Mobile Itchy Chin Syndrome!
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Mobile Phones on
The British Association of Dermatologists reckons that people who spend a long time chatting on their mobile phones are getting rashes on the faces, and on their ears. Oh, and even also even on their fingers for the heavy texting brigade.
Apparently, some 30 percent of the UK population have some degree of allergic reaction to nickel. This is most obvious amongst women who often develop jewellery based rashes as a result. However, now it seems that mobile phone handsets which contain nickel are also giving certain users the itchy chin syndrome.
The nickel content of a mobile handset can be found in the casing, and on the buttons, and the more fashionable the model the higher the chance of getting a swift dose of mobile phone dermatitis. The ‘free nickel’ content is most commonly found in such areas as decorative logos, LCD frames and menu buttons.
The skin doctors reckon anyone suffering from earhole scratch should get advice from their doctor.
I reckon they should start using a handsfree kit.
Still, it could make for some interesting pranking next time you are near a Carphone Warehouse. I can just see the look on the sales droids face when the customer asks if they can hold the phone against their face all day to check for an allergic reaction.
Rated: 46.67% (3 votes)
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Jesus Phone does not perform miracles
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Blog, Mobile Phones, Apple on
Although the iPhone 3G battery, according to many bloggers, lasts for around 5 hours absolute max before shrugging its shoulders and departing this world. So the question is, how long can you talk to your Jesus Phone before it dies on you?
The old iPhone wasn’t too bad when it came to battery life, I mean most of us can get by on 8 hours or so. The situation is starting to look very different for the iPhone 3G, with its greater demands on power it looks like 5 hours is the most you can get. Now I don’t know about you, but I rather like to make it through a working day without having to recharge a mobile device.
Otherwise it becomes rather less than mobile in my book.
The problem, of course, comes down to what you expect of your iPhone. The trouble being that if you have been romanced by those Apple adverts that promise all the Internet you can eat, and all of it right this second, then you’ll be expecting too much.
The 3G data access, the GPS location stuff, the full colour games play, it is all too much.
Whereas a typical smartphone gets plenty of use out of its additional functionality when compared to a typical dumb-mobile for want of a better description, the iPhone 3G ups the stakes once more it would seem. People are treating it like a mobile games console, a portable satnav and a mini-laptop, all the time, all at once.
And then wondering why the battery gets buggered so quickly?
Jeez, it might be known as the Jesus Phone but it cannot perform miracles.
It has been suggested that multi-core processors are the way forward for Apple, providing the power when needed and being able to save it when not doing much other than making phone calls (remember them?). However, I think the solution is much simpler: educate iPhone 3G users so that they start to appreciate that if you want everything all of the time then there has to be a cost. As far as the iPhone 3G is concerned, that cost is battery life, so get over it already.
Just out of interest though, what is the longest you have got out of your Jesus Phone under heavy usage? Can anyone beat the 5 hours max, or maybe set a new record for the shortest battery life?
Rated: 86.67% (3 votes)
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Putting an end to mob rule
By Davey Winder in Editorial
Posted in Mobile Phones on
If you walk down any high street, sit on any train or watch the kids in the school playground there will be one uniting factor: the mobile phone. It seems that pretty much everywhere you go someone is using their mobile. My particular bug bear has to be the cinema, where some chav will think that turning the handset into silent mode is sufficient and then continue to annoy by producing a constant clicking throughout the movie as they tap text messages to their Burberry wearing mates.
New research suggests that it does not just feel like the UK is drowning in mobile phone technology, we actually are. First Direct has published a report looking at cellular consumption and which reveals that there are now more mobile phone handsets in use in the UK than there are adults in the population. Yes, you read that right.
According to First Direct there are some 71 million handsets in the UK, and just 45 million adults. Interestingly there are only 70 million SIM cards so a million of us either swap out between different handsets, one has to assume in the name of fashion, or there is a new chav craze brewing for mobiles as jewellery just like that old Beastie Boys VW badge thing of old. Actually, it is even more bizarre than that, because the report also suggests that 9 percent of us have more than four different active mobile phone numbers.
The suggestion is that people are increasingly opting for a phone for work, a phone for home, a phone for friends and a phone for email. How absurd is that? Wasn’t the dawn of the smartphone meant to reduce handset clutter, not increase it? So what went wrong?
Guilty admission time here. I have two mobiles, with different numbers. One is a hefty smartphone (T-Mobile MDA Vario II) which is primarily my business handset - used to keep track of my email on the move, and via the web browser and excellent keyboard blogging as well. This number is on my business cards, this handset does not get answered when I decide my work is done for the day. My other is a rather old Motorola V3 Razr, one of the original black ones, which is ‘just a phone’ for friends and family. It remains on all the time, always gets picked up and does not leave a vaguely sexual bulge in my trousers when I pocket it.
There was a time when this would not have been necessary, and that time was only a matter of a year or two back. But something has happened since then, somehow people seem to think it is OK to ring my mobile at any time of the day or not with some work related matter. “Hello Davey, sorry for calling at 9pm on a Sunday but I didn’t have any luck in reaching you on Friday at 2pm” That is just not acceptable, nor is the notion that no matter where I am I will drop everything and deal with whatever the person on the other end of the line, no doubt sitting in an office, wants me to. Mobiles phones have slowly ruined my life, and I am fighting back.
I have always been somewhat phonophobic anyway, which is why I took to email so effectively nearly 20 years ago. My office phone remains on screen, if people leave a message I tend to pick up if necessary or email them back if not. My mobile work phone is the same, I screen actively screen it and rarely pick up if the call comes through as an unknown caller (I do fall victim to my own curiosity sometimes, and on other occasions pick up as I am expecting a call from someone else) and withheld for some reason. In fact my business mobile phone could has become a small computer, I use it primarily as a web enabled device. I access my email, I check my blogs, I do my research. On the phone side of things, I text a lot as well. But I rarely talk on the thing.
When it comes to my personal handset it is the other way around, I talk a lot, text a bit but never use the Internet functionality. So perhaps there is a need for everyone to carry two mobiles after all, either that or one mobile phone and one mobile Internet device instead. Seeing as my business contract is about to expire, that’s exactly what I am going to do. So now to look for a decent mobile device with texting, web and email but no phone - all in a pocket-sized package.
Does such a beast exist?
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