Reel Expression

In my daily google news search for when the damn thing is going to be released, all I ever see is loyal iphone podguys ranting how it’s going to be dead on arrival for x amount of reasons. Who cares what they think? They have a phone they like and aren’t actively looking for something different. One article that was supposed to be a comparison spent 2 paragraphs about how the guy loved his iphone and reminisced about standing in line for a gen 1. I personally think they are being paid by apple, because I have no idea why anyone would be that loyal to a company. Especially apple. It really doesn’t make you cooler or better. If you think it does, that makes you a douche. A tool. And some other nasty words.

My current US mobile is the cheapest one I could find and on my mother’s plan. Yes I’m 31 and sharing minutes with my mother. Before you make any assumptions, there is a reason….

When I was visiting the US in ‘07, I needed a cell phone for the extra traveling I was doing. In the UK, most people I knew who didn’t have a mobile via work was on a prepaid service. So I figured going that route here would work well. I went over to the AT&T store, picked out a cheap phone, and did pay as you go. I specifically asked if there was a time limit on money put into it, they said no.

So when I had the nightmare flights last summer, my prepaid phone should have worked right? Nope. They had given my number to someone else and I needed to go into a store to get a new one. WTF. They took the $75 or so I had left on it and completely fucked me. Thanks AT&T. Because of the confusion of the flights and few payphones in the airport, my parents had to sit at the Omaha airport for 3 hours waiting for me.

My mother was livid. You could assume that my angst came from being gen-x and never really “growing up,” but you’d be incorrect. OK, maybe only a little incorrect. I curse a lot more than she does, but her having words with someone is pretty fucking scary. The people over at At&T were somehow immune to her - fucking shit customer service - and she drove us across the street to Sprint.

We didn’t even have to demand actual answers as they were completely upfront about if you don’t top up your phone in a certain amount of time, they’d kill it. 10 points for Sprint. But since my mom is on a family plan with my Step-Father (cause she gets a discount for being a health professional) and they never use all of their minutes, adding me was a no brainer. 10 more points for the Sprint guy explaining that was the cheaper and more stable option.

When I was pricing things I needed to get when I moved back to the states, I decided to finally go with a decent phone. And the research began…

iPhone:
While I am no fan of Apple, I have always wanted one. I love the touchscreen vrs annoying menus to cycle through. Plus I’ve been a mostly happy ipod owner for a very long time. Until I purchased an ipod touch. I paid more for the damn thing then an iphone costs, and yet I have to pay for the big updates for programs that the iphone already has or gets for free. Fuck you apple. Plus getting it to connect to wifi is a PITA. Typing of the touchscreen keyboard is slightly annoying as it tells me often that I’m trying to type 1 word, when I’m going for something else. And I have to go back, delete what it auto entered and hope it doesn’t fuck with me again.

I get why people like having macs, but I’ll never understand the intense brand loyalty. The mac vrs pc debates can get pretty fucking nasty typically on the mac side. I had one friend for a while who I constantly wanted to slap because of it. I’d like to chalk that experience up to he was an arrogant douche who happened to also be an arrogant idouche. Which does seem to happen more with mac converts instead of those always being mac lovers.

And not to mention the fact that the entire stigma of geeks using macs vrs pcs is an advertising fabrication. That if you use a mac you suddenly become geek chic. There is no such thing as geek chic, as you are still a geek. The uber geek friends of mine use linux solely. Everyone else, save for a couple friends, either dual boots with linux or uses windows only.

And not to be a snob, but I’m still sort of pissed off about the FCP crap being cheap enough software that everyone thinks they can edit, when they can’t. OK yeah. I’m a snob. But the amount of CVs and reels I went through finding my replacement for my editing job in SF, proved me right on that. Just because you can afford FCP and put a few clips together with transitions, doesn’t make you an editor. And I’m at a throwing shit level of angry for apple buying shake (awesome composting software) and making it mac only.

