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 

 

I have been waiting to get iOS 4.2 to see if it could breathe a little life into a 2 year old (2... seriously) phone. I upgraded about an hour ago and I'm here to tell you... didn't do a darn bit of good.

You may see videos on YouTube or whatever.. .but here's the thing.. you can fake it.

Reboot your iPhone, IMMEDIATELY go into Messaging, YAY IT'S SO FAST .... now go to Safari browse a little, one page is fine... now go to another app, any app ... NOW go back to Messaging... LAME, STILL SUCKS. Opening your Camera or Photo app? Get ready for the same 2-8 second lag you had before.

Very disappointed, Apple. Very, very disappointed.

Theres going to be a post here in the near future debating converting to an Android or upgrading to iPhone 4.

Admittedly, I think that the jailbroken iPhone is awesome for all the wrong reasons.

I am a huge fan of hacked hardware. I have neither the drive nor the intellect to hack hardware myself so I have to rely on others to hack, then I just use their crap.

I jailbroke the iPhone for a few reasons:

1. Backgrounder. At first I thought this would change how I used the iPhone. Over a short period of time I discovered that I used this very little, then I realized I NEVER used it. Then I deleted it. Background apps sound really great, particularly using Pandora Radio, but for me, I never really found a place for it. Leaving this device, like any, constantly streaming audio over wifi or 3g drains the battery like free pudding at fat camp.
2. Winterboard. Being an artsy-fartsy guy I wanted the iPhone to look pretty. Prettier than it already did. This worked, there’s some battery/performance penalty, but it’s negligible and for day-to-day use it’s unnoticeable. Having 5-icons in the bottom dock is seriously great, as simple as it sounds it’s probably my favourite jailbreak perk. I’m easily impressed.
3. QuickReplySMS. I never bought it, it’s $3. I guess two things influenced my lack of purchase on this one. First thing I don’t trust the iPhone Hack Community with my credit card. I could have taken a big pain-in-the-ass route and used prepaid but that’s just ridiculous. To me, these apps are hacks, not in a bad way, but they are being written by someone who is circumventing an established paradigm to make money. This strains my trust. No offense, I’m sure you’re all wonder and ethical people, but it ain’t happening. Secondly, I don’t know if I will keep the jailbreak, so this may be money in the toilet.
4. Emoji. Turns out, this is already free in the App Store, who knew.
5. Emulators. These turned out to be expensive, the free ones worked ok, but I was not impressed with the performance or the fact that my big, fat sausage-fingers covered half of the screen and these games were meant to use an unobstructed screen. More...

I started an iPhone app about 3 weeks ago in the hopes to learn Objective C, keep myself somewhat involved in the actual act of programming, and make a little extra scratch to pay for the monthly cost of this thing.

I came up with this sweet idea. I decided I would do a calculator, but not just a regular calculator. Mine would have the ability to save the calculated result with a note, AS WELL as the ability to save to "formula" (and I use that term loosely) with a single variable in it.

So I learned Obj-C well enough to write the basic calculator. Lemme tell you, the workflow of a calculator isn't as simple as you'd think. Moving on...

So I got the basic calculator working and it was nice. Mine had a few options that the basic iPhone calc didn't, such as % and √. I figured I could sell that basic calc for maybe $1 or just plop it out there for free. Then I am reading reviews for another calc by the same guy who wrote I Am Rich, and a user mentions turning the iPhone calc sideways and it's a scientific.... WTF?! So I did... lo and behold.. it's got like.. a hozillion options... pretty discouraging

*sigh*

So I take 3-4 days off before I finish the other options. Tonight I was going to get back on track and finish that thing before Christmas.

So tonight I find ThinkDigits.   It's pretty much what I was going to do... only a lot prettier. So.. now.. here I sit gazing over my other ideas ... 50% of which already exist.

Wow.. very discouraging. At least I am more smarterer now.