Today we’re going to take a look at ‘camera phones’ or, as someone mistakenly referred to them in one of those websites where every bit of technology is ‘awesome’, smartphones.
Some federal chap somewhere in th’America recently told people over there that if they started massaging brands by being overly fond of their wares for no apparent, reason, they’d come down on them like a ton of trash.
Well this evidently didn’t come into force when they coined the word smartphone.Exhibit A is the HTC Magic. It’s powered by this schnarky narky Android operating system, which basically means Google lives in my phone.
My hate-love-hate relationship with this phone started, as you might imagine, badly.
I took it on a long, long charity walk. The battery was rubbish, and because I’m an organised kinda guy, I didn’t think about carrying a spare.
I hated the fact it didn’t have a keyboard, since I planned on using it for blogs (see even when I plan it doesn’t work). And I found the interface a pile of bobbins.
When I got back with sore knees I got it and Android showed itself to be a very flexible partner in telecommunications activities. The Marketplace, a bit like the App Store for the iPhone, was stuffed with great enhancements and stuff.
And I recently got so angry with it I would have thrown it out the window, but there was plenty of snow on the ground and instead of smashing into smithereens, it would merely have sat there, like some forlorn electronic puppy dog, until a hapless soul took pity on it and the curse was merely transferred.
This was because I changed phone networks – to o2, and switched to a Pay As You Go contract. £15 credit, and ‘unlimited internet’ as part of the deal.
My HTC Magic might be able to read, because on discovering the new SIM card it soaked up all my ‘unlimited internet’ allocation (which in itself is a little contradictory, don’t you think) on a freak auto-update frenzy and proceeded to Pac Man all my credit. Twice. Ever since then my Google phone hasn’t been able to dance the Google boogie because o2 haven’t restored my unlimited internet (limited through a technical glitch, it has been said) and show no intention of so doing.
I hate o2 and I hate the HTC Magic equally.
About them photos:
- I hate Vodafone as much as I hate o2. Here’s what happened: I took on a 12-month eat-as-much-as-you-like mobile broadband package with Vodafone. I was told in the shop it was unlimited and then BOOM, one day it slowed to the speed of a sponsored walk for snails to the salt mines. They said it was FUP (Fair Use Policy – I said it was FUP too, but they misheard me; twice) and I said YOU LIE. Eventually I managed to persuade them to cancel the contract, and sent the dongle back. It took them a month and five days to acknowledge receipt, and 16 emails later I cottoned on to the magic of customer service on Twitter. The matter was addressed in a couple of days. I still have this receipt in case they ever come back to ask me if I sent them that stupid dongle.
- Some of my most favourite moments in life have been spent in Liverpool. Most of them have been related to drinking unfortunate amounts of booze and some have been related to moments of absolute sobriety which I have occasionally captured on camera. God, not THIS ‘camera’! This is a picture of St George’s Hall at Christmas, during an event designed exclusively to welcome my most vital organ that this city has single-handedly attempted to destroy.
- These penguins were part of a really stupid stunt. Liverpool shot to fame as the home for weird animal-based objects with the Superlambanana which it ripped off from some Japanese artist and subsequently had to pay a fortune to. After such incredible fortune with the half tropical fruit, half frolicking Sunday dinner, I was surprised to hear they were preparing a welcoming committee for these supersized Arctic inhabitants. You didn’t have to come face to face with one to realise how rubbish they were. And there really were some rubbish ones: they let all sorts of people slop designs on them, and half of them looked like someone had sworn paint all over them.
- I like spelling mistakes more than you so this won’t make much difference to your life. However, you must admit the thought of dining out on a crusty oll in a public place rankles with your inner modesty.
- Tell your children to hide next year, because I’m the real Father Christmas. Here’s proof. It was quite difficult making people believe me on the day this crappy picture was taken on my phone, though, because it was the Santa Dash – where 6,000 people dressed up to mimic me and raise money for local pubs.
- The weather here is almost as cruddy as this phone. There we were, driving up the M whatever and all hell breaks loose with God’s dandruff. Obviously I wasn’t driving: I have people to do that for me. It’s because they know what I’m capable of when I have a phone with an integrated camera at my disposal. I’m like the 21st century frickin’ Leonardo da Caprio when I get my hands on this cameraphone. See this photo? It actually says ‘Snow’ on that M-way sign, but you can’t even SEE THE SIGN! That’s how amazing my photography is. I see stuff, and share it with you. For free.
- Someone stole the stoopid sand! I was like ohmigod we’re in Scarborough – there’s the donkeys, here’s the amusements, there’s that tramps that always eats from bins, that’s there’s cockles shop. So where the hell did the beach go [sic]! In retrospect I should perhaps have figured out that on account of there being a heavy snowfall that day, there may have been snow also on the strand. But I theorised that there wouldn’t be because the salty air would have stopped it sticking on the beach. There was. Bewildered and slightly dazed as the natural phenomenon dawned on me, my angel proceeded to make a hybrid snow/sand angel and everything was ok again. Everything, that is, apart from this fool of a phone.
- I like cheeky grammatical swordmanship more than you so you won’t be moved here. But my goodness – fancy calling your burgers ‘Wirral-famous’! If you got one of those American types to recite that phrase it would probably sound like ‘world-famous’, which would be very hilarious indeed. A fine marketing ploy. The burger was in fact pretty good, although I only had a nibble. We were at What’s Cooking at Albert Dock after I spied an offer on Twitter. They were giving two mains for £7 which I thought was a smashing deal, until I found out the couple on the next table had the same amount of food for £5. I then proceeded to wreak absolute havoc, swearing under my breath for perhaps a couple of seconds and missing the urinal on purpose, splashing a little bit of wee on the floor. That’ll learn em to duel with the Davester.
- Bonus content! Ok so it might be the 10th, so not technically bonus per se, but it’s a series of moving pictures, sort of. I was all excited last night (after my rampage through the restaurant, which also included me virtually demanding another ice cube to keep my cocktail cool) so I decided to record a video hyping up my next big service to change the world. I’d apologise for the quality of the recording, but it was produced on my HTC Magic.
