[SATLUG] [OT] Cell phone rant / open source idea

[Sean Carolan]

On 7/17/07, twistedpickles <twistedpickles at gmail.com> wrote:
>
> My offtopic is a bit more off topic non the less still a (mini) rant. When
> it comes to cellphones rants mine would be ATT&T / CrAPPLE not allowing
> iphones on Corporate accounts. I currently have a window$ based mobile
> handset that's temperamental at times. I was hoping to switch over. I use to
> have a linux PDA that was almost the best PDA I ever owned if it wasn't for
> the poor reception.


Let me preface this by stating that I'm not an OS zealot, and generally will
choose the tool that's best for the job.  With this in mind I wanted a
wifi-enabled phone and found there were very few choices available.

In the end I settled on the Cingular 8125, a Windows "smartphone" that I
used for about 3 months.  The UI is one of the most poorly designed, buggy
systems that I have ever used.  Even a simple task such as dialing a phone
number or closing an application required pulling out the stylus, and the
touchscreen would get out of sync every other day or so. At least 3 times a
week the phone would completely lock up and require a reboot, just like the
desktop OS does.

I finally traded it in for a Blackberry Pearl and am MUCH happier with the
ease of use and functionality.  I will never buy a Windows-based phone
again.   Palm, Apple, and Blackberry all have better GUIs on their portable
devices.  The Microsoft offering feels like a hacked up version of their
desktop OS.  Who wants to click on a tiny start menu just to an application
or file to open?