The mac vrs pc debate really comes down to a few factors:
1. What you know. I know technically mac OS is better than windows. I’m not deluded. However, I can build myself a pc with XP 64 and never worry about it. I never upgraded to vista because of the bad reports I got from friends, so I don’t have that bad taste in my mouth. When something goes wrong - and honestly it’s pretty rare - I know how to fix it. My little pirate serves me well and she even is covered in glow in the dark pirate stickers.

2. It’s what you plan to do with it. I’m a gamer. I know you can run windows games via the mac OS, but why would I bother fiddling with it? I have friends who do it, and they don’t have a lot of nice things to say about it. While 2d works better on macs (photoshop and the like) 3d works better on linux and then windows. Film/Video editing works about the same on both and is another long debate of avid v final cut which comes down again to what works better for your own work flow.

3. Cost. Parts for PCs are cheaper because of the large amount of competition. I’ll hear from mac people it’s because the parts are worse but I’ve never had anything break down before it needed an upgrade anyways. I’m a constant upgrader, which is just easier and well.. affordable to do with a PC. I can buy a comparable machine for 1/2 the price and then fully upgrade it 2 years later for still less than a mac costs. But that’s me. I know what parts to buy and how to put them in. For someone who wants a computer to last and not have to fiddle with the parts, by all means buy a mac. Because prebuilt PCs fucking suck, unless you go to a small computer shop and have them build one for you.

OK.. that was a tangent. And it’ll probably piss off a lot of SLers. I know a lot of SLers (especially fashion designers) use macs because its better with Photoshop. Which is where they are better.

AT&T:
I really hate the idea of a phone being only on 1 carrier. Especially when that carrier is AT&T. Other than the story above, which should have been avoided anyways because of past experiences with them, I hate AT&T with such fierce passion. My first cell phone was with AT&T. But their customer service and constant dropped calls in bloody San Francisco made me switch. Saddly, I went over to cingular and when they were bought out from AT&T, somehow my good service went to shit. How many days could I not call into work after missing the horrible 1 bus per hour to Sausalito? I’d either have no service or that the system was busy. In my apartment, which had full service with cingular, I’d have to hang out the window to make a call.

I’ve had no problems at all with my current Sprint phone, so I don’t understand why all this bitching about the Palm Pre being only on Sprint for the beginning. Please note the last word of that sentence. The price of plans for AT&T v Sprint is about the same unless you like txting. Plus with Sprint you get some extra stuff like Sprint TV.

Blackberry:
My brother is a diehard blackberry user and he seems to like his. I’ve taken a look at the Storm and wasn’t all that impressed. And it’s only on Verizon. One of my good friends I’ve known for something like 12 years - he’s the male version of me and that’s what I call him - works at Verizon and loves his blackberry. I’ve had absolutely no experience with them, but their prices are way high. But why would I pay extra every month for a service I’m not sure about when I already know Sprint doesn’t suck?

Palm Pre:
I did look at a few other phones I could get on the Sprint network, but I kept going back to the Pre. I keep reading that there was this lame survey recently to see if people would change to Sprint and the Pre which only came to about 4%. But where is the survey of people who don’t already have a smart phone? Or a survey of anyone else but idouches and blackberry fans?

It seems to me that the pre is targeting those of us who aren’t idouches. Those that hate AT&T. That want a touchscreen, but also like the idea of a qwerty keyboard. Granted I’d much prefer a landscape slide out keyboard, but I’ll go with what I can get. It has an ap store which is supposedly easy to write aps for. Personally I hardly care unless someone updates the space trader game. All those iphone/ ipt aps are interesting for like 10 seconds. Cept for the twitter and the lolcats ones.

It has everything I need…
1. GPS - How awesome it would be if my phone would tell me which direction to walk in a city I don’t know yet?
2. Email
3. Web
4. Calendar would be awesome if I ya know.. needed one. I have an awesome memory and rarely forget the few things I have scheduled.
5. Keyboard for txting. I <3 txting.

I had a plam pilot once. But all I ever used it for was playing a space trader game where I was a pirate and smuggled a lot. I played it during really boring classes like intro to producing. Being a space pirate was way more interesting than talking about budgeting films. And with the emulation software, maybe I’d be able to play it again while on the train. Or they’d update it. Oh fuck yeah.