Posts Tagged With: Verizon

Once You Go Mac, You Never Go Back

I'm home for Spring Break and working on my PC at home... I keep reaching for the command-space tab to bring up Quicksilver and keep looking to change the volume in the keyboard. As my new, terrible Verizon RAZR and Apple prove, the best features of a phone aren't the camera, or the video text messages, or the new technology. They're the ease of use and the free, simple stuff that makes using a product easy and intuitive.

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Verizon Phones Are Terrible

Well, the phones aren't terrible, but the software that comes with them is. I recently broke my two year old Samsung phone, which I was urged to replace but chose not to because it was so easy to use. I was disappointed by the software on new Verizon phones. First off, there is only one software running on every phone - unlike choice of plans or physical products, the user has no options when it comes to the interface. The interface is bereft of opportunities for customization, and a lot of the shortcuts on the phone point straight to opportunities to buy expensive games or ringtones from Verizon. It takes about ten button presses to change the text message alert status, and the display letters are small enough that you have to squint to read them. You can't set the alarm clock as one of the main shortcut buttons either. Verizon has emphasis in the wrong places - all of their phone 'capability' is based on whether the phone has a camera, or whether you can buy games, or send emails. I want to know how easy it is to do stuff with it. Anyways, I might be switching to Sprint. Verizon has had excellent coverage, I'll give them that, but I don't like the software on their phones, and that software is something I'm gonna have to navigate every time I try to do something with the phone. I'm amazed that no one's designed alternative software for phones - the Mac or Linux equivalent. It seems to me there would be a market for good software - software that does T9 Word better, or has easier access to the things you can do.

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