All the big guns want an iPhone killer. Even I, mad for all things Apple as I am, want an iPhone killer. I want smart digital devices to be as good as mankind’s ingenuity can make them. I want us eternally to strive to improve and surprise. Bring on the iPhone killers. Bring them on.
YOU might, somewhere along the way, have picked up the impression that I am a passionate Mac advocate: I bought my first 128K machine in 1984, the second Macintosh to be sold in the UK – at least so I’ve always maintained and believed (the first went to the still desperately missed Douglas Adams) and I have never had fewer than ten working Macs on the go since the late 80s. It is true that I value both the platform and the hardware, that I admire the imagination, flair, elegance, quality and pioneering spirit of the Apple corporation. All quite true.
HOWEVER……..
I have, over the past twenty years been passionately addicted to all manner of digital devices, Mac-friendly or not; I have gorged myself on electronic gismos, computer accessories, toys, gadgets and what-have-yous of all descriptions, but most especially what are now known as SmartPhones. PDAs, Wireless PIMs, call them what you will. My motto is:
I have never seen a SmartPhone I haven’t bought
After all, the Mac itself was founded on a notional smart device, the Dynabook, fruit of the many brains of the legendary Xerox Palo Alto Research Centre (PARC). The Dynabook concept gave us the WIMP user interface, (Windows, Icons, Mice, Pull down menus) and thence the Apple Lisa and its successor, the Macintosh. The Dynabook was a posited form, a notional device that would deliver information to its user with the greatest ease and intuitive functionality. As a result of this mission statement, the command code line found in all standard computing of the time was made to yield to a Graphical User Interface (GUI). Apple took up the call (poached some PARC staff) and produced the Mac OS; IBM and latterly MS took years and years to get the message. But that is how the GUI was born, out of a quest for a better relationship between man and machine, individual and digital device.
Whether you talked into it, stroked it, operated a stylus or pointing device the essence of the Dynabook was not that it might actually be built (technology in the 1970s couldn’t begin to provide such an object, nor indeed can it now) but to predicate a useful Platonic Ideal. The Device. The Chosen One. One Electronic Object To Rule Them All. Like any Platonic ideal, it cannot ever exist: to postulate its existence is enough to set clever people on the right path to creating remarkable technologies that contribute to the digital world and our interactions with it. It is in this sense the computer designer’s Holy Grail – the adventures, romances and interior quests along the way are what counts – the Grail itself will always be out of reach. We are getting closer however. A single handheld device that can summon up a vast repository of human knowledge, communicate with anyone, tell you to within five meters where on the planet you are, take and show photographs, record and play music, send and receive vox or data communications; a device you can speak into and that can speak to you, a device that you can manipulate without fiddly controls or technical knowledge, a juke-box, a cinema, a radio, a library, a community centre, a parish pump, the school gates and the city university. Not considered to be computers, although computers is most assuredly what they are, these devices are for the moment designated SmartPhones, and it is on them that I wish to discourse and expatiate in an entirely disinterested (if you think I mean uninterested, think again and look up the difference) and mostly non-technical way.
Of course, this essay, if it can be described as such, is a response to the rise and rise of the SmartPhone, as most publicly trumpeted a few weeks ago with the arrival of Apple’s iPhone. I am not here to laud or review that device however, it has had enough publicity and I really want you to believe that, Apple addict as I am, my eyes have always been open to the virtues of anything good, exciting, functional, elegant, pleasing to use. In fact the real precipitating reason for writing this is the fact that within three weeks I have bought/been sent, aside from my iPhone (which, yes, I dearly love), three soi-disant ‘iPhone killers’ – the HTC Touch, the Nokia E90 and the Sony Ericsson P1i. While I don’t intend fully to review, road-test or benchmark each device (as if I could, anyway), I do want to share my thoughts about where these devices appear to be going. (I’m not even going to mention outside these parentheses the LG Prada phone, that’s an iPhone beater in the same way Tim Henman is a Federer beater).
[...] first post is an (exhaustively) comprehensive review of the iPhone and its competitors, and his second post is on the nature of fame. They are long, which is why he calls them blessays [...]
I love what you have written and what people are writing here as comments (some of them at least!). I love the “you” and “me” banter – reminded me of P G Wodehouse’s introductions to his Jeeves books!
