My Android Experience

Its almost 4 months since I brought this shiny new gadget running Android 2.1. My old Nokia had dead pixels all over the screen and Nokia service was pathetic. There i was holding Samsung Galaxy and was hesitant to touch and smear it with my finger prints. But I dived in right away, entered my gmail & Facebook password and viola it came into life. I did not think much about it. A friend of mine called me up and the screen displayed his name & indicated his birthday was today. WTF, it had downloaded my address book, knew my friends number, name and his birthday. I was surprised and was annoyed and I felt my privacy was suddenly intruded. Within in few minutes my phone knew more about me then I knew about my self. My mails were imported and there were few notifications displayed reminding me of few appointments I had saved in my calendar. On my way back home I was trying to figure out how to selectively password protect my mail and realized there was none. The android was exclusively designed keeping single user operation in perspective which is not the case in India. Is'nt it scary that Google seems to know who we care about, and who cares about us

I activated the main password and was impressed by the way we had to connect the dots. The unlock method is awesome. I tried to message and was not able to insert numbers, later I figured out that the numbers had to be saved under mobile category for them to appear in message screen.

I was regularly using record function in my Nokia and was replaying them when required. Lack of this feature surprised me as I thought that to be the most basic feature on any phone. Single handed operation is time consuming in touch screens and to make &recei ve calls a basic Nokia is clear winner. I was able to make calls riding my bike and with android I just cant do that yet. Suddenly my inclination to blog reduced and my tweet count increased. I was getting news much faster and was being interrupted more frequently. GPS is too good to be true and helped me getting around Chennai during my visits. Four square started showing places around and my pockets started getting lighter. I never knew taco bells was opposite to my office nor knew sky walk was the the nearest mall to my room at Chennai. Now my phone keeps count of the amount of calories I burn and even annoys me to finish the to do list. Expenses are being documented but in no way helping in reducing the expenditure. I had enough battery charge to do all the other stuff but most of the times battery was low when I wanted to make calls.

Instead of being a productive tool it will be more of a procrastination tool. Hence I have made a list of few things you need to do if you buy a smart phone.

1. Get yourself a dummy email account to activate the handset. It defeats the purpose of smart phone but I'm sure you can check your personal mails on HTML browser when required
2. Switch off the Wifi and internet connection, it really does not matter if you don't get updated every few seconds.
3. Facebook is a clear no no, don't you dare think of installing the app. It takes away most of your time. It does not matter who poked you or tagged you on FB.
4. Twitter is good, use it only when necessary
5. News papers are not there yet, I prefer hard copies over internet version.

Perception

Back in 90's when I used to see male & female sculptures on temple walls or idols of women goddess, i felt they were cool and very artistic. Now I don't find them attractive enough. Well our perception of how a human body looks like is constantly changing. It might be due to ads portraying people with 6 pack or woman with just the right proportion which is far from truth. As a result there is an increased pressure for people to look good and at the same time I see people having confused with the concept of looking healthy and looking good. I feel a good doze of exercise that can help you run a 2 km stretch without gasping for breath is all that is required for a person to look attractive. It really does not make any sense if you have six pack and unable to climb a set a 10 story stairs.

I wonder how small kids will cope with looking good peer pressure as every one of them wants be like a Barbie doll. Here's a link on how Barbie dolls of 90's and 00's look like & how unrealistic there body proportions are.