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My smartphone has allowed me to be free of Annie at last! By Ronald Ayers Ever since I bought one of those pay as you go cell phones back in the nineties, I’ve always felt that my wife Annie has had me on an electronic lease. She’s insisted that I have my cell phone with me where ever I go, so she can get in touch with me whenever she wants. Annie calls me when I’m in the strip club having beer and a couple of peeps with the boys. She calls me when I’m shooting dice in the alley and she calls me every Friday when I get paid to make sure I meet her at the bank to cash my check before I go to the strip joint. With my old cellphone I never had any freedom. Now, that’s all changed. I bought myself one of those slick smartphones last week, and it’s brilliant! It has what they call an “app”. The app the phone off whenever Annie calls. My smartphone has allowed me to be free of Annie at last! For all you technically challenged folks out there, a smartphone lets you make phone calls, but also adds features that in the past, you would have found on a personal digital assistant (PDA). While I chose my smartphone from Aegis Cellular because it had the wife blocking app, if you’re in the market for a smartphone you should carefully decide on what features you want in your cellphone. First, you should consider the carrier. Unless you’re buying and IPhone or Galaxy, your carrier will determine your phone choice. For some of you, switching carriers is not an option. Here in the U.S., our wireless carriers rule everything. AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon are the major networks. Some smaller regional carriers and MVNOs (networks that piggyback on one of the majors) like Boost, Ting, Metro, US Cellular, and Cricket exist, but hold very small market shares. Generally their phone choices aren’t the best either. Realize that every carrier has a different set of phones for sale and its nearly impossible to buy a phone on one carrier and take it to another. Next, you should list the qualities that are important to you in a phone. For me blocking incoming calls from my wife was the charm. Forget about all the smartphones out there for a minute and think about what you want to accomplish. Next, figure out what tasks you will be doing the most. Even smartphones are limited in the amount of technology they can hold. The next thing you’ll want to do is choose an operating system. There are four main smartphone choices today: Android, Blackberry, iOS and Windows phone. * Android: Developed by Google, this is an open source operating system that runs on the majority of new phones. Android has a great apps store called Google Play filled with Google services. Visually it’s like the iOS, but adds customizable home screens and widgets which show things like the weather. * Blackberry: If you’re hooked on BBM or love physical keyboards and small screens, Blackberry is for you. The OS is made by Canadian company Research in Motion and helped kick off the smartphone revolution years ago, but has had difficulty keep up lately. * iOS The iPhone is the only phone that runs iOS and Apple plans to keep it that way. The iPhone kicked off the app revolution and in its fifth year, it is still the standard by which all other smartphones are measured. If you own other Apple devices or enjoy services like iTunes, the Iphone maybe a good option. It doesn’t allow as much geeky tinkering as Android does, but it has a clean, simple design. * Windows Phone: After the failure of Windows Mobile, Microsoft started from scratch and built Windows phone, which is based almost entirely on the Zune MP3 player interface. Windows phone is the only OS to employ a new type of interface. Instead of relying on a grid of shortcuts and notification tray, Windows Phone uses Live Tiles, which are half app icon, half widget. Everything on your homepage can display moving information or graphics. Finally, figure out how much you can spend, not only for the smart phone, but for the monthly service charges as well. Set up can be expensive, even with new contract discounts, starting about $200 for the phone alone. Expect to pay anywhere from $20 to $50 more for additional service features. I returned to Aegis Cellphones yesterday. I purchased the ultimate app for my smartphone. At the push of a button my phone sends a signal out over the internet to my job’s time clock. My personal slave app, punches my time clock while I stay home for a few extra winks. I love my smartphone. It frees me from my wife. It frees me from my job. Ain’t technology grand? -30- Ronald Ayers owns and operates Aegis Hosting Service: http://aegisbiz.net Aegis Hosting Service is Americas reliable and affordable web hosting company. Aegis provides shared hosting services, domain registration services, and web page creation for smartphones and mobile devices.
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