Smartphones are now normal and for everyone, which means we can ignore the hoopla around new models.
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It’s that time of year when companies including Apple and Samsung try to get us VERY EXCITED about their new smartphone models. I give you permission to tune them out entirely.
Some people get a thrill from the latest phone camera improvements and remodeled designs. It’s fun! Or maybe you have been waiting eagerly to ditch your busted old phone. In either case, go forth and fawn.
But a lot of hoopla around new smartphones is an anachronism of the years when the devices were precious pieces of magic pitched hardest at tech enthusiasts. They’re not anymore. Smartphones are normal and for everyone. And that makes it natural for them to become less noteworthy.
It’s a sign of how miraculous smartphones are that we don’t have to think about them very much. Like other consumer products including cars, TVs and refrigerators, most people in relatively affluent countries buy a new smartphone when an old one wears out or they want a change.
Largely because of this healthy evolution from novel to normal, new smartphone sales had been declining for several years, although they’re climbing this year.
Somehow it feels like there’s more pressure on us to have opinions and feelings about our phones than about our refrigerators. (Although I will not argue if you want to hug your fridge. Do it now. I’ll wait.) I know that cars in particular can be emotionally resonant. But for many of us, getting a new phone, car, TV or fridge is neat for a little while and then we get used to it and it feels fine. That is fine.
That said, we should be glad that smartphone makers keep improving their devices in small and large ways. It has been good that personal computers — which like smartphones shifted to less noteworthy essentials from novelties — took the opportunity to reimagine what else people might want from computers.
We got clever new products like Chromebooks, the bare-bones laptops that took off in many U.S. schools because they were relatively inexpensive and easy for educators to customize for students. We also got more variety in computers that combine elements of tablets, souped-up PCs for people who love video games and computers with the zippy brains of smartphones. When computers became too normal for people to care very much, it sparked invention.
It’s possible that the same thing may happen in the not-magical phase of smartphones. I am cautiously curious about smartphones that fold or unfurl to offer more screen real estate in a relatively small package. So far, folding smartphones — Samsung showed off its latest models on Wednesday — have been mostly expensive and awful. I still think there’s a promising idea in there. (Or, maybe not.)
Smartphones also remain a test bed for useful inventions, particularly for photography and for software features such as voice recognition.
So hooray for the smartphone companies that keep perfecting their products. That doesn’t mean that we need to care a jot about Google’s odd looking new Pixel phones — they really do look weird, though — or Apple’s coming iPhone … 13? 12S? Whatever.
The latest phones will be lighter, faster, better and maybe more expensive than the old ones. The cool new features will be there when you’re ready. You don’t have to care until then.
Tip of the Week
Don’t give up if a tech company won’t fix your phone
Not ready yet for a new smartphone? Brian X. Chen, a consumer tech columnist for The New York Times, has a tale of dogged determination to keep an old device alive and kicking:
A few weeks ago, a reader named Marianne sent me this email:
Last year I tried to get a new battery for my Samsung Galaxy S7 phone. I took it to Verizon, where I had purchased it. They told me they couldn’t open the phone to replace the battery and suggested I take it to a repair shop. I called Samsung, and it took so many tries to actually speak to a human.
The person I finally spoke to said I would have to send $75 for Samsung to even agree to look at the phone, and if they could install a battery, they’d contact me. I authorized my credit card for $75 and waited for the required mail authorization only to receive an email the following day saying Samsung wanted to cancel the entire transaction. At that point, I gave up. I would be perfectly happy with my S7 if it could hold a charge.
I responded to Marianne, encouraging her to try again — but this time, contact a few local independent repair shops to ask if they could do the job. Days later, she replied that she had found someone and her phone was restored to its former glory!
The moral of the story: Don’t give up if a brand like Apple or Samsung says it can’t help you fix a phone. There is an industry of independent fixers whose business is to keep your phone running, not sell you a new one.
More often than not, the indie technicians are capable of doing repairs that the manufacturers are not willing to do, like replacing a defective charging port on an iPhone. Do a web search on Yelp or Google and call around to find a good, honest fixer.
Stories like Marianne’s highlight the importance of the right to repair movement, which I wrote about in a recent column. In general, manufacturers have been making it increasingly difficult for independent fixers to gain access to the tools, parts and instructions to fix your electronics. The Federal Trade Commission last month voted to ramp up law enforcement against illegal restrictions on repairs, so hopefully people will continue to have positive experiences with indie fixers like Marianne did.
Before we go …
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Changing a toxic culture is difficult: A rape allegation against a manager at the Chinese e-commerce giant Alibaba shows again the ingrained problems of sexual harassment and violence in the country’s technology industry, my colleague Li Yuan writes. Alibaba has said it fired the employee accused of rape.
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If you’re not highly visible in Google searches, do you even exist? Small local companies that deliver food for restaurants told Fast Company that they’re getting squeezed out by big delivery apps such as DoorDash and Uber Eats. They say that part of the problem is Google search results that point people hunting for food delivery to the big apps, and Google doesn’t have the manpower to add links to many of the smaller companies.
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Chinese Bitcoin companies in the Lone Star state: Rest of World talked to local authorities and power companies in Texas that were scrambling to generate enough affordable electricity for cryptocurrency “mining” companies fleeing a crackdown on the practice in China. (Creating virtual money needs a lot of real electricity.)
Hugs to this
Here are 23 seconds of a rabbit lapping water.
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