Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

Comment by potatolicious | Hacker News Reader

I'm amazed at my smartphone constantly, because it does things that my laptop/desktop cannot ever hope to do that are productive and important to me.

I have, more times than I can remember, looked up restaurant recommendations, reached consensus with other people wirelessly, and then made a reservation, all without leaving my smartphone, while standing on the sidewalk somewhere.

I have also walked up to a restaurant only to find it closed, and found a delicious alternative within seconds thanks to Yelp, Urbanspoon, et al.

I have taken pictures, uploaded them to [social network] and received responses within minutes, if not seconds. I have met up with friends because the GPS told us we were near each other.

My smartphone is great for consuming the day's news (especially on a high-ppi screen, reading is a joy) while on the train to work. Laptop or even tablet? Don't be ridiculous, I need one hand hanging onto a railing.

My smartphone is also my light meter, when I'm out and about playing with vintage cameras that pre-date my birth. Not a very typical use case, but one where a laptop or even a tablet would be utterly useless.

I love my smartphone.

I have a love/hate relationship with my smartphone, but I'm still amazed at some of the things I can do with it. Adding to your list:

When my car's GPS took me miles down a road that was washed out on a trip hundreds of miles from my home, Google Navigation on my smartphone suggested a different route that got me safely to my destination.

It's a flexible and reliable alarm and kitchen timer.

I can read novels comfortably in bed on my smartphone (none of my several laptops are very ergonomic for this purpose).

I can map my bike rides and get stats on min/max/average speed, elevation, etc. (all the while using it as a music player).

It lets me easily maintain multiple shopping lists.

I can tune my guitar with it.

It functions as a real flashlight (my phone has a very bright LED).

My smartphone is no replacement for a computer, but it's better at these tasks than any computer I own.

Oddly, with the conceit of an offline GPS app (map data in the phone) every item you listed would work without a mobile data connection.

The killer network-enabled app is still on the drawing-board. (I don't feel like being able to instagram a photo and have your friends "like" a black-n-white photo of your dinner WHILE YOU ARE STILL EATING IT! is it).

Spotify: 90% of the songs I can think of, including Hindi songs, anywhere you have a data connection.

> I can read novels comfortably in bed on my smartphone

Really? I tried with an iPod Touch and an iPad, and really hated both. Then I bought a Kindle and found it extraordinary. The Kindle is the best device I've ever owned.

If you are a reader, Kindle all the way.

I bought the Kindle when it first out and loved it but never carried it with me, and found it difficult to read at night - so as soon as reader version came out for my Android, I used that and never looked back.

Reading in bed with a smartphone is great because the light does not bother my partner, and after two minutes of my falling asleep, the phone switches off its screen as well. Any bed lamp I use keeps me awake rather than allowing me to fall asleep.

(I know I am the exception as I have been reading on Palm Pilot screens since the late 90s - it was the only way to make sure I could get enough reading time in medical school.)

My Kindle case has a lamp that is very effective and yet not too bright. It's perfect for reading in bed.

(And you can't use a smartphone to read on the beach or any place under direct sunlight...)

> use a smartphone to read on the beach

Not only that. To the GP: I read also on my phone (Nexus one) but I feel the backlight is not very gentle for my eyes, even when using FBreader in night mode. Also, characters are too small. To me, a (real B&W e-ink) Kindle is better, or a paper book.

Actually, if you get a phone with the AMOLED screens, you can read in direct sunlight. I have a Nexus S, and I do that every single day. I take it out of my pocket the moment I step outside, the screen automatically jumps to full brightness, and I have no problems at all using the phone to read emails, set up GPS while I'm walking to my car, or compose text messages. I can even do this with my sunglasses on.

reading on an an LCD really is a love it or hate it sort of thing; I love it, many people I know, who are more attached to paper books, hate it.

