How the iPhone Changed My Life (and why I can live without it)
*Monkeys with bones not included
I wake up in the morning to my iPhone alarm, usually hitting the snooze button about three times. Oozing out of bed, I grab my iPhone and head upstairs to sit with Lisa for a little bit before work. I’ll usually open up Reeder to check the morning news. Couch time is also a good time to check email and maybe G+ (Lisa in the meantime is checking Facebook on her iPhone). Then sometime before I hop in the car I’ll crack open Instacast and check if there are any new podcast updates. On the road to work I’ll listen to one of my podcasts, the audio edition of the Economist, or one of my many audio books on the Audible app. At work my iPhone keeps me informed if I have upcoming meetings, email, or important site monitoring alerts. During the day I get text messages from my wife, I take turns of the Carcassonne game I play with friends, and trade instant messages over Google Talk using BeejiveIM.
I have other activities that my iPhone gets used for irregularly, but listed above are things that I do almost every day.
From Chuck and Beans at shoeboxblog dot com
Once upon a time people didn’t have Google, and so there were many things that they did not know. Pieces of trivia would simply go unknown for days or weeks until a proper dictionary, almanac, encyclopedia or other reference material could be found, often at a local library. These days my intelligence is directly proportional to the signal on my smartphone. I can answer most arcane trivia questions in less than a minute, provided I have a 3G signal.
There is really no doubt about it, my iPhone enables me in many different ways, most of which are quite enjoyable.
But I could live without it.
It is a very convenient device because it travels around with me so easy it’s accessible at a moments notice, but I don’t need that. I wound’t be happy getting along with out many of the things it does: audio books, music, internet searches, etc, but I can do all of that stuff on my computers. I have computers an internet at home, I have them at work. Audio books and music can be carried on any number of other devices or formats.
I would miss it, but the iPhone does not in fact fill any unique purpose in my life.