Recently I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about how personal technology has changed our lives in recent years. How in 30 years, mobile phones have gone from an expensive luxury to one of our primary means of communication and connectivity. How the internet has changed everything when it comes to business, communication, leisure, study, personal development, socialising. Technology, and especially personal technology, for many has almost become the centre piece of their daily life.
A family member recently asked me about Nokia’s Ovi Maps and my post last year about what I thought of their strategy at the time. When I mentioned that I personally can’t really give much of an insight into it from a recent perspective, he said he’d looks forward to me reviewing Android now that it has almost completely taken over how I do many things.
But this got me thinking about a few things. For example, my best friend recently spent time using a phone that is 3-4 years old. Its one of the first LG Android phones running Android 1.6 and was a big upgrade from a very old Nokia he had. But it lacked the battery life he was accustomed to with his Nokia feature phone and this ended up frustrating him. On top of that, because he didn’t want to pay for data connectivity he could only really use the phone when he had access to wifi. It was a frustration to say the least. So he reverted back to a Nokia feature phone that provides the battery life he expects, even if not the features he was hoping for.
I look at what other friends are using. Some are very much hooked on their Blackberry devices. It works for them. Its messaging capabilities and the email management suit them perfectly. Two work for a telecommunications company and so have had access to a very wide range of devices, including Android and iPhone devices, and they find that Blackberry is their preferred devices for how they work and how the device works for their lifestyle. Both at work and at play.
Another friend still uses a Nokia E63. Now, I’m very much on record as saying Nokia’s E71 is by far one of my favourite devices of all time. Even today, a long time after I stopped using mine every day, it is still one of the few phones I have the fondest memories of. The E63 is basically its little brother. Much the same features, just slightly reduced to fit a lower price point for people on a tighter budget.
For all these people, these phones work for them. But they don’t work for me. For example, I look at the Blackberry devices and the Nokia E63 and I think to myself, “That’s where I was four years ago in 2007 with my E71.” I don’t understand how it is that these people can function without the latest and the greatest. The cutting edge of technology.
But then I realise that my problem is not that these people are technically where I was four years ago. Instead it is that the technology that has come about since then is predominantly superficial. When I upgraded to my Nokia N97 in 2009, it was not because I needed new functionality of the device that my E71 could no longer offer. Far from it in fact. There was, and is still, very little software that could run on the N97 but not on the E71. Or, that did not have an alternative that provided the same functionality. I literally spent hundreds of dollars on software for Nokia based devices. From the Nokia 7650 I bought in 2001 through to the Nokia N97 in 2009. There was very little real difference between the platforms. Especially concerning the difference between the E90, E71 and N97 (not counting the touch screen of the N97.)
The reality is that any of those devices could still function as my primary device today without any real loss of functionality. Email and calendar functionality exists on all of them. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like all exist on all of them. In every case, if I adjusted my mindset just marginally, I could return to using those devices again without any real loss of productivity.
But it would be a very difficult adjustment. In September 2010 when I ordered my HTC Desire Z, I changed my expectations of what I can do and how I want to do it. And it was entirely that ephemeral buzzword simply known as “the cloud” that did it for me. Let me explain what that means.
In 2004 I started using Google’s brand new Gmail service. It was a completely new way of looking at, and managing, email. Instead of emails each being separate documents to read, Gmail turned them into a single discussion. Newly arrived emails were added to that conversation and they were all kept together. You could tag emails (known as labelling) and conversations instead of storing them in folders. You could search through your emails using very advanced and powerful search queries much like you do on the web. Most powerfully of all, you could use those search queries to create automated filters that managed your emails. At the time it really was a revolutionary way of managing email discussions and conversations.
Over the years more features were added to the system. Labels eventually got the ability to be nested like folders. Chat was added to it. The address book became a very powerful Contact manager that was a program in its own right. A calendar was integrated into the system, then later, a full office suite that let you write and manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations and many other files. All in your browser and on the web. You didn’t need to be at your own computer any more. You could access all your information from any computer, anywhere in the world, just by having an internet connection.
