I’ve been on quite an anti-iPhone streak since the release of iPhone 4.  I didn’t want our most recent comic to be a tear on the iPhone 4, per se, but rather on the sometimes lonely world of an early adopter.  I could actually imagine people Facetiming strangers they meet, just for the chance to use the feature.  Still, some will see this week’s comic as strictly anti-iPhone.  The perils of being an iHater, I suppose…

I’ve seen reviews that have given the iPhone 4 mega props for its front-facing camera, but that have failed to mention that at the time of release, only people with an iPhone 4 could use FaceTime, and then only over a Wi-Fi connection (which our comic fails to mention as well – I like to imagine one of the characters is also carrying an HTC Evo, Steve Wozniak style, and using it as a mobile hot spot).

Still, since I learned that FaceTime is more or less an open standard, I haven’t hated on it as much as I hoped I would get to.  That’s OK.  Apple will do something soon that will infuriate me, and I’ll quickly get over the disappointment of kind of liking FaceTime.

Well,I did it! I took the plunge and got the Droid X. I am typing this on my phone using Swype.

My initial thoughts about the phone are that it is beautiful and the screen is HUGE. In all honesty, it may be a little too big, even for my hands, which I would like to think are bigger than average. During most uses of the phone, it’s fine, but if I attempt to use it with one hand, I can’t always get to the whole screen with just my thumb. That was a chance I was willing to take, and it hadn’t proved especially problematic.

Man, Swype is awesome! I’m astounded at how good the predictive text is. Even when I mistype, it can usually tell what I was going for.

the speech to text is also really good this paragraph has been entered using speech to text with no modification for me i simply talk the phone listens and types out what i say

Another impressive function is the free turn-by-turn navigation. I went up to a cabin yesterday that was well off the beaten path, and was able to get there quickly and effectively without checking a map beforehand.

More to come later, but I thought I’d give you my first impressions for now.

I am actually getting ready to get a new phone, and I really do suffer from Tech Paralysis.  Not only about the phones, but even the underlying technology that gets data to my phone.  There was a point where I was considering postponing an upgrade of my phone until I could get a Verizon phone that was 4G capable.  I live in Salt Lake City; who am I kidding?  Salt Lake is not going to get an upgrade to 4G until after the next presidential election.

Tech has always improved over time; and in my lifetime at least, it has improved at an ever increasing rate.  Is there going to be a point where humans can’t handle the speed of progress?  I’ve already read online forums (a frightening cross-section of humanity) where people are naming frequently upgraded handsets as a negative against the Android platform: “I like my progress like I like my lovemaking.  Once a year.”

Rather than expect the improvement of tech to slow down so we can be more comfortable with it, we are just going to have to get used to progress.  Certainly, continue to be informed in your purchases.  Be aware of what is coming down the pike and take that into account, but there’s a time to bite the upgrade bullet.  Embrace the fact that your hardware is better than its predecessors, but don’t worry if something better comes along until you’re good and ready to get something new. Because although every new piece of hardware will be surpassed quicker than we may be comfortable with, an incremental improvement in the latest gadget over previous tech does not make our current hardware obsolete.

OK, maybe not “Jake was right all along”, but they do agree with the point I made last week that  the iPhone 4’s signal issues are indeed a hardware design problem and not something that can be fixed by a software update.

The best part?  Suggesting (facetiously, I hope) that iPhone 4 owners use a piece of duct tape to isolate the trouble part of the phone and prevent signal loss.

Here’s the NY Times article that I got this report from.

This happened to me, though in less dramatic fashion, and I wondered at what point did I become the guy who was making his friends wait up while I hung out with my parents instead of the other way around?  It’s a frightening moment in a man’s life.

So, who knew Deacon was such a nice boy?

Also, his dad’s beard is epic!  He looks like a blue-eyed Ernest Hemingway!

Hemingway thought he was the new Teddy Roosevelt, though (each one of those words is a separate link.  It’s a hyperlink-your-own-adventure!).