I have always been very fortunate when it comes to trying new gadgets or new technology. I have had hands-on access to smartphones and phablets with styluses (nobody knew they will actually be a phablet one day). In 2003-2004 the company that I was working for provided me with a Palm Tungsten W. It was great device with a stylus and had a great USB cradle to charge on and was also used as a USB sync device with the PC to sync new data into the palm like latest news and stuff. The phone had a pocket news app just like Flipboard. You see, things haven’t changed much as GPRS wasn’t really blazing fast in Pakistan those days.
Then in 2005 and 2006 we saw that Microsoft launched the Windows XP Tablet edition and the first tablet PC I had the privilege to play with was the Acer Travel mate series C100-C110. It was a beautiful peace of technology with rotating LCD and a built-in stylus pocket; something similar to what iPad pro offers today. Things haven’t really changed much.
In 2007 /2008, I came to Dubai and since the Nokia Symbian OS phones were a super normal thing to have, I opted for a Blackberry 8700g. It was a beautiful device; very light and penguin shaped and lovely to hold. It also had a trackball and I loved how the email push worked in that. And of course, the BBM! Oh yeah, how can I forget that?
While Motorola was fighting the battle to create something similar to Blackberry and they came up with Moto Q I overlooked that and saw something really interesting. A phone that looked somewhat like blackberry but with a bit of a swag. I am talking about the Samsung Black Jack. My previous Samsung device was the D500 slide phone and it was beautiful; which made me wanted to see what this Samsung device with a QWERTY keyboard had for me in store. I was surprised.
It came with a slim and a fat battery and a separate battery charge pocket (perfect for traveling) and it was windows mobile 6. The phone in itself was very powerful. It had a mobile hotspot creation option, email push, a great browser, and of course, great music device. I’m sure everyone must have thought that Microsoft and Samsung have a great future. But then, I don’t know what happened and today MS Windows Mobile OS is a lesser known software and Samsung has also moved on to Android.
Because that Windows Mobile 6 memory was still fresh in my head I gave up my iPhone and got a Lumia 900. In looks I have to say it was not a bad phone. It was eye catching for sure but then when I started using it I realized: while using the iPhone, I literally forgot the “please wait while loading” concept and in Lumia 900 with Windows Mobile 8 OS, everything I wanted to open was taking too long to load. Even the native MS software (skype) will take an “unfair” amount of time to load and I realized that nothing had changed … and I went back to the iPhone.
So now, we are living in an era, which started it all. The tablets, smartphones, WiFi, 3G, LTE and what not. But the ground reality is that we are still using the same gadgets that were in “concept” since 2004. The only difference is that they are marketed, created, and packaged better.
Apple’s real jump in iPhone transformation was from iPhone 4s to 5 and since then, all we get is a meager upgrade of camera and a slightly bigger screen with round edges. Nothing really is getting a major upgrade. As a technologist I sometimes feel that mostly the upgrade we get every year is hardly a refurbish; forget about calling them “upgrades”.
When Apple launched iPad (1) it was without front camera. At a time when Skype and front camera phones were common, why would someone launch a device without it, and then launch another with camera and call it the iPad 2? I find this very unfair.
I believe the minimum standard memory (basic) should be 64 GB and the makers should stop making 16 / 32 GB versions simply because it is hilarious. A 4K camera and only 16 GB memory on board? What am I gonna do with that?
After I look at these products that are changing our lives on daily basis, I wonder sometimes if we will get stuck or lost in the monotony of things. But that’s just my thinking.
