Changing telephone paradigms

[sorcyress]

So, I have an iphone now. This is, of course, immensely ridiculous of me, but there we go.

Before you ask, no, not my money. Parents were redoing the phones, and it turned out to be only a marginal difference. Yeah. I'm that asshole. Don't really feel like unpacking my privilege about it tonight.

I give everyone in all the world full pre-emptive permission to smack me upside the head when I'm being socially unacceptable about my phone use. My immediate thought about owning one is "Oh god, I am a douchebag now", which is absurd, because it's a clever little piece of technology, with a lot of nice little uses. The douchefear had to have come from somewhere, I suspect it's from people being socially unacceptable with their iphone use³. Those people are probably just assholes even without the sparkly phone, but I still don't wish to join their ranks.

Other things you should give me: Your number, ideally by texting it if you're so inclined. And no, I don't already have it. My previous phone was SO ANCIENT¹ that they couldn't make it talk to the new-fangled space age ridiculosity. My number is the same as it's always been. It's linked in my userinfo, if you can't find it and think you ought to be able to, drop me a comment or something.

Also, naming ideas. Although the above sentence makes me think I really want something space-agey, especially golden age sci-fi space fic, where everyone wore bubble helmets and skin-tight spacesuits and used ray guns to fight aliens. Maybe Uhura, or Nyota which I find even prettier (and did not know because I don't actually know Trek). Or maybe I'll just stick with my old pattern of naming my phones increasingly abusive epithets² and call it "Hipster Douchebro"

Her name is Nyota. Nyota is plenty golden age perfect sci-fi, being as it's the first name of Lt. Uhura (which I might call the device when I'm being formal) and any wavering I might have had was completely eliminated by the reminder of what Uhura's job is on the Starship Enterprise. Sold.

Alsoalso, app suggestions, if you are the kind of person to know of apps. Bonus points for "free", but yes, I am going to spend the two bucks to get the Unfuck Your Habitat app, because I think the blog is good enough to deserve the money.

That's me. Still in Chicago. There are many other pieces to my story right now, but the phone is easily the most worth sharing.

~Sor
MOOP!

1: This is a long story, but basically I've been using my mother's old phone from when I was fourteen. This is why I haven't had a space key for forever.

2: Satan, Devilbox, Magikarp, and PoS have all featured.

3: I'm looking at you, people in movie theatres, and also people who can't put the toy away. Pretty much everyone I've actually known with a smartphone has been wholly not an ass about it. I mean, I don't really love turning the conversation from "let's speculate about trivia" to "oh hey, wikipedia has the answer" but that's trivial.

I also know excellent people.

And no, this was not "typed from my iPhone", nor will any of my elljay entries be such, I assume. Maybe someday a long time from now when I've managed the keyoard better, but in the meantime, I will do what I can to keep living life while it happens, and blog about it when I get home. Not that I'm very good at that.

Comments

[harena]

i think W approves heartily with Nyota (trying to get her to respond but for some reason she thinks responding to my mother about moneys is more important than naming your new phone, the Silly).

Me, i think Rahda (That Which Survives) or Natira (For the World is Hollow & I Have Touched The Sky) are my two personal favorites from Classic Trek ^_^

not especially enlightening thoughts

[woozle]

Maybe "Podkayne", if you're looking for something more Golden Era Sci Fi? Podkayne never could stop talking...

Nyota would be good for an iPad because it would be your Nyotapad. Maybe that works for an iPhone too (although I'm assuming it's primarily intended as a Communications Officer reference)...

You could combine all three tropes (SciFi, communications, douchebaggery) and call it Ring the Merciless, perhaps.

Re: not especially enlightening thoughts

[jazzfish]

You could combine all three tropes (SciFi, communications, douchebaggery) and call it Ring the Merciless, perhaps.

I kind of love this suggestion.

Re: not especially enlightening thoughts

[woozle]

Also: My Little Phoney!

(I realize that this doesn't really satisfy any of your tropes (except maybe douchebaggery, via some circuitous route), but I had to say it because it is late and my braincells are shutting down and therefore things seem humorous that wouldn't otherwise. Man fall down Funny.)

Re: not especially enlightening thoughts

[sorcyress]

I actually completely missed the communications officer bit, in my pursuit of "hmm, who's a hot sci-fi babe?", so that's perfect. Nyota it is!

[jazzfish]

The touch keyboard is about a million times better than typing on a phone keypad, and after 3.5 years I still hate it for anything more than very short messages.

App recs, yay! Other than the obvious "apps for services you use" (FB, Twitter, OKC, your bank, etc):

• Wikipanion. Free Wikipedia frontend.
  
• Some sort of flashlight app. Sounds stupid but they're surprisingly useful in dark apartments when you don't want to wake someone else up. I advise against one that does very much other than a white screen (and turns on the LED flash, if you have a phone that comes with a flash). I use Flashlight For Free.
  
• iBooks, bafflingly not bundled with the OS. Useful for reading PDFs and ebooks.
  
• Some sort of app to turn your iPhone into a USB disk and enable you to easily load documents onto the phone. Life is better when you have your (recipes / RPG character sheets / what have you) at hand. I use USB Disk Pro; it has a free version.
  
• I assume there's a Boston MTA schedule app that doesn't suck.
  
• Meanwhile, Zarf's implementation of the comic book. Works marvelously well.
  
• Other games that are big and immersive and arty and deep: Waking Mars. Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery. The Dreamhold. King of Dragon Pass.
  
