When I first got my iPhone in November of 2008 my main motivation was to have a mobile calendar. That’s a lie. My main motivation was to have the iPhone because it’s frickin’ awesome; my excuse was that I needed a mobile calendar, which was true. At the time I was managing a group of developers and my meeting schedule was nothing short of spastic, and being that I have the memory of a goldfish, I needed something to tell me to show up places. I’ve since switched jobs and if I have 5 meetings a week it’s a heavy load. Being an individual contributor has its advantages.

After two years of the iPhone 3g I was still happy. I got to jailbreak it, play with all kinds of apps, and write software for it. Good fun. Though the performance has slowly degraded with each iOS upgrade it was still usable and convenient.

It was a shocking moment, then, when I realized that I really don’t need this phone, the internet in my pocket, or the constant “tug” to check Facebook, email, TWI, Dayton Daily News, and the many other things I was obsessed with viewing at an uncontrollable pace. Coming to terms with this was tough, but after realizing that between me and wife we could save $60/mo on our cell bill by using dumbphones I was ready to give it a shot.

Thanks to Greg at Switchphase I was given a free phone, the Samsung SGH-a737. Contrary to Samsung’s blatant bullcrap plug “The a737 is a high powered multimedia tool that allows you to get downloads fast and share real time videos with your friends.” I can tell you, this phone has no options. It takes a memory card and for the life of me I cannot figure out why. It does text messaging, has a camera, etc. Calling this phone a “multimedia tool” isn’t even exaggerating, it’s literally just lying. It’s a tool alright.

So here’s how this is working out. Moving from the iPhone to the Samsung wasn’t bad, my SIM card went right in and I was getting calls. Importing the phonebook was a complete pain in my ass, but thanks to Samsung’s PC Studio app I was able to get 200 contacts in the new phone pretty quickly over Bluetooth, though there’s no OSX app and I had to use Windows. I can’t believe that app even existed.

So here’s the feature by feature:

Form Factor:

• It’s a small phone, feels reasonably sturdy, so I’m not scared to drop it. Face buttons are explicitly locked to avoid ass-dialing. It’s a slider which I was fine with, I only wanted a slider or flip.

Receiving Calls:

• MUCH better. Not only can I answer it and hang it up easily without looking, I also have a sidebutton so I can send people (mainly Nick) straight to voicemail.

Sending Calls :

• Without Address Book:
  • Easy, the keys are small, but it works fine. Straightforward, no weird menus.

• With Address Book:
  • Kill me. The menu system on this phone is enough to make the Dali Lama storm a McDonalds with an AK-47. I really miss the contact management on the iPhone. A phone with a better menu or quicker access to contacts would be cool. But it was free and hey, it’s fine.

Text Messaging:

• This is the single biggest thing I miss about the iPhone. Most likely my issue here has more to do with the age of the phone than with the switch. This phone didn’t really have texting in mind when it was made back in 2007. Much like the iPhone wasn’t all that concerned about phone calls. They have an app for that.

Media:

• Forget it. If media like pics, video, and music, are important to you. NEVER GO BACK. Trust me.

Web:

• Much like media, web isn’t really a reasonable option here. For one the screen is like 1”x1.75”. It’s not really good for anything. It can DO it, but in a, “I can pedal my bike with my hands”, kind of way.

Apps:

• Again, not even an option, there’s some games but they feel like I’m playing an Atari 7200 vs. a PS3.

All in all, I’m happy with the change. It’s removed a level of distraction and anxiety in my life that I didn’t need and really never knew I had. I’m sad to see maps, music, and a few other things go, but I can certainly live without them. If those things aren’t important to you, downgrading will work. If you are the person that values having good games, video, maps, email, twitter, all with you at all times, then downgrading is going to be a frustrating trainwreck.

I still miss the tinkering. Maybe one day I’ll get another iPhone …. or maybe an Android phone 

After 2 1/2 years and something like 500+ cycles, the battery in my Mac died and I had to replace it. First thing first, why the hell are these so expensive (and yes I realize this is a recurring theme in my blog)? I decided not to go to the Apple Store and buy an Apple brand battery because the reviews online are awful, so I decided to go to Batteries Plus and get an Energy+ battery. Turns out... it's an apple battery, granted it's a 5600mAh battery and all.

 So.. we'll see this battery isn't part of the old recall, so that is good, and the gy gave me 10% off so that was nice. lets see how this works.

 Here are a few tips that the battery-guy gave me for long battery life.

1. Only use the battery when you have to. If you use your notebook as a desktop pc, remove the battery and throw the thing on AC.
2. Only charge the battery when it needs to be charged, unplug the power when the charge is complete.
3. Batteries are good for 300-500 cycles (cycles = times you charge it)

why is Photoshop so damn expensive? Yeah it's awesome, but it's something like $800?! WTF? Yeah I could use Gimp, but as "full featured" as Gimp is.. Gimp sucks balls. It's no so much that it doesn't do enough, it does, the problem is that using Gimp is awful. I think part of the problem is that it isn't Photoshop.
I digress. I want to use Photoshop, but I don't charge for pretty much anything, and I will probably just use it to make a bunch of stupid FAIL pictures anyway.