The end of an era...

The time has almost come to say goodbye to a good friend, one that has been mistreated by those who should know better and which despite everything I still love...

Yes, I'm talking about my mobile phone.

I'm normally a sticker, if I start with something I stay with it... And so my first phones, with almost no exceptions were Nokia's... The sporty ones, the business ones (oh E71 what a phone you were), the N78... my first phone which had a camera worthy of the name.

The came a mild flirtation with Android... a HTC Desire... and the realisation that not all phone companies bothered keeping phones up to date... and that Android was a buggy, laggy mess with lousy cameras.

And so I fled back to Nokia... this time with windows phone... Seamless integration with social media, excellent camera, useable versions of word and powerpoint that helped with charity and OU stuff.  It just worked, where there was an app gap nokia provided good or excellent alternatives - nokia music for napster...

The glorious 1520 came next, that 6" of wonderful bright red, huge screen that was genuinely big enough to read documents and watch tv on.  Fast, but the cracks were showing... things that had been hardwired into the operating system got broken, and apps had to be hunted for - that seamless integration with social media went, apps were promised and never turned up... beautifully crafted and flawed by its software...

I probably should've changed then, realised that something I loved was getting left behind, wasn't going to be able to do what I wanted...

But Window's 10 was promised, and as an insider I could get the phone at a swanky do with champers, a docking station to use it as a netbook, iris detection... and one hell of a camera...

Good enough to feature in my end of module essay on renaissance art. 

But the app gap and the features still aren't there... I've love cortana, but she doesn't talk to Alexa (the amazon app is a web wrap), the apps for many things are there, but old and less well featured than the versions on iOS and Android.  

And so the demise is almost upon us... Windows phone has features I love... but the iOS version of outlook is better, the iOS version of word is as good and the apps I use are there... Strava, Viewranger, IFTTT any food or drink app... 

It's been a blast nokia/microsoft but the end is here... Google, well they allowed someone to take £600 out of my bank account, and then said it was just a cancelled order... So I won't go near Android (and I do like to choose what data I share).  So I suspect the iPhone will be mine, shiny and souless... Siri a baby-cortana without a sense of humour, a camera which is ok... and only ok... 

The odd thing is it will one of the most Microsoft iPhone's out there - outlook, word, one drive... because they are better than the iOS standard... 

This is a first world problem, and I know my tongue is well and truly in my cheek... but it is sad that something that has defined part of my technology life from the early 2000s is going to end... not today, not tomorrow, but sometime in the next couple of months...

The end of an era... time to become an iSheep... 

TTFN

Paul

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