• Tiny Wings, because it is adorable.

[minibusy]

This is a response to a comment on Dreamwidth, because its captchas claim I'm not human (repeatedly):

re: "I assume there's a Boston MTA schedule app that doesn't suck."

For buses, I actually prefer the mobile version of the http://www.nextbus.com/ site, which (at least on Android, and I assume iPhone is the same) autodetects your location, and then gives you the next times of the closest stops to your current location. It's much better than any of the Android apps that I've used, although I'm not familiar with how it compares to iPhone apps. (The Android apps are occasionally useful, but they're not what I first turn to.)

For the red, blue, and orange lines, I often use http://www.trackthet.com/ , although I do have some apps too, but I use that site more often than the apps.

Both of those are bookmarked on my home screen for one-touch access (the latter set to Central Square by default).

[whimmydiddle.livejournal.com]

I read this on my iPhone. You can pry my iPhone out of my hands when I am cold and dead. Don't stress too much; like religion and guns, fancy phones can be used for good or evil. I am confident yours will be a force for good.

[macaroniandtuna.livejournal.com]

I love how "Magikarp" is an abusive epithet. Lol.

[paradoox.livejournal.com]

Well, maybe your old phone was THAT ancient, but I tend to doubt it. Verizon gave L a similar story. I suspect the real answer was that Verizon had deleted the software because it wasn't worth their trouble. It took me about 10 minutes and $10 to find the software on Ebay that would hook her phone up to my computer and download the numbers to Outlook at which point they could be uploaded to another phone. YMMV. I'll send you a text with my number.

[leiacat.livejournal.com]

The phone is a tool. It doesn't magically turn non-ass into ass.

My must-have apps:

iLevel. Because it's a level, and turns your phone into a thing that usefully interacts with the real world.
Swackett. It's a weather app, and it has awesome in it.
Bump - for sharing data with other iDevices in proximity.
PlayOnCue (which was the first paid app I ever got), which lets you play a track and STOP before going on to the next track.
the Google translate app
At least one QR code reader
Random calculators and unit converters. I'm slightly addicted.
Random shopping lists - there are lots of them, so what works for me won't necessarily be what works for you.
I also have apps for tracking what booze I like (beer and wine, available upon request).

[nurrynur.livejournal.com]

Get a calendar app so you can look at google calendar. (sorry no specific suggestion - mine has a preloaded "calendar" app that seems to sync up my gcal just fine.

Also, you probably have Swype already, but if not give it a try - it's pretty cool.

Do you need my new number again?

[zaphod-groupie.livejournal.com]

I sent texts to the last number I had for you, hopefully it's the right one. Also, there's a place in the world for lj entries from the iPhone, mostly when you're between exciting! stuff and you want to make blog-notes.

[ednoria.livejournal.com]

You know, I almost posted a whole rant about your douchebag comment, but then I realized I was falling for the "Someone on the Internet is WRONG" thing and decided not to.

My iPhone makes my life value-added. I doubt I could function half as well without it.

[miriampenguin.livejournal.com]

I had an old iPhone for a few months before I switched to Android (I'm happy with either, but my husband is the one that does the tech support for our phones, so after a while he got me an HD2 on Craigslist to mirror his - actually, we get all our phones on Craigslist). They're cute, useable, simple. I didn't have many apps, since putting them on the phone was kind of a hassle for Ariel (my husband), but the ones I remember using the most are ColorNote (a notepad/checklist/calendar app) and DoodleJump (a game). Peggle (another game) is also quite addictive. Pretty sure I also had a Flashlight app.

I've had the Android a lot longer, and so I've collected more Apps onto it. Aside from the myriad games and Andriod-specific things, Actual Useful Things I have are...
Assorted Document Readers (Adobe Reader, Documents To Go, Google Drive)
AVG Anti-Virus (the free version)
A Browser
ColorNote
Groupon (usefulness debatable)
Assorted IM-aggregators (imo.im being the one I've settled on for now, though I also separately have Facebook and Skype)
Assorted Jewish apps (Hebrew Calendar, Tehillim (Psalms), Siddur (prayer book), etc.)
KeepTrack (it's a.... record-keeping type of app. With database-like forms. People use it to track stuff like weight over time, or whether they took their pills that day/what time...)
Assorted book readers (Kindle Reader for free-book-of-the-day purchases on Amazon, and Moon+reader for books in non-Kindle formats)
Pixlr-o-matic (a competitor to Instagram)
Picasso Mirror Draw (not sure if this one's on iPhone, but there are assorted drawing apps out there - KidsDoodle HD is one that I know is iStuff compatible)
SurvivalGuide (Not that I plan on using it, but useful to have just in case)
Torch (a flashlight app)
TuneIn Radio (Like Shoutcast on WinAmp, but more. There's also Pandora, but I don't like the permissions it requests on Andriod.)

So yeah. As far as games go, there are plenty to try out. Oh, and of course, there's Words With Friends, which I'm pretty much addicted to, and it's less annoying than playing it on Facebook. Have fun!

[skullx.livejournal.com]

Congratz on your new shiny!!!

I have an iPhone, and it's only slightly made me a bigger asshole than I already was. ;)

Enjoy it!

Some apps I recommend:

Locavore - find fresh produce around you (farmstands, etc) and it tells you what's in season
The Weather Channel's app - pretty slick weather updates
Shazam - helps to recognize those songs you just can't figure out
Instagram - hipster pics at their best
stellarium - constellation app