Archive: Opinions

I am always looking at the tech news, and an article led me to look at the reviews of a Siri-like voice recognition system for early iPhones (I don't have an iPhone, but I still keep up).  One reviewer started his review with, 'Great app for people who want to add voice to texting!'

HUH?

Let me get this straight... voice to texting?  Really?  Can someone please explain to me how this advance in technology is actually better than talking to someone and hearing another person talk back to you?  How is textting remotely better than that?

So we have this device called a telephone.  You can hold it up to your head and just talk to someone.  Then a new technology comes along where you can type on a little keypad you would need mouse fingers to master.  Now you need to look at the device while you are using it, and if you're driving you have a high likelihood of dying a nasty and painful death, careening off of a bridge while trying to read minuscule words on a tiny reflective screen.

What comes next?  Oh here's a great idea: let's speak to the device to tell it what to text to our friends and loved ones so THEY have to look at the phone and die in a fiery crash while you just talk to your phone until they text you to say that you just killed them or maimed them for life.

The problem with modern technology is that it is more wishful than actual.  Back when I was a lad we had these clunky black plastic things with dials on them, wired into the wall or plugged in with a clunky square plug with four rounded prongs.  It rang an actual bell, and you picked up the receiver and you could actually hear what the other person was saying and they could hear you.  it wasn't elegant, but it worked and it was reliable.

Another beef -- everyone thinks it's OK to be staring at their screens instead of looking at each other and interacting.  Go to a family gathering without your own iDevice these days and you find yourself alone among a sea of people texting, games playing, Googling... it's not fun to see people in person any more.  I know people who text or call each other when they're in the same house!

And that old AT&T black dial phone... you always knew where it was, because it was tethered to the wall with a cord.  Today I spend more time running around the house looking for a phone, or searching for my cell phone than I do talking on the blasted things.  And the quality of the sound, especially on cell phones -- even when you have a so-called 'good' connection -- is spotty at best.  Cell phones are not an improvement over those AT&T clunkers.

But they are so cool.  Some of them flip like Star Trek communicators, and others have maps and email and the Internet on them, not to mention Angry Birds.  They can give you directions if you're lost in a big city, and you can even monitor our home when you're travelling.  They're small and sleek, and oh boy! do we all want one!!!

Except you can't hear the other person on them very well.  In my opinion that's what the big next technological improvement should be if we're going to continually and optimistically call them 'phones'.  Because historically a telephone's main purpose is to be able to talk to someone who isn't here just as if they were here.  By talking.

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