Hey Mike….(27th September) Liked your speech about your dog….Is it an Irish wolfhound perhaps???? We had one up until a month ago when we lost him to Osteosarcoma.We miss him dreadfully. Sorry for the digression.
Thanks for your blessay (ouch!) on PDAs/phones etc. I remember the Newton with more fondness than you should have for a brick.
I was moved to do a doodle about you and your smart phones…
http://www.everythingability.com/django/picasa/drawings/mobile.jpg
From: http://www.everythingability.com/django/picasa/all/
Mr. Fry, I wonder if you have tried any of the “e-books” and other electronic readers on the market. I presume you have. I have not yet found one which I am happy with as a substitute for a book. Reading is such a sensual pleasure (feel of paper, binding, smell of ink, glue,
look of typeface, jacket) that I find it hard to convert from an article I clutch to my bosom with passion and comfort to one I recharge from time to time. Your thoughts?
I think the correct term is “Harro-gits”
[...] Device and Desires [...]
hello, this is nothing about mobile phones or gadgets im afraid, all i have is an old razr which is good for what i use it for games and texts lol
id love to say how wonderful i think stephen is, i dont mean that in an airy fairy way i mean deeply he is as i mentioned today in my own blog http://caz-lds.blogspot.com
the bravest man in television and i have an imense amount of respect for him. the new program on bbc 2 ” hiv & me” brought me to tears to think after what we know of the virus and the devestating effects it has on the people who live with it and those that care and love tem. that there are still people out there taking awful risks. i really did cry and my heart goes out to all who are touched buy this and manic depression which i know is a subect also close to mr fry’s heart. as my own husband and a dear friend live with this condition.
but on tuesdays program there was a girl who was born with hiv contracted from her mother whoalso carries the virus, she was so brave and was doing what i could only dream of if i was ill with it. education i feel is key to preventing and helping those undestand and not ostrisizing those who suffer with such things as hiv/aids or manic depression. so stephen i aplaude your efforts in helping us see that these things are real and we have to take action and love those who live with these disorders. keep up the good work and i hope your having a wondeful day today. lots of love x caz
[...] by how intensely he follows the to-ing and fro-ing of mobile technology. His newish blog has a lengthy essay (which he calls a blessay) on smartphones, PDAs, etc. I found it hilarious: I have, over the past [...]
[...] Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Device and Desires Possibly the world’s longest blog post. Stephen Fry (yes, that Stephen Fry) discussing at length (and in a thorough, enjoyable manner) the iPhone, and those seeking to ‘kill’ it. (tags: iphone stephen fry blog technology smartphones) [...]
[...] at the first attempt. Now I’ll be forced to add your feed to my “must read” list. Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Device and Desires My husband and his best friend are seriously into cell phone technology, and they constantly [...]
Dear Stephen,
It’s great to see you’re already aware of Ubuntu’s Mobile and Embedded plan. https://wiki.ubuntu.com/MobileAndEmbedded I echo others in suggesting you keep an eye on the OpenMoko spec. and see what hardware comes out of it. http://www.openmoko.org/ The two combined could be quite formidable.
As for your “Qinky”, I think that must have been your pet name for the Quinkey which connected to the BBC B’s analogue (joystick) port rather than the Centronics (Amphenol really) parallel port which was an upgrade IIRC. It was like the Microwriter except it was designed to interface with the Beeb instead of being standalone. Here’s some pictures to set the memory cells alight. http://www.csdm.qc.ca/pec/codes/microwriter.html
I recall you once filmed a bit of Jeeves and Wooster at Computer Concepts’ Gaddesden Place near Hemel Hempstead. Was it their Wordwise+ you used on the Beeb? Fond memories of its 1KiB MODE 7 40×25 Teletext display.
Back to Ubuntu, their 7.10 release is due out soon. I suspect it’s worth taking another look at it and see what you think. Wouldn’t it make a good base for a modern equivalent of the BBC’s old _Micro Live_ programmes with Fred Harris? Why is there nothing explaining the modern computer to interested people at home, e.g. how DNS works. The home user’s confusion is understandable given Microsoft’s buggered up OS. BTW, you could do worse than chew the cud about your opinion of Ubuntu with Mark Shuttleworth, Ubuntu’s founder. He’s based in London a lot of the time and seems to be someone who gets things done. http://www.markshuttleworth.com/ (The code name for the next Ubuntu release, 8.04 (April 2008) is Hardy Heron, an inspired choice given the Hairy Hard-on Spoonerism!)
