Smartphones

I find myself wondering, exactly what is a smartphone?
Will your smartphone do your taxes? Will it shine your shoes? Will it drive you around to the hardware and gun stores? If'n it can't do these things then how smart is it?
Still, maybe it just knows WHO to call?
Or does it seem to be smart because we are getting so stupid?

---Mines got a tax app, a lowes app, a home depot app, a cabelas app,  my wife already drives me around, and I don't shine my shoes!

So, Al..your smartphone spends money for you?
Mike

If we had to go back to land lines and party lines like in the old days? When I was a kid we had an eight party line with the possibility of four on at one time. We kids would all get on the phone at a set time and "Chat" until our parents kicked us off. Chris

Home Depot.... Ebay...... Gunbroker.... Yea, it spends some money for me now and then. My wife lost hers, but whoever found it doesn't run up the bill like she did, so I let them keep it.

I am still waiting for someone to invent a mobile phone that won't dump calls like a hot potato every time I pass by a tree.
My favorite thing about all these apps is that they become a path to compromise personal information. When do we get privy to all the secret crap pulled by the corpgov? After all, isn't turn about fair play?
Chris, the ol party line was sometimes a source for gossip, sometimes for information, sometimes for fun, but mostly for business of various kinds.  I think if folks had to use this today, they would be in serious withdrawal from all their electronic doodads! I have family members that are so connected to their devices that they might as well have them grafted to their fingers.

#when I was at my work, someone was always asking me if I got their text msg. I'd reply "no, my phone only lets me speak with someone, if I need to write them a letter- that's what I'll do."

I have yet to see a text message that needed to be sent. It's as bad as all the FWD FWD FWD Jesus messages that women send back and forth by email. As if they are the arbiters of things that everybody has to know.
Bah. Humbug.

I see my daughter and grand kids always texting someone or another. I tell them that if I have time to text, I have time to call. They roll their eyes and go back to texting. 

...to let die.
 
I still like the old heavy hard rubber landline dialers,  the ones you could break out of jail with. The only improvement I recognize in this whole matter is caller ID. Do I wanna stop "Gunsmoke" to answer a call from a telemarketer?   Nah.......

As near as I can tell the benefits of having a phone to get you out of trouble etc. are far outweighed by the "phony" industry and rip off that cell phones have spawned. That's a harsh statement but those of you old enough to remember can attest to what life was like before we all had twenty phones and $500.00 phone plans! Chris S

I'm surprised that there are not more people with lumps on their foreheads. Everybody I see is walking around like a zombie, staring at their phones. I would think they would constantly be walking into light poles and such. Must be scary to be so insecure as to worry that you would disappear if the world didn't know where you were every second. It's worse than the CB radio craze of the 70's.
Mike

A couple years before I retired,  I had a new, young phone receptionist who stopped me in the front office one day, frantic because the office phone mail system had gone down.  She asked "What do I do if people call and I can't get them through to you guys or your phone mail?" I said "Do you have a pencil?" "Yes." "Do you have a piece of paper?" "Yes."  "Well, take the pencil and write on the piece of paper who called and the phone number,  and any message the person wants to leave,  then put the message in the employee's mail slot."  She immediately brightened up and buckled right in to her new task.
 
Remember car ads like this one: "See the USA in your Chevrolet"...? Families enjoying leisurely drives together.  Usually now you don't even see the people,  just the cars screaming through mountain passes, or the SUVs blowing up dust at Mach 0.5. Plug in, get it now, get it fast, don't think, don't stop. Like a ship with a full head of sail and no cargo.

the great thing about smartphones is the camera that's always available.  Having a camera on you at all times wards off such things as UFO's, Sasquatches, Nessies, Werewolves and zombies.  None of those will come near a camera....
I have the bible on my phone, but no excuse to not read it.  My daughter can text me the photo of the snake she just caught on top of Roan Mountain in East Tennessee while she still has it in her hand.  I can send a photo of the gun I'm trying to trade or a photo of the broken part I'm trying to replace, close up with even the stamped numbers on it.....I can even go online and read sixguns while I'm in the, uh, "reading room" at work.... 

Living Dogpatch, Mississippi for the past 11 years, I have realized that the comic strip Boondocks is not funny; it's a documentary (as is the movie Deliverance). The author of Boondocks once had the older brother explain to his radical young brother that the cell phone was invented by whitey to re-enslave black people. Anybody with eyes can see that it must be true.

I think they were invented by Big Brother so he (whoever HE is) can find us without a compass. Chris S

The OFF button
And to prevent Big sis from tracking you, I suggest taking out the memory card, the battery, and the smart chip, wrapping it all up with tinfoil, and then just to be sure put the whole mess in the microwave. Yep, about 30 seconds aughta do it...
 

In my hands, it's a "dumbphone".. 

I could talk to customers and show them bullets on my phone while in my boat or at the range and I'm not 400 pounds but do go to wally world for loading supplies. My problem with the smart phone is it's smarter than I.

I use to use my phone to order bullets from Dry Creek until that guy retired...