I grew addicted to this lifestyle. I freely admit that I am an information junkie. I use Google Reader to consume vast amounts of information via RSS feeds. I subscribe to several hundred website feeds generating several thousand daily articles and blog posts. I read huge amounts of news websites and use financial sites from Google and Yahoo and others to help me in my trading decisions every day. I follow the latest technology news about devices and gadgets as well as keeping up to date on the latest bits and pieces that affect me as a network and server administrator in my professional career. I have a simply massive addiction to information. An addiction fed entirely by the cloud and my ability to access it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
This puts me on the very edge of technology use cases in my view.
For me, currently, because the doorway to all that information is through the cloud, I need to have easy, ready, immediate access to it no matter where I am and what I’m doing. Currently the only way I can get access to all that information is through Android devices.
Because I have established the majority of my information using Google’s services, Android gives me a very deep integration with the services I use daily from my desktop and laptop computers.
On my Android phones, all my contacts get stored in Google Contacts. This means that when I modify a contact on my phone, that change is immediately visible in Gmail. And vice versa. Any changes I make in Gmail to my contacts are immediately visible on my phone. This also applies to Calendar entries and even documents I use in Google Doc, Google Spreadsheets and so on. I can be chatting to a friend in Gmail Chat or Google Talk, pick up my phone and walk away from my desk and carry on the conversation and they need never know I’ve switched devices, or even locations.
But not everything is stored in Google’s system. Some files I keep on my computer for one reason or another. So I use a service called Dropbox to synchronise a directory and its subdirectories to “the cloud” which I can then access from a browser or from an application that runs on my Android devices. This means that a PDF or any other file I might want access to when I am not home can now be easily accessed from anywhere. Immediately.
I have a SkypeIn account that offers me a local landline number in my area. People dial this number and my computer rings as a phone. But I can use that same Skype account on my Android devices. So now, when someone dials that local landline number, not only does my computer ring, so do any Android devices connected to Skype at the time. Including my cellphones. Its as good as having an 0800 number as far as my business is concerned. It means there’s absolutely no cost beyond a normal local call for them to call me regardless of where I am. Regardless of where I am in the world!
Firefox 4 introduced a new feature called Firefox Sync. It takes all the information you want to share across multiple computers, encrypts it and then stores it in “the cloud” so that every instance you have of Firefox on any of your computers shares the same settings, the same bookmarks, the same usernames and passwords, the same addons and plugins. So my laptop’s Firefox is configured exactly the same as my desktop’s Firefox. But Firefox Sync goes a step further in that you can also store your history, encrypted, in “the cloud” as well. This means that I can read something on my desktop, then go to my laptop and carry on reading from exactly where I left off on the desktop. But why stop there? Why not provide that synchronisation on the cellphone as well?
It does. Firefox for Android also allows exactly the same sort of syncing features. I can have exactly the same bookmarks on my cellphone that I have on my desktop and my laptop. I can go from reading a page on my laptop to reading exactly the same page on my tablets or my cellphones thanks to the sync features.
All this completely blurs the line between what is local to a single device or computer and what is universal to me and all my devices. It means that whether I am sitting at my desk at home, at a client’s site, out to coffee with friends or even sitting on the beach at Piha, as long as I have cellphone signal or an internet connection, all my information is available to me.
And that is what separates me from myself of four years ago. That is what separates me today from the devices my friends use today. So sure, I could go back to using my old devices. But it would be like trying to fit into the same jeans I wore as a teenager. And I’m a LOT fatter than I was then.
I am so excited by today’s technology and cannot resist being on the cutting edge of that innovation. Because the doors it opens, the barriers it knocks down, are so amazing that you really do not ever comprehend it until you actually experience it. What I cannot wait to see is how it will affect my friends and my family when they start to move on to the point in their digital lifestyle that I am at today. In four years will they be blown away by it as I am today? Or by then will it just be expected in the same way having Facebook and email and calendars and messaging on a phone is today?
Where do you stand on technology? How has the digital life style influenced you or affected the way you live your daily life today? Have you started to embrace a digital lifestyle? Or do you still prefer the folio with pad and calendar in it?