Regards,
Ralph Corderoy. ralph@inputplus.co.uk
Hi, Stephen! Greetings from another airt of the auctorial blogosphere.
I was a longtime Nokia Communicator user myself, but got tired of dealing with the poor thing’s Achilles heel — the fact that its antenna ran through the hinge, and when pinched by the hinge in just the wrong way, the Communicator was reduced to the status of the world’s smallest typewriter. My husband gave me a Nokia 6600 a couple/few Christmases ago, but I’m now looking with much geeklust at the iPhone and trying to work out whether I really want it or prefer the Pod, as I have something else for PDA functions that is working happily at the moment….
…This being the last of the Sony Clie’s. (I leave the “rogue apostrophe” in place because I can’t find the damn e-with-acute-accent at the moment.) They have all the advantages of the Palm OS, God bless it, in a handsome package with a dark/mirrory cover: but are now hard to find as it seems Sony has stopped marketing them to the West. The Clie’ has both WiFi and Bluetooth, a goodish camera — which is sometimes useful as people don’t always expect a PDA to have one, and therefore may not catch you taking piccies you really shouldn’t be taking for one reason or another. Via third-party Palm OS apps, you can also take video with it. And the NetFront browser it comes with is OK (though I tend to use the one that comes with the AvantGo app more myself). Pictures here and here. (This now gets routinely mistaken by some people, at first glance, as an iPhone.)
Finally, for your possible amusement: a link to a variety of iPod touch that I suspect might appeal to your Inner Geek,. though I’m not sure you could qualify for ownership.
Regards — Diane
(Afterthought — OMG, what a great title “Devices and Desires” would be for a short story collection… Someone’s used it, surely?)
Dear Stephen,
As a fellow devotee of ‘Faffing-About ‘with Palm OS, I thought I’d drop you a line to let you and your adoring fans know about Test Match Cricket for Palm, a cricket game-cum-simulator.
The game lets you captain classic test sides from history against the fiendishly advanced Palm Captain. Or have a go with making up custom teams, say based on your show-biz chums. All endless fun especially on long tedious flights.
Here’s the link: http://www.tmcpalm.blogspot.com/
Anyhoo, loved ‘Moab’ and got a big hoot out of your “Short Circuit” story with the electric fence.
Regards
Alan Simpson
[...] Stephen Fry » Blog Archive » Device and Desires All the big guns want an iPhone killer. Even I, mad for all things Apple as I am, want an iPhone killer. I want smart digital devices to be as good as mankind’s ingenuity can make them. I want us eternally to strive to improve and surprise. Bring on the (tags: apple humour technology funny interesting) [...]
[...] http://www.stephenfry.com/blog/?p=3 Let Fame … How graceless I sound, listing all these negatives. Do forgive me. I completely understand that to be well-known is to be blessed with all kinds of advantages. I completely understand that fame is something that many, if not all, hunt after in their lives… [...]
Dear Stephen,
I’m not terribly technical minded and when it comes to i-macs and computers and gadgets altogether i get abit lost (which is surprising since im a teenager, were all supposed to know how these things work as soon as we hear about them) but i do love the new i-phone! i think its a great little gadget and i also like the i-phone killer aswell. Its taken me awhile to read this blog since it is incredibly long and not the length of blog im used to reading or writing for that fact, but it is full of useful information and it was a great read on a rainy day which is usually is up here in Scotland.
This has nothing to do with the blog you have written, but i would like to take this chance to thank you very much. I may only be 16 but you Mr Fry have been an inspiration to me for the past 4 to 5 years of my life. I adore your comedy sketches with Hugh Laurie and also your book writing but the programme you did discovering Bi-polar disorder really changed my life so i thank you greatly.
I look forward to more wonderful blessays in the near future.
Take care
Lauren x
[...] really like something that doesn’t feel it fits on a mobile phone. Even Stephen Fry agrees with me that Palms rock and Windows [...]
Thanks Stephen (or since I don’t know you, maybe I should say Mr Fry). I’ve just finished the QI book of general ignorance and my wife gave me printouts (prints out?) of your blog to rip into next. A wonderful read and quite made me forget that the reason I have time to do all this reading is that I’m off work with flu.
