When I was in 2nd grade I knew a girl who had an iPhone. It was awesome, it was better than my LG Chaperone, and I wanted one. So I pooled my resources and eventually compromised for an iPod Touch. It was amazing and I played lots of Tiny Wings on it. Then some years later, just when it was old enough to be part of a carrier promotion, I got an iPhone 4S. That was even better because now I was sending text messages and making calls like everyone else I knew. Then a few more years later my parents and I each got iPhone 6's, and even though I was relatively late in getting it, I still totally adored that device. I paired mine with the official black leather slip case and a space grey Apple Watch Sport and I couldn't get over myself about it. I was so proud of my little luxury entourage.
The LG Chaperone. Awful, isn't it?
A year has passed and I'm still proud of that entourage, except things are a little different now because 2 months ago that iPhone 6 bit the dust. Maybe I dropped it, maybe I didn't, but somehow the cellular antenna went out. The worst part was I had to get pretty creative about fixing it because none of us were keen on buying a replacement in full, and because the screen was cracked I couldn't fix it myself like with my ol' 4S, whose screen I had once replaced. (Thanks, Tim Cook.) So when I vied for a repair option that fit our budget and found that it didn't exist, I did something only a truly desperate Apple lover could have done. In the name of science and savings, I switched to Android.
In my mobile life up to that point I had only ever used iOS, so I was prepared for the worst, but when I got a Samsung Galaxy J3 I was surprised to find that Android was clunky, but not as clunky as I expected. I learned my way around Google's mobile OS pretty quickly, and the biggest problem was that for the first time I had to be concerned about smartphone hardware on it's own, as opposed to simply adopting the software-hardware blend Jony Ive claims to have so seamlessly rendered.
While learning to use my J3 I kept waiting to discover something dramatic and perspective altering about AndroidOS. I thought that eventually there'd be some feature that I didn't love and I'd say "That's it! Apple really is the best there is!" That's not what happened, and my Android experience continues to simply be workable and unassuming. What I did gain instead of an ah-ha moment was a clear understanding of something I'd always known to be true but had never really come face-to-face with. Our phones are life-altering but they are not our lives. No matter how connected we are, no phone is going to be more valuable than it's function, which is, or was at one point, to connect us to each other. Both Android and iOS have features that set them apart, but they share a profound commonality which is that they're organized by people who want you to stay within the phone. Interfaces and designs actually encourage behaviors like binging mercilessly, suggesting more content and even letting you share to other services so you can embed yourself in other platforms for a while. These designs are "evil" and they keep you hooked. Make no mistake honest design is still declared valuable, especially by Apple, but after using Android it is clear to me that the problem with smartphones goes beyond individual designs and the phones themselves. What top-tier design teams and users alike seem to have forgotten is that no text message carries more personal value than a face-to-face conversation, no matter how effectively that message can convey the senders meaning. If the function of a phone is to connect us to each other, then we need a new kind of phone. Not one that keeps us inside of the phone itself, binging and scrolling and tweefing on and on and on, but one that works in harmony with our real world interactions.
Having lived in both Google and Apple techno-systems, I think it's time to take a step back and look at the big picture. There are problems with even Apple designed products that add to a more global issue; on a macro scale our phones are not improving the quality of our interactions, they are detracting from them. I believe wholeheartedly that if the true purpose of the phone is communication, and I think it should be, then I think that needs to be looked at a little closer.
Enter, affordability, maybe!
In my mobile life up to that point I had only ever used iOS, so I was prepared for the worst, but when I got a Samsung Galaxy J3 I was surprised to find that Android was clunky, but not as clunky as I expected. I learned my way around Google's mobile OS pretty quickly, and the biggest problem was that for the first time I had to be concerned about smartphone hardware on it's own, as opposed to simply adopting the software-hardware blend Jony Ive claims to have so seamlessly rendered.
From this..
To this.
While learning to use my J3 I kept waiting to discover something dramatic and perspective altering about AndroidOS. I thought that eventually there'd be some feature that I didn't love and I'd say "That's it! Apple really is the best there is!" That's not what happened, and my Android experience continues to simply be workable and unassuming. What I did gain instead of an ah-ha moment was a clear understanding of something I'd always known to be true but had never really come face-to-face with. Our phones are life-altering but they are not our lives. No matter how connected we are, no phone is going to be more valuable than it's function, which is, or was at one point, to connect us to each other. Both Android and iOS have features that set them apart, but they share a profound commonality which is that they're organized by people who want you to stay within the phone. Interfaces and designs actually encourage behaviors like binging mercilessly, suggesting more content and even letting you share to other services so you can embed yourself in other platforms for a while. These designs are "evil" and they keep you hooked. Make no mistake honest design is still declared valuable, especially by Apple, but after using Android it is clear to me that the problem with smartphones goes beyond individual designs and the phones themselves. What top-tier design teams and users alike seem to have forgotten is that no text message carries more personal value than a face-to-face conversation, no matter how effectively that message can convey the senders meaning. If the function of a phone is to connect us to each other, then we need a new kind of phone. Not one that keeps us inside of the phone itself, binging and scrolling and tweefing on and on and on, but one that works in harmony with our real world interactions.
dhammza via finesilverdesign.com
Even when talking is hard we as a people are nothing without togetherness.
Even when we disagree, disagreement makes people stronger.
Our internet echo-chambers close our minds, our public displays online make us prideful,
and while technically phones make it easier to see each other in the real world, I think they actually make it harder by providing an easy way out of many difficult social situations. Our phones too easily allow us to avoid confrontation and honesty, things that are painful but ultimately character-defining. They shouldn't.
We need phones that, through their design, drive us away from these tendencies and help us to form equal and opposite behaviors. Phones that use the internet to keep us within the world, rather than simply within the internet. That will be an innovation, and that will reinvent.
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