23 Sep
2013
23 Sep
'13
7:53 a.m.
On Mon, Sep 23, 2013 at 12:37:58AM -0400, Mouse wrote:
[...]
But, yes, far too many of the smartphone generation
put the engineering into
the palmtop computer and treat the phone as, more or less, an afterthought.
And, of course, it shows.
Or it's a reasonable engineering trade-off given how little the phone
functionality is expected to be used compared to everything else.
I still have memories of the bad old days of carrying two boxes around, 0845
numbers, 9600bps transmission, 300-1,500ms latency caused by the gaffer-taping
of incompatible communication technologies together, and hoping that the IR
beam wouldn't be broken. It is thus rather pleasing that somebody has finally
seen sense and integrated the cellular modem into my PDA. One day I may even
forgive them for also integrating a voice calling feature at the same time,
although I'll concede it's occasionally useful for ordering a pizza.
I think the only real complaint is that somebody in the marketing department
hadn't had enough Bolivian marching powder that morning, and boringly called
this remarkable device a "phone".