Ron Offringa:
Last week in my opinion piece about why I think Android users should consider the Moto X I opened up the article with an admission: I currently use an iPhone 4S and I plan on getting the next iPhone. This wasn’t supposed to be a secret (if you follow me on Twitter then you would have noticed that I use iOS most of the time). On the Droid Life Show I have shown my iPhone and discussed using my iPad. That said, I know that a lot of readers did not know, and more importantly, were surprised or upset to read that I use an iPhone.
Much respect Ron.
Figures the site is all pink… looks like a Barbie site
Mr. Offringa pretty much echoed my sentiments. I like technology, and I’m not simply going to be void of an opinion because I don’t fall into one ecosystem or use some piece of technology every day of my life.
I love my Apple products. My iPhone 5 is always at my side, my iPad mini always surprises with how enjoyable it is, and my MacBook Pro is like a life companion at this point. But I also think the Moto X is kind of neat, and I still enjoy busting out my TouchPad for fiddling with all the fun gestures that most other mobile operating systems still haven’t implemented. But that doesn’t mean I’m suddenly going to stop buying Apple products. I’ve yet to buy an Apple product that has no impressed me (dating back to my old Macintosh II).
Mr. Offringa appreciates technology, and I can sympathize.
You can try… You know. Being secure with your masculinity.
For whatever faults Droid Life might have, its use of pink isn’t one of them.
Perhaps you’d like it better if it had hair all over it.
Imagine articles being written and never-ending heated arguments being waged over what kind of phone you used in the 80’s. We’ve come so far.
Wow, what a great article. He has some really good quotes in it, too. Much respect indeed. He’s facing a lot of flack I’m sure (over 600 comments and counting).
Articles about various personal preferences (tech or otherwise) aren’t exactly new; just look at car magazines. However you do have a very good point about the amount and intensity of argument that this generates today. As a whole we’ve become so myopic that we can’t even entertain the thought that someone else might have their own unique needs, desires, or preferences.
Of course not. In the 80s, the conversations were one sided affairs where everyone who would bother to have a Gordon Gecko plastered to their head was described as a douchebag.
True Story: still in the military in the 90s, I had access to a Motorola Communications System Analyser that was capable of receiving calls made on the cell phones of the day. Cell phones themselves were still not very common, so the traffic wasn’t hard to tune in on. For a brief period around the same time, douchebags of a certain calibre were getting car phones installed in their private vehicles. And the common factor of every call we ever heard originating from a vehicle? Within the first 30 seconds of the conversation, it was imperative that the person calling from the vehicle state that they were calling from their vehicle.
That comment feed is a giant proof-text as to why comments are disabled on an increasing number of sites. But I have to say, as long as the comment section at Android Life keeps those commenters from dirtying up the pool over here, I’m all for it.
It’s best not to reply. Usually no one does and that works out best I think.
In my humble opinion, this makes him a better writer. Sometimes people, even in the comment thread here, make comments about the opposite operating system or some other technology but have not used it in full to get a full respect for it. By using his iPhone and iPad the way he does, he has a greater respect for how Apple operates and to what effect Google’s new updates, etc. actually affect the tech industry.
in short, I echo Jim’s sentiments: much respect.
Thanks. 🙂 The ratio of good to bad comments is usually towards the latter, but that’s the Internet for you.
Thanks! 🙂
I admire your self-control.
I love how that validates a hateful stereotype.
Live long and prosper.
This sort of level-headed awareness is a tremendous rarity in the technology industry. I honestly don’t understand why technology, of all things, incites the holy wars that it does.
I can’t understand why the comparative success or failure of one technology company over another is of such value to people. I like and use Apple products. I like and use Google products. I don’t use any Microsoft products, but I have the utmost admiration for what they’re trying to do and greatly appreciate the innovation that they’ve injected into the industry.
I just don’t get why any of this shit matters. People should use what like.
One always hopes.
Worse: One of these douches broke up with his girlfriend from his car phone.
Another time we listened as a general contracted ranted at a site supervisor for the shoddy work being done by a countertop tradesman. Then caught the call 10 minutes later when he was berating the trades person directly. That’s how relatively little traffic there was on these devices.
There’s an electronic musician who goes by the name of Scanner that started his career off building songs based around captured cell phone conversations in the ’90s.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scanner_%28musical_group%29
Cool Beans. Reminds me of Yello and Skinny Puppy, among others, who incorporated samples of everything from movies to jungle noises into their music.
To be fair, “I’m calling from my vehicle” doubles as a warning about things like bad signal and the distraction of traffic, along with being a status signal.
Had they been people conducting business, I would grant the point. But given that the topics of conversation were inane when not self aggrandizement centered on the car phone (and then the guy that broke up with his girlfriend from his car) I will not give the benefit of the doubt.