Like many of your respondents, I agree that if you wrote anything that took us less than 30 minute to read, you would be doing us a great disservice.
Thank you again
Derek
Fucking hell Stephen you dont half go on a bit. buit very interesting. keep it up.
[...] first post has 270 comments, which just goes to show how popular he is. It’s also a cracker of a post about mobile [...]
Design is so important, which is why i have loved Apple since ][, bought the first iPod when everyone thought it was just another MP3 player, not getting the entire seamlessness of it all.
I have a Sony P800 and bought it to programme it in Java and Bluetooth to use my GPS thingy. Bastards at SE had not “finished” the system and chunks of it just did not work. Awful. Nokia S40 has been easier, though – I still have my classic 6610 from 1998, my 6310i from 2002, 6340 and now 6230. I might get a 6500 Classic, but not sure yet.
p.s. nice to see long, in-depth posts on a blog. Shame TV, even the Beeb is becoming all “preview, snippet, review, preview next snippet, ad, review, preview etc etc” with 5 mins of info in every 20. AAARRRGH!
p.p.s. is it me or is QI scaling back on the truly trivial factoids? Maybe the demands to entertain!
Roger Thornhill, Libertarian.
Hi,
I have nominated this site in the “Best New Blog” category of the 2007 Weblog awards
http://2007.weblogawards.org/nominations/best-new-blog.php
Then I thought oops should I have asked first? I am not sure of the netiquette of this.
As you can infer, I quite like the blog *grin*
[...] English actor (and voiceover star!) Stephen Fry has a blog. [...]
Tolstoy eat your heart out!
Silly that Apple would play the iTunes ring-tone game, however, I wanted to point out that a “hack” has been found for that:
http://blog.wired.com/gadgets/2007/09/free-ringtone-w.html
DAMMIT PETER!!
Dear Stephen,
May I say how wonderful and informative I found your website and how enjoyable I found your own blog. It was a pleasue to read. Your recent entry on devices reminded me of a story I heard some time back that I would like to share with you and your readers. It concerns a man walking through the town with two quite heavy plastic bags. A fellow perambeler stopped him to ask if he had the time on his person. “The time”, he said, after raising his left wrist to his eye line “is exactly 16:31 and 17 seconds BST or 17:31 and 19 seconds in Paris, 19:31 and 22 seconds in Moscow and even 11:31 and 25 seconds in New York. I can even tell you that the temperature in London is + 16C, in Bonn it is +18C, in Tokyo it is +24C with a slight north easterly wind, snow is falling in Santiago Chile and there is the begining of a hurricane off the south west area of the Caribbean. ” “That seems to be a wonderful piece of cronomaty that you have there. Are they readily available?”, the enquirer asked. “Yes indeed, said the owner of the fount of all knowledge but the only draw back is the batteries, they are so big I have to carry them around in these two plastic bags”!
I suppose all types of devices and helpful gadgets have a downside but I suppose our lives would be much more tiresome and dreary without them. For me I think the greatest invention was the remote control for the television. What I have saved in carpet I have gained in waist! Ah well as I said these devices have their good and bad side!
Again Stephen thanks for your blog and I know you worry about your fluctuating weight from time to time but to me you are just a lovely fluffy man who has a heart as big as you are. Never change my dear cuddly boy. I wish you as many more “180′s”you can achieve in your field as the tungston throwers do in theirs. Now to the ochey and ‘Game On’.!
Hi Stephen,
I think it’s fantastic that you have started a blog and I look forward to many future posts. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard of Maddox. He’s probably teh opposite of you. He’s crude and objectionable but to me, and many others, he is the Bill Hicks of the internet. He’s on a mission to alienate everyone but, occasionally, deals with political issues, putting forward very funny and unarguable cases for, for example, paying illegal immigrants in the US the same wage as legal workers. Oh, and he thinks that “Bill O’Reilly is a big blubbering vag1na”. Also pretty unarguable, if not pretty.
