Posts Tagged mobile phones

Flash – will I miss you?

Posted by sketchy bill in Social Commentary on May 22nd, 2010

iPhone LoveI am a self confessed iPhone fanboy. Whilst I couldn’t give two hoots about the public slinging between Steve Jobs and Adobe around the Flash platform, I also don’t think I would miss it if it was to suddenly disappear. My main reason is this:

Most of the Flash content I ever see is advertising. 

That’s right, advertisements that are animated or interactive or contain video content.  The internet is rife with it, and it makes me wonder if that skews the figures as to how widespread the use of Flash is on the net.

What about YouTube I hear you say?  Well, that already taken care of on my iPhone – and if I get an iPad (and there’s a good chance that I will since my iPhone has just been so good to me), it’ll be taken care of there too.  Games?  Same story.

Seeya Flash.  I enjoyed online Pac-Man for a while there.

At this stage I would also like to point out that I don’t miss my HTC Touch Diamond, my Samsung Omnia, my Palm Treo 750, my iMate SP3i and all the other dreadful Windows Mobile attempts at smartphones that I have owned prior to my iPhone. But that’s another story…

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The Ring

Posted by sketchy bill in Social Commentary on March 22nd, 2009

Old TelephoneBack in the day, mobile phones had one ringtone: they beeped. You could change the volume, and on fancier models, the pitch. Back then, if a mobile phone rang, everyone got their phones out thinking it was theirs ringing.

Then along came ringtones. You could get your favourite song, albeit a beep beep version, to distinguish your phone from everyone else’s.
Then along came polyphonic ringtones. Not only could you get a ringtone that was different, you could almost dance to it (“Freestyler” was very popular). Everyone was an individual, and for a time it was good.

The next big thing was “real tones” and mp3 tones. These were actual digitally sampled sound bytes from your favourite song or noise. There was no looking back now. Not only could you get your favourite song from your favourite singing frog, but you could get a barking dog, an ambulance, a v8 engine, a screaming orgasm or anything you could possibly think of. Freedom of choice was here to stay. Or was it?

Suddenly, just like the day you went to school and everyone somehow knew that Yo-Yos were the new Rubik’s Cube, everything changed. Suddenly, the only acceptable ringtone on a mobile is the ringing bell of an old fashioned telephone. Anything else is a social faux par. Now, as it once was, if a mobile phone rings, everyone gets out their phones, thinking it is theirs ringing.

The great circle of life continues.

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