My digital lifestyle and why I am so excited for your future
Recently I’ve spent a bit of time thinking about how personal technology has changed our lives in recent years. How in 30 years, mobile phones have gone from an expensive luxury to one of our primary means of communication and connectivity. How the internet has changed everything when it comes to business, communication, leisure, study, personal development, socialising. Technology, and especially personal technology, for many has almost become the centre piece of their daily life.
A family member recently asked me about Nokia’s Ovi Maps and my post last year about what I thought of their strategy at the time. When I mentioned that I personally can’t really give much of an insight into it from a recent perspective, he said he’d looks forward to me reviewing Android now that it has almost completely taken over how I do many things.
But this got me thinking about a few things. For example, my best friend recently spent time using a phone that is 3-4 years old. Its one of the first LG Android phones running Android 1.6 and was a big upgrade from a very old Nokia he had. But it lacked the battery life he was accustomed to with his Nokia feature phone and this ended up frustrating him. On top of that, because he didn’t want to pay for data connectivity he could only really use the phone when he had access to wifi. It was a frustration to say the least. So he reverted back to a Nokia feature phone that provides the battery life he expects, even if not the features he was hoping for.
I look at what other friends are using. Some are very much hooked on their Blackberry devices. It works for them. Its messaging capabilities and the email management suit them perfectly. Two work for a telecommunications company and so have had access to a very wide range of devices, including Android and iPhone devices, and they find that Blackberry is their preferred devices for how they work and how the device works for their lifestyle. Both at work and at play.
Another friend still uses a Nokia E63. Now, I’m very much on record as saying Nokia’s E71 is by far one of my favourite devices of all time. Even today, a long time after I stopped using mine every day, it is still one of the few phones I have the fondest memories of. The E63 is basically its little brother. Much the same features, just slightly reduced to fit a lower price point for people on a tighter budget.
For all these people, these phones work for them. But they don’t work for me. For example, I look at the Blackberry devices and the Nokia E63 and I think to myself, “That’s where I was four years ago in 2007 with my E71.” I don’t understand how it is that these people can function without the latest and the greatest. The cutting edge of technology.
But then I realise that my problem is not that these people are technically where I was four years ago. Instead it is that the technology that has come about since then is predominantly superficial. When I upgraded to my Nokia N97 in 2009, it was not because I needed new functionality of the device that my E71 could no longer offer. Far from it in fact. There was, and is still, very little software that could run on the N97 but not on the E71. Or, that did not have an alternative that provided the same functionality. I literally spent hundreds of dollars on software for Nokia based devices. From the Nokia 7650 I bought in 2001 through to the Nokia N97 in 2009. There was very little real difference between the platforms. Especially concerning the difference between the E90, E71 and N97 (not counting the touch screen of the N97.)
The reality is that any of those devices could still function as my primary device today without any real loss of functionality. Email and calendar functionality exists on all of them. Social media such as Facebook, Twitter, and the like all exist on all of them. In every case, if I adjusted my mindset just marginally, I could return to using those devices again without any real loss of productivity.
But it would be a very difficult adjustment. In September 2010 when I ordered my HTC Desire Z, I changed my expectations of what I can do and how I want to do it. And it was entirely that ephemeral buzzword simply known as “the cloud” that did it for me. Let me explain what that means.
In 2004 I started using Google’s brand new Gmail service. It was a completely new way of looking at, and managing, email. Instead of emails each being separate documents to read, Gmail turned them into a single discussion. Newly arrived emails were added to that conversation and they were all kept together. You could tag emails (known as labelling) and conversations instead of storing them in folders. You could search through your emails using very advanced and powerful search queries much like you do on the web. Most powerfully of all, you could use those search queries to create automated filters that managed your emails. At the time it really was a revolutionary way of managing email discussions and conversations.
Over the years more features were added to the system. Labels eventually got the ability to be nested like folders. Chat was added to it. The address book became a very powerful Contact manager that was a program in its own right. A calendar was integrated into the system, then later, a full office suite that let you write and manage documents, spreadsheets, presentations and many other files. All in your browser and on the web. You didn’t need to be at your own computer any more. You could access all your information from any computer, anywhere in the world, just by having an internet connection.
