Logic’s End

Taken with the Motorola Droid

On Thursday I decided to finally make my foray into the world of smart phones. The reason for such a prolonged hesitation: lack of acceptable alternatives for the AT&T beholden iPhone. Apple’s iPhone is the gold standard of smart phones, much like many of Apple’s innovations in their respective markets. Circumstances, however, dictate that I stay with Verizon. Thus, I have adopted the Google Android driven Motorola Droid. All told, the first few days with the Droid have proven a rather pedestrian experience punctuated with brief moments of excitement.

Droid is not entirely without its own merits in the shadow of the Apple juggernaut. Most appealing is its vast Android Marketplace arsenal and its flawless ability to synchronize with Gmail accounts. The phone is quite adept at handling email in the cloud. Messages are stored temporarily and always available via Google’s web archive unless explicitly deleted. It provides all the functionality of an IMAP account (a form of email that stores messages on your computer and email server simultaneously) without the inherent storage space hassles.

Almost all smart phones and their less sophisticated cousins are suitably capable of email synchronization, but in today’s technological environment social media is king. Juggling emails in the cloud isn’t enough to sweep phones off the shelves. They must tweet, manage Facebook profiles, manipulate complex web pages, aggregate blog data, and track our geographical locations to within feet of where we stand–all on demand. In those areas, the Droid falls short of its competitors.

All future updates aside, I am considering the Droid the way it functions in my hand today. The first sign of trouble occurred when I discovered that the Droid Facebook app was incapable of tagging friend’s names in status updates. Even worse, were the equally substandard photo uploading functions for Facebook: the Android app actually downsized photos, reducing their quality to levels inferior to those uploaded via standard web browsers for years. Adding to that: the inability to tag photos, edit photos online, and clunky notification updates were all nuisances. Despite some of the blame falling on the shoulders of the app programmers, the Droid promises much and fails to effectively deliver in this area.

When it comes time to upload pictures to Facebook, the phone must be held horizontally, or pictures will end up sideways (rotating them before uploading doesn’t appear to make a difference). The Droid is often heralded for it’s remarkable 5 Mega-pixel twin-flash camera. After the first couple of uses, it’s clear that the camera is decidedly no slouch. Picture quality is absolutely stunning for a phone camera. Upon closer examination of several shots, however, the Droid camera introduces a slight but obvious level of pixelation when compared to my five-year-old Kodak digital camera.

Disappointment with Droid’s social media capabilities doesn’t stop with its Facebook app. The device ships without a proper Twitter application. Users are left searching the Android Marketplace for an acceptable app to publish and aggregate tweets. Several decent paid apps do exist, but out-of-the-box Twitter integration should not have been an oversight.

The bulk of my complaints with Droid are aimed squarely at its lack of social media prowess. It remains, nonetheless, a remarkably powerful marvel from the folks at Google and Motorola. The usability the Android interface is impeccable.  Droid’s GPS location technology is near perfect for navigating roads (or at least par with the average TomTom). Thus, it plays well with cutting edge social apps such as Foursquare. When you factor in the slide-out QWERTY keyboard and a battery life that’s nothing short of revolutionary (also note that it’s a user-replaceable battery), you’ve actually got a pretty nice little smart phone.

The potential to easily building my own apps for the Android Marketplace have tempered my initial displeasure with the persistent social media shortcomings of Droid. In the end I’ve come to appreciate the device for what it is: a reasonable alternative to the iPhone on a decidedly better network. With Google’s support behind them, Android powered phones will only get better with time. After all, it is one of the fastest growing market segments in the mobile industry.

So there you have it: a pedestrian experience with the Motorola Droid. Yet, there’s still a lot potential in the Android platform. Perhaps with a little programming help from you and me, Android will come to dominate the market. Until next time, if you have stories about your own mobile smartphone, or tips to share from your own experience with an Android phone, feel free to share them for all the readers here!

A cup of enlightenment

Sitting at a booth in my new favorite coffee lounge, Coffee Culture of Buffalo, I find that nothing more efficacious than the espresso in a creamy caramel latte for inspiring me to write. With the portability of my new netbook (almost 9 hours of battery life), I actually write more often. It’s simply so easy to take it places where my thoughts best reach their boiling point. Thus, having long sounded alarm of technology gradually dehumanizing us and supplanting real human interaction, I’ve noticed a burgeoning shift back in the other direction, a technological “enlightenment” or renaissance if you will.

Using a computer isn’t restricted to nerds in their mother’s basements anymore. I think nothing made that more clear than the day when my 70 year old father signed up for Facebook, god bless you dad. It’s no longer about how fast your computer is, it must be usable, mesh with our lives, and not get in the way. Take mobile phones, there’s little more revolutionary in consumer technology than what’s taking place in that industry. We’ve witnessed apps for everything from turning on our cars to reading the Wall Street Journal. As the iPhone and the Google Android gain ground, it’s destined to get better.

If our mindsets remained restricted to that of the 1990′s, sitting at an unwieldy cathode tube computer screen with a large noisy box next to it, then there would have been no progress. There would be no Facebook, Twitter, or Foursquare–no revolutionary Bloggers birthing a new form of media. Technology had to adapt to humans to truly take hold.

Every inception of technology, however, brings with it means of misuse, of which we would be wise to take heed. Having 2,000 friends on Facebook doesn’t necessarily mean that you’re more social, nor does tweeting every 5 seconds. It might in fact be a sign of a narcissistic obsession. Vague-booking (writing an long, overly-emotional, and cryptic status messages on Facebook) really can make you seem like an unstable, self-loathing sociopath.

We ought not become so obsessed with this astonishing technology that we allow it to dominate our lives. There are some things best done in person. Nothing is more frustrating than arguing with someone via AIM or text message, nor anything more rude than tweeting or texting while on a date (I’d advise dumping that person with haste if you encounter it). Some of the best inventions in history–the gun, fire, or electricity–have all found their way into the hands of their abusers. The important thing to remember is this: used in the right measure, they stand to complement our lives.

One captivating way of using social media is as a form of psychological support. I’ve seen coworkers quit smoking with the inspiration from fellow ex-smokers reading their blogs and tweets. Moreover, from a business perspective it has the potential to connect owners to their customers; a hand typed blog with comments and feedback about their products can truly help inspire buyer confidence more than a static website ever could.

Focusing more on the business side of things, how can all this stuff help if you’re a retail business that doesn’t have an interest in selling products online? Maybe you own a coffee shop? I present to you Foursquare. Foursquare utilizes mobile phone apps to give retail business owners a direct line to their guests the minute they walk in the door. For us consumers, that goes a long way toward helping us too. How many times have you clipped a coupon and left it at home? With foursquare your local Starbucks could know when you walk in because you would notify them with a simple tap of your Foursquare app, and the eligible coupons could stream directly to your phone.

As I bring this rather lengthy post to a close, I’d just like to highlight that if there is to be a bold new technological renaissance, mobility will be the vessel that delivers it. The new web is compartmental. People want access to information that’s most relevant for what they’re doing when they’re doing it. Sure, a proper website will always be the anchor of a business presence, but there’s so much more that we as consumers want from our gadgets. We’re a society increasingly on the go, thus technology will continue to adapt to us. We just need to be careful not to allow it to replace the fuel of our souls: real human social interactions.