Anyway, he’s also a bit of a technology geek, so I thought you might like to know that he has also blogged on the iPhone, comparing it to his Nokia E70. And while he may not be as erudite or mellifluous as you, he makes some cogent and very funny points. You may like it, you may hate it, but I thought that I’d should let you know it was out there.
http://www.thebestpageintheuniverse.net/c.cgi?u=iphone
Evening,
I got flustered when you typed inexcusably prolix’ because I thought you were ill. However, I might be thinking of ‘prolapse’. I don’t know what Prolix is, is it a type of cough medicine?
Oh, and what did Fatty Arbuckle do?
I’ve got to go, no, really I do.
Take care, if you can’t take care, take a dose of carbolic a day till it clears up.
EccentRick
Hi Stephen,
I really enjoyed reading your blog post/review on mobile phones. I’m the mobile phones editor at CNET.co.uk and would love to speak to you at some point about your passion for mobiles.
I’m sure you’re very busy but if you could ever find time to do a quick telephone interview, it would be very interesting to hear what you have to say.
Regards,
Andrew Lim
http://www.cnet.co.uk
TEL: 0207 021 1027
christmas stuff…
Check this out…..
Dear merlot50,
“For me I think the greatest invention was the remote control for the television.”
Isn’t it the devil’s spawn? Closely followed by button-press channel changing. Before them, you had to move to the TV and twiddle a dial, and the aerial, until you obtained a sufficiently good tuning of the newly desired programme. With practice, one acquired the adeptness of a safe cracker, but channel hopping was a boring task, little done.
With the increase in speed of channel tuning thanks to push buttons, followed by the carpet-saving remote control, programme makers fear us leaving them at every second. Instead of enjoying a nice theme tune and observing who that guy with the funny nose was in the credits, the voice-over informs us of what’s coming up next on the three other channels, and we’re shown all the highlights of next week’s programme. And after ad breaks, a programme resumes with a three minute summary of the 15 minutes seen so far, just in case we hopped over during the ads and hung around to see what the programme’s like.
Isn’t it time for intelligent programme makers and broadcasters to fight back! Can’t they have written into the broadcast agreement for their programmes that the credits may not be trampled? And don’t patronise the viewer by having 25% of a programme be highlights of what’s after the break followed by a summary of what was before.
They’re all at it. Even _The Archers_ is at it. “After the News it’s the
Archers where Alice drops a bombshell at the birthday party”. The party was only in the last few minutes and the joining-the-RAF bombshell came at the end of that. It was the programme’s cliff-hanger but delivered before the News! Baah!
Cheers, Ralph Corderoy.
Agreed the HTC Touch kills nothing and no-one. But the HTC TYTNII is a different matter. Every goody under the sun and GPS. Bulky though.
[...] surprised me most was the nature of his first post; an absolutely mammouth round up of his addiction to digital gadgets, and in particular [...]
Spider-Man 3 preloaded on Nokia N95 8GB…
Nokia today announced the shipping start of the Nokia N95 8GB multimedia computer. To celebrate its launch, Nokia has teamed up with Sony Pictures Entertainment to offer a Nokia N95 8GB which comes pre-loaded with the full-length feature film in Europe…
credit card for bad credit…
Occasionally, you’ll get bogged down by the large accumulation of bad credit stories attainable….
Hi EccentRick,
Fatty Arbuckle didn’t do anything, but the mud was slung for a very long time and the slung mud stuck.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatty_Arbuckle#The_Scandal
Wasn’t that Stephen’s blessay on Fame? We’re Devices over here.
Cheers, Ralph Corderoy. ralph@inputplus.co.uk
all i want to say and please excuse my ignorance of stephen fry perfection in writing is that i love stephen fry sooo much.everything he does and is yet to do is priority in my life as i grew up watching him from germany in munster.i first discovered this genius whilst watching the blackadder series(we only had one channel in munster called BFBS)and instantly loved the characters he played.i am constantly annoyed with myself when i hear he was in doncaster and i must have been the only person that had no knowledge of it untill i read of others experiences,i am excited to think that mr fry might one day read this.im probably someone who would in all my nervous approach would say something silly that would annoy stephen(god im writing like im his friend now)il correct it,that mr fry would find annoying,i secretly hope not.i dream of the day i can shake his hand and not wash it for the rest of my life haha,no im not that dillusioned but i would do anything just to hear one word from his mouth that would reach my ears without the aid of tv,radio,talking books or my own imagination.i love to see pics of him too,the one where he is gleaming to the fact he is holding the new i phone is quite quite a personal one and just wish(again)that i was there to say something,i would even take great pleasure frrom making him laugh or just smile towards me,im sorry for going on a bit but i just love love love him and find him sexy in all his entirity.dear stephen fry,thankyou for a life of pleasure you give and if one day i become famous for something myself and have the gall to do so i would contact you and invite you to anything my life is involved in,if i became rich i would contact your agent and pay the highest price just to sit with you for three minutes…however stephen fry i know this wont happen so have a hole in my soul that will guarantee never to be filled,i love you stephen fry!!! sincerely,chris swainston,number 1 fan and stalker that never got round to stalk xxxxx
credit repair credit card…
When you thoroughly understand this, you’ll be able to research more competently….