I grew addicted to this lifestyle. I freely admit that I am an information junkie. I use Google Reader to consume vast amounts of information via RSS feeds. I subscribe to several hundred website feeds generating several thousand daily articles and blog posts. I read huge amounts of news websites and use financial sites from Google and Yahoo and others to help me in my trading decisions every day. I follow the latest technology news about devices and gadgets as well as keeping up to date on the latest bits and pieces that affect me as a network and server administrator in my professional career. I have a simply massive addiction to information. An addiction fed entirely by the cloud and my ability to access it 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, 52 weeks of the year.
This puts me on the very edge of technology use cases in my view.
For me, currently, because the doorway to all that information is through the cloud, I need to have easy, ready, immediate access to it no matter where I am and what I’m doing. Currently the only way I can get access to all that information is through Android devices.
Because I have established the majority of my information using Google’s services, Android gives me a very deep integration with the services I use daily from my desktop and laptop computers.
On my Android phones, all my contacts get stored in Google Contacts. This means that when I modify a contact on my phone, that change is immediately visible in Gmail. And vice versa. Any changes I make in Gmail to my contacts are immediately visible on my phone. This also applies to Calendar entries and even documents I use in Google Doc, Google Spreadsheets and so on. I can be chatting to a friend in Gmail Chat or Google Talk, pick up my phone and walk away from my desk and carry on the conversation and they need never know I’ve switched devices, or even locations.
But not everything is stored in Google’s system. Some files I keep on my computer for one reason or another. So I use a service called Dropbox to synchronise a directory and its subdirectories to “the cloud” which I can then access from a browser or from an application that runs on my Android devices. This means that a PDF or any other file I might want access to when I am not home can now be easily accessed from anywhere. Immediately.
I have a SkypeIn account that offers me a local landline number in my area. People dial this number and my computer rings as a phone. But I can use that same Skype account on my Android devices. So now, when someone dials that local landline number, not only does my computer ring, so do any Android devices connected to Skype at the time. Including my cellphones. Its as good as having an 0800 number as far as my business is concerned. It means there’s absolutely no cost beyond a normal local call for them to call me regardless of where I am. Regardless of where I am in the world!
Firefox 4 introduced a new feature called Firefox Sync. It takes all the information you want to share across multiple computers, encrypts it and then stores it in “the cloud” so that every instance you have of Firefox on any of your computers shares the same settings, the same bookmarks, the same usernames and passwords, the same addons and plugins. So my laptop’s Firefox is configured exactly the same as my desktop’s Firefox. But Firefox Sync goes a step further in that you can also store your history, encrypted, in “the cloud” as well. This means that I can read something on my desktop, then go to my laptop and carry on reading from exactly where I left off on the desktop. But why stop there? Why not provide that synchronisation on the cellphone as well?
It does. Firefox for Android also allows exactly the same sort of syncing features. I can have exactly the same bookmarks on my cellphone that I have on my desktop and my laptop. I can go from reading a page on my laptop to reading exactly the same page on my tablets or my cellphones thanks to the sync features.
All this completely blurs the line between what is local to a single device or computer and what is universal to me and all my devices. It means that whether I am sitting at my desk at home, at a client’s site, out to coffee with friends or even sitting on the beach at Piha, as long as I have cellphone signal or an internet connection, all my information is available to me.
And that is what separates me from myself of four years ago. That is what separates me today from the devices my friends use today. So sure, I could go back to using my old devices. But it would be like trying to fit into the same jeans I wore as a teenager. And I’m a LOT fatter than I was then.
I am so excited by today’s technology and cannot resist being on the cutting edge of that innovation. Because the doors it opens, the barriers it knocks down, are so amazing that you really do not ever comprehend it until you actually experience it. What I cannot wait to see is how it will affect my friends and my family when they start to move on to the point in their digital lifestyle that I am at today. In four years will they be blown away by it as I am today? Or by then will it just be expected in the same way having Facebook and email and calendars and messaging on a phone is today?
Where do you stand on technology? How has the digital life style influenced you or affected the way you live your daily life today? Have you started to embrace a digital lifestyle? Or do you still prefer the folio with pad and calendar in it?