I have both an eInk Sony reader and a B&N NookColor, and both are pretty good for reading. I prefer the eInk for casual reading, but the Nook is great for PDFs and papers, and reading in bed without light :)

> my car's GPS took me [away]

Why not using your phone navigation then? Here in China, without turn-by-turn GPS, I would be lost in nowhere, and the Chinese things they sell as GPS don't count.

> My smartphone is no replacement for a computer

Mine is, in many cases. Before, I was in the habit of turning on my laptop to check some pages or feeds after dinner, now I do this confortably installed in the sofa, on my phone.

I just miss, obviously, the content production abilities of a computer. Hope they'll find quickly a way to input text conveniently in a phone-sized thing. (I won't bet on the voice for that, maybe just a good hand writting detector could work as well)

Text input in horizontal mode is pretty comfortable, IMO, but then the screen you are inputting into usually isnt visible. I'd like to see a phone with a popup screen for horizontal mode. :P

edit: oh yeah, they make slide out keyboards for this exact reason. totally forgot about those.

I ditched my smartphone for a (very)dumbphone a few months ago. The only thing I miss is the flashlight function.

Same here.

Just set the background image to all white, touch any button and it will light up. Not too bright but usable in most cases.

The extended battery life is what clinched it for me. The funniest thing is that for years I would be way ahead of the curve and now I'm walking around with something that is probably more of a conversation piece than anything made by apple or htc.

"You use that?"

Before you got the dumbphone were you a heavy user of email and calendar information? I wonder if I'd miss things like that if I went back to one. I cut the cord with cable so I don't see why I couldn't go back to a dumbphone.

I am, but I reasoned that since I spend nearly all my day within 20 feet of a computer, I can live with no e-mail for short stints during the day.

Calendar info can be synced with nearly all phones in other ways.

If you don't recieve important calls all that often, test yourself. Leave your smartphone at home for a week.

Contrastingly, I don't like the fact that I'm next to my computer all day. I'd rather have a smartphone and be out and about the town or in nature. Laptops increasingly feel old-tech and kludgy to me.

Yes, but if you spend your whole time out-and-about staring at your cell phone, what have you really accomplished?

If you don't use it much while you're out and about, could you not simply have forgone it, planned your trip 5 minutes before you left home, and checked your email that evening?

I don't spend the whole time on my phone. I don't do social networks and also usually turn off the sound for email notifications as well. But when I do actually need the abilities of the phone, it's there. There's nothing quite like wondering about that bright star on the horizon and then just waving your phone at it and getting the full details. Or getting to know when the next tram/bus home is, before you leave the coffee shop/club. Or grabbing a picture of that rare double rainbow.

I also don't like planning or sticking to plans when going out (how much fun is that anyway?). But I do like to get information on the go, for whatever I decide to do.

My Nokia 2115[0](my first and only cell phone) has a decent LED flashlight. I can make and receive calls and texts on it. It keeps its charge for weeks. I can play snake on it. That's everything I want from a telephone.

[0] http://www.esato.com/gfx/news/img/2_2115i_lowres_2005_03_14....

I have a Nokia 1800. Does calls, SMS, alarms, calculator, has a flash light, and keeps its charge for about a fortnight.

I'm sure smartphones are good for a lot of people, but I haven't found the need for one personally. Anything I could do on a smartphone I can already do, I just have to wait until I'm in front of my computer. Which suites me fine.

Nokia 1208

> while standing on the sidewalk somewhere

Do you not have a home? ;-)

I think there's a big geographical problem that's overlooked. These things are all designed in California where the weather is sunny year-round.

But in the rest of the world, most of the time, it's cold. You will not stand a long time "on the sidewalk" because you'll freeze. Maybe you're wearing gloves, which make using a smartphone impossible.

This just made me sad. You only go outside when the weather is sunny? As the saying goes, there's no such thing as bad weather, only bad clothing.

> You only go outside when the weather is sunny?

Did I say that? I won't stand for a long time at a street corner typing on my phone without gloves, in bad weather.

I live in Michigan. I use my iPhone outside all the time. Where the hell do you live that has worse weather than Michigan?

Apparently Paris.

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