I’m pretty well-known among my friends and peers to be a gadget geek. But over the last 5 years or so, my gadget-acquisition pace has crawled to a near standstill. Most of the electronic hardware gadgets I’ve been using lately are actually pretty ancient:
- Mobile Phone: 2002
- iPod (3G): 2003
- Canon PowerShot Digital Camera: 2003
- Alienware Desktop PC at Work: 2002
- HP Desktop PC at Home: 2002
- Sony PictureBook Subnotebook PC: 1999
Even my Sony headphones go back to at least 1997, and the racing bike I ride today uses the same steel Olmo frame I’ve owned since 1988 when I was in high school.
People often develop an almost emotional attachment to their everyday hardware. Sometimes people even cry when they have to finally give up on a device they love. But in my case it was simply inertia. I didn’t have the time or inclination to upgrade or replace anything.
Until now. Yes, these (admittedly crappy) photos were taken with my new iPhone. I can now strike numbers 1 and 2 from the above list, and to a large extent number 3 and number 6, too. Quoting AG, the iPhone is, like the iPod, a “gateway drug”. It is the last straw, and it has now driven me to replace everything else in that list with Apple products.
It’s finally happened.
Comments
10 responses to “My Aging Fleet”
Holy Mole!
The iPhone is that good?! Yikes!
The reason why your previous tech was ancient was because it was good enough. Like for me, once we got fast 32-bit graphics cards “by default” I stopped following the technology entirely.
But I think this is why Apple is so interested in launching the iPhone — it’s a brand-new computing platform, one that bring us back to demands for more space, faster connections, better screens, significantly better processors, etc. etc…. Something that’s been slowing down to a halt in consumer computing lately.
chris,
it’s okay to say that my magical mac skills were the inspiration…
well for me the barrier to getting new stuff is the cost:( well the next gadget im getting would be perhaps a newer not-so-battered phone.
Chris…ebay…chris…ebay…chris…ebay…
@davewu: You and a hundred other people I should have listened to long ago.
@henry: Well, I *did* wait four or five years, and I *am* replacing multiple devices with single devices. Low-end Macs aren’t that expensive anymore, either. Get a Mac Mini!
@Nam: I’m thinking that the PocketPC Phone will become an art installation thing. It plays videos, after all, and can access the internet, runs Flash, etc.
Yes, but are you really just running Windows on that new iron? Just kidding. Welcome to the neighborhood!
With regards to the Olmo, “steel is real.” =) I used to race a 2003 Specialized Allez Cr-Mo, and I still have it along with a new 2006 Bianchi 928 L’Una carbon. If it works, it works – old school or not.
With regards to all your other gadgets, it’s an expensive task to keep up to date with the latest and greatest, so think of it as saving money for the tech-geek goodies that really count. Like your iPhone.
I own a Canon PowerShot exactly like the one in the article and the iPhone is in no way a replacement. The Canon’s optics are so far superior it isn’t even fair to compare them.
My brother’s iPhone makes the same grainy pictures as shown here and is nothing more than a convenience when a real camera is not available.
The camera in the Nokia N-95 on the other hand? I don’t know for sure, but it has 5 megapixels, autofocus (not fixed), Zeis optics and a real flash.
@Michael: My brother’s iPhone makes the same grainy pictures as shown here and is nothing more than a convenience when a real camera is not available.
Completely agree. The thing is that I actually have my Canon PowerShot camera on my person about 1 out of every 100 times I actually want to take a photograph. So it’s not so much a replacement as it is a way of introducing photography into my life in a profound new way (I’ve never had a cameraphone before) that just isn’t possible with a separate digital camera.
Real photos, however, deserve a real camera, as you say.