I am anti-smart phone. I think that by and large they are not used in productive ways, and most people just dick around and waste time on them. Very anti-mustachian. I acknowledge they have some uses, especially the GPS. Also, I imagine they are more useful if you live in a city (I do not). There are some apps that people use to keep track of stuff, etc... yea yea. But for the most part, I think most people just dick around on them. My friends at work who defend them talk about how it puts so much information at our finger tips; they then proceed to look up the answers to questions that pop up during our conversation. Big. Fucking. Deal. I still thing the edge this gives them is small at best. I don't think smart phones are game changers like the advent of the PC was, or the internet, or wikipedia. Those things REALLY brought people more access to information. I do not think smart phones are significantly contributing to quality of life, and more to the point, they are generally much less effect as a phone as the flip-phone (which is an excellent phone design).
That said, I'm a big of a dichotomy because I'm also a futurist. I strongly support technology that has great purpose for the greater good, the advancement of technology, or making the magic of the future hear sooner. I spend very little time or money thinking about or acquiring gadgets. Thus, I ask: what gadget's do you find extremely useful/practical in your life, or do something so truly amazing that it is worth noting. So, please suggest away. Since I pay little attention to tech and gadgets, I am interested in learning from the people here that generally seem very tech-savy but in theory are practical (since they aspire to FIRE).
I've got all kinds of smartphone/cellphone hate.
Smartphone: Time was, there was a benefit to knowing stuff! You were at the bar, having an argument, and your Socratic skills and superior memory gave you all kinds of bragging rights over people who were
looking you in the eye! Now everytime a decent debate starts up some jackass mumbles the wikipedia answer from his phone without ever taking his eyes off of candy crush.
Cellphone: It's gone from "being nice to adjust plans" to "lets not plan at all and just expect everyone to be able to drop everything for what I need right now." Everything after being able to summon an ambulance from the middle of nowhere was not progress.
Email on the phone: Without this, I probably wouldn't have ever found FIRE. I haven't had a true day off since I got my first blackberry. I was one of the last people at my firm to get one, I resisted it until it was have it or find a new job.
This technology has enabled people who lack the discipline to accomplish their tasks in a timely fashion to annoy those of us without this handicap.
95% of the true need for this technology was met with a pager. You are urgently needed at work/home, report in. The casualness with which people expect you to be available for work all day every day is mind-blowing.
It's a very high price to pay, but everyone was willing to pay it, so here we are.
From a mustachian standpoint, the absolute cheapest phone service available today is a low cost prepaid cell phone, and having a smartphone instead of a cell phone is a minimal cost difference so yea, digital camera for pictures of the family. I don't play games on my phone, because I really like to play games and it's the worst possible way to play a game. I don't do email on the phone, but it lets me know I have email so I can get to a terminal and check it.
I don't text on the phone, so my dating life has come to an abrupt end. My stubborness on that point probably isn't doing me any favors. I need an app that will auto-respond to a text from a SO.
There's a couple of apps for first responders that are just really neat. Lets them coordinate responses way better, particularly volunteer organizations who have no idea who is available at a given time. The state of the art now with technology is probably saving a couple hundred extra lives a day, just in faster first response.
See used to, if your house was on fire in a volunteer area, the service sent out a page. Then the firefighters available booked it to the station. Once enough were at the station to roll a truck, they would radio in that they were en route.
But they didn't know if enough were coming.
And dispatch had no idea if any were coming.
And so you'd wait.
And wait.
And then at some point dispatch would make the call, and tone it out to a mutual aid department next town over.
And wait.
And wait.
And people did die because of this, and property was lost.
It's better now. Within about 30 seconds of toning it out you know if enough people are available at the closest station, or if you need to involve other stations. Each person going just taps their phone "on the way" and then hits an ETA, so the IC knows what resources and when.
Likewise the responders with lots of availability can see that others are taking care of it, so there's less burn-out. Instead of going to every single call, they just go when nobody else is available.