stephen, have you heard about the laser keyboard?
http://www.virtual-laser-keyboard.com/
perhaps an inbuilt projector would be a way to keep qwerty keyboards on shrinking phones.
Hello,
You post on handheld devices is the most interesting tech review / wisdom I have ever read Engadget and Tuaw have a lot to learn.
It looks like Steve listened to you thank god! now my Uk iphone can be free to grow.
http://www.apple.com/hotnews/
p.s Thanks for making me smile over the years.
[...] seen it, take a look at Stephen Fry’s blog and one of his rather lengthy posts where he talks in length about the iPhone and other handhelds. I wasn’t aware he was a tech gadget kinda guy. Musta been in the closet [...]
bargains phones …
verizon cellphone…
brillant as always cant wait for the gadrian Colum will make me all happy inside because i loved all the geekieness of the frist post! (and understude it all)
I’m an avid Mac person too. I have been wearing out my primary digits on this blissful master of digital usage since the late 80′s. I LONG for a whizzy Mac laptop but plonk away on a trusty eMac. I use it for work too – web design and publication design. I’ve been doing more with a WordPress online diary as well: http://www.heandfi.org An iPod is a companion and a dinky little Shuffle.
A thunk – will Mac ever produce other household gadgets? Discuss…..
By the way – LOVE QI, Wilde is in my top 5 favourite films and my current bedtime reading is your MOAB. I’ve grown fond of you through its pages.
PS. I reach the f-f-f-f-ifty thing in 3 weeks. Hows it been for you so far?
i really enjoyed this entry, being something of a mac enthusiast myself. i am dying to get an iphone but i really can’t justify it yet, what with being contracted to the wrong network. i think i might try to get an ipod touch around xmas and deal with not having the phone aspect.
however i have just ordered a new imac – i have a G5 which is about 4 years old and on its last legs so i have rewarded myself (ha! for what?!) with a 24″ behemoth of a machine, and i’m duly incredibly excited about its imminent arrival – it was shipped today so should be soon. if i weren’t carrying the lurgy i’d be jumping in excitement!
i used to work in mobile phones (sort of) so it was interesting to read your potted history of mobile tech as well. hope you enjoy your new iphone!
[...] and has entered the blogging world with his new blog, appropriately titled Stephen Fry. In his first entry, he writes about his latest digital devices in great detail. The second post is more about his [...]
[...] readers of his blog, this is hardly anything new, but at least we shall be privy to Fry’s thoughts on gadgets on a weekly basis for a while. [...]
Hi, sorry if this has already been mentioned but I’ve got an old Nano and I’m thinking of buying the new Nano after Christmas and wondered what we all thought about it!
Mr. Fry,
I much enjoyed your Guardian article, familiar though much of it was to us blog followers. I saw the photo of the ereader, and hope you will discuss them soon. I read enormous quantities of stuff for work, most of which I download, and printed 12,000 pages last year alone, as I can’t read off a computer screen for very long no matter what size I make the type. Same with all the ereaders I have tried–none have really convinced me, yet. I long for one, as you long for an Iphone killer, because it would make my life so much simpler, not to mention the paper it would save. Like so many of us, I have more books than I can read in my lifetime, at present rate of consumption and giving myself an average lifespan, but this has not prevented me buying more. What I want is a wonderful looking, easy to read, reliable, compatible and very portable reader that doesn’t cost the earth and won’t become obsolete about the time I get to grips with it. Oh, do help, as I can’t be buying them all and giving them a go-I’m but a humble cog in the publishing world.