I need an iPhone (or an Android or BlackBerry for that matter)
I have been thinking about the kind of equipment I need and most of the people who know me (even those who meet me for the first time) are kind of shocked that my cell phone is not a smart phone. I have probably the stupidest, simplest phone ever. It doesn’t even have a camera. I chose it for that very reason. I am always online so I chose the least techie phone I could.
There is only one little problem – currently, my workload is so massive and I have to travel to client sites, and to the schools where I teach, so given that I too, have Obssessive Productive Disorder (OPD, as Chris Burdge put it on his comment on my post on the Minimum Travel Work Unit, MTWU), I would benefit from having a smart phone. I could tweet, respond to client’s emails, or my students’ emails, etc.
The only challenge would be (a) to deal with the long-term contracts that phone companies lock you in (I am currently in a pay-as-you-go, non-data plan) and (b) assess whether I really, really want to be THAT connected. I do foresee enormous benefits, but I’m still debating whether I’m going to go the smart phone way or not.
Thoughts, my dear readers?
Related posts:
- Life in a post-smart phone era
- I have been iPhone-ified thanks to @yurechko
- Tethering on an iPhone for PC
- The inter-mediators: Subject matter experts with a dash of Web 2.0
- I need a cell phone, PRONTO!
I can’t tell you whether or not ubiquitous connectivity is a good thing. It would probably be a fun thing. Any way you slice it, it costs $25-40/month to add a high-quality data plan to a phone subscription.
A friend of mine with, er, access to a lot of very smart phones, has made an effort to keep himself _more_ disconnected when he’s not working. He wanted to create a greater work-life balance.
That said,
Is this for business, or pleasure? If you can live with WiFi only, a netbook would be more practical to type longer message than a small screen mobile phone.
It’s really for business, but I need to be able to make phone calls too!
You don’t have to sign a contract if you don’t want to. I haven’t purchased a phone on contract for years, opting instead to buy an unlocked phone elsewhere. This gives you more options, especially if you want to stick with pay as you go.
For data, though, you can expect to add $25 or more to your monthly bill. If you don’t need to be connected all the time, then I suggest you get a smartphone with Wi-Fi and just hit up the hotspots as needed.