...but do you love it?

A friend and fellow blogger posted about his recent experience with a smartphone here.  Now many things are interesting in this post as evidenced by the responses he continues to receive, but I think the bottom line is: " ...but do you love it?".

For me, with the majority of my working life spend designing and selling very large voice / data systems to very large customers the advent of the cell phone was a way to help break the tether.  I could be almost anywhere and still be in communication.  Whooo Hooo!!  My first cell phone (and every subsequent one) was Nokia.  Their command of the electro-mechanical made them perfect for me.  I would burn through one in about 14 months.

At the same time I had a great camera which I loved.  A Nikon F purchased new in late 1970 and used 'till my grand daughter was born 9 years ago.  In the last 9 years I have owned a series of very good digital cameras which were proficient way beyond my abilities.  I used them but never loved them...disliked most of them.

My daughter talked me into trying an iPhone (giant 2 MP camera) which I expected to discard as quickly as possible without hurting her feelings.  Turns out I disliked the phone even more than I expected to (c'mon folks,,,it's a pain in the ass voice communication tool).  However I absolutely love the camera / App combination it offers.  Along with what I came to think of as a camera it also gave me quite sophisticated access to the internet and a whole bunch of "social" networks.  As telephone voice communication has become a minuscule part of my life, and textual / visual communication fills the void the iPhone becomes even more indispensable.

I now have dozens of cameras, mostly film, ranging in formats from 35mm to 4x5.  I also have 2 very good digital imagers with similar sized sensors, Sigma DP1 and Panasonic G2.  With any of these cameras I make images I like...some are even quite good I think but I work hard to do it.  They're a chore.  With the iPhone I do the same but love it.

I often find myself switching the iPhone into Airplane Mode which disables all but the camera.  It's been suggested that I buy another cheap cell phone for voice but why?  For the few voice calls I make this iCamera works well enough.

I'm thinking the reduction in voice calling is societal.  If that's true then although we may continue to call them cell phones the phone part of the device will become of minor importance...it certainly has for me.

Bottom line...if you have the choice, use what you love, your results (and you) will be better for it.

ps  I use the term smartphone as I understand there are other devices beside the iPhone...and for those of you using them I think you couldn't be cuter if you were in lederhosen and a bow tie. ;-)