual talking! Either I can't hear (despite cranking the volume way up), my caller can't hear me, or, since it's a touch screen, I end up hanging up with my ear/cheek mid-conversation! It tries my patience each and every day. Still, I can't imagine being able to run around all day every day without it. Whether it's for work, my kids, my family, my travel plans, I rely on it more than my computer at home.
Anyway, love your show, love this topic - and I'm glad to hear that others have the same complaints about Android phones that I do! If my phone improves I'll give you a call... ;-)
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