Wednesday, July 09, 2008

Opinions

One of the nice things about having a blog is that you can express you opinion to the world, or maybe not the world but the three men and a dog who read the darn thing (hey, I had a dog that could read once...!)

Anyway, I digress. Regular Lentilites will know that one of my favourite blogs is over at Palm-Mac, where Murray keeps a usually objective eye on things mobile. We've been having an exchange of emails tonight following one of his recent posts. Lately, it seems he's been getting exasperated at some of the inevitable digs towards the iPhone from people who perhaps either have never used one, or wouldn't on the basis that it's "Apple" and therefore not Win Mob, and therefore must be rubbish, and is definitely not a smartphone. Or maybe they just want a dig. Or maybe they don't but it comes across that way. Probably. Maybe.

I have to say I'm generally with Murray on this. The "my machine / platform / OS / car / console / postode" (delete as applicable) discussions, and I use that word in the broadest sense, that we see all too often on forums is painful, and has been going on for years and years - I remember it back in the days of the fiercest debates of Commodore Amiga v Atari ST - and no, that's not an invitation to restart that debate. After all, the ST was far better....

At the end of the day, no matter what we may outwardly think, we all have a little bias towards (or away from) something. It's human nature. But I don't think it matters. What's key for those of us that use technology, which is the audience that I'm primarily aiming this at, is "Does it work for me?"

So what if I use a Palm Centro that 99% of British people have never heard of, and those that see it think it's Blackberry? Doesn't bother me mate. It does what I want it to do, it does it pretty well, and I don't want the latest greatest next big thing running Windows Mobile 9.7 with a voice operated OS that doubles up as a toaster (well only a bit).

So what if my mate uses a Nokia N95 for nothing but phone calls and a few piccies. He's happy with it.

I'm always interested in the latest technology/gadgets, but I'd rather have informed debate about it.

My current orange box rant is the current debate in some areas about whether a device is a "smartphone" or not. If it's smart enough for you, good enough. It's doing my head in - Lord knows what Murray's making of it.

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