Friends

I was at my going away party last night, and I was talking to an old friend. They aren't the kind of person I see every week, or even every year, but we've been friends for decades. We can pick up a conversation a year later and know where we left off. He is one of my favorite people in the world.

See I get it. There are real obstacles to being friends as adults. Careers, wives, girlfriends, kids, blah, blah, blah. I get it. If I called him and threw up the bat signal, he'd be there with no reservations.

He had noticed that the ranks of my friends were just as diverse, but that several of my so-called friends were absent. I explained that in the last year I had fired over a dozen, some of them old friends, because they weren't friends at all.

People who would promise to be there for something important, like your going away party, then come up with some bullshit excuse. People who never call, and send you to voicemail on the first ring more than they answer. People who say disparaging things behind your back so they can “keep it real”.

How is this for real: You can hang alone. I don't need people like you.

I was the one who listened to you talk about your ex-girlfriend for months. You were the one who couldn't be bothered when I got divorced. I was the one who got out of bed and came to get your drunk ass, so you wouldn't kill anyone especially yourself. You see my call and you let them ring. I was the guy who put his ass and his reputation on the line to get you a job. You are the one who tried to cut me out of my own business.

I don't have time for you, I do not want you in my life. You are a shitty person and not a friend anyone wants. So if you stop seeing my updates and if you stop getting my calls that's because I am tired of you and I am tired of your bullshit.

I have friends, and I don't need you.

This is a picture of a woman.

This is a picture of a woman, a female body. This picture isn’t vile, evil, or disgusting. This picture is beautiful, and so is this person. This picture isn’t vulgar, pornographic or ugly.  

This woman can bear children if she chooses. She can also finish college and start a career. This woman can marry her high school sweetheart and become a mom. Her breasts can help feed her children; her hips are a great place to rest a baby while she screws the cap on the baby food. Did I mention that her high school sweetheart may also be a beautiful woman?

This person decided she wanted to take a picture of herself on a day when she felt beautiful. Maybe it is for a friend, or a lover, or just to remind her of the perfection of youth.

This picture doesn’t make her evil, or stupid, or a whore.

This picture doesn’t hurt you.

This picture is a person, just like us.

Galaxy Nexus

As I wrote in my last post I left Sprint for SimpleMobile a few months ago. The first phone I purchased was an unlocked Motorola Atrix. It was an excellent phone, except for all the unnecessary crapware that both Motorola and AT&T installed on top of Android.

MotoBLUR was such a complete clusterf**k that I cannot even begin to describe. Motorola’s adding another layer of icing to the Android experience was both poorly thought and poorly executed. Actually, the Sense UI on my EVO 4G wasn’t bad, but Sprint also added several crappy applications especially background processes that made the phone much slower than it was after rooting. Okay, so both my EVO 4G, and my Atrix 4G were pretty sluggish before rooting. After rooting and installing basic Android ROMs both phones were much faster.  So what if I bought a phone that didn’t have all of that carrier bloat and all those unnecessary applications?

A few weeks ago I wrote about Windows 8 and the impending backlash because Microsoft is developing, building, and selling their own tablet. Well that backlash is both real and well documented, but it has a lot to do with the same reasons that are wreaking havoc in the Android world. Once upon a time cellular phones were a lot more problematic than they are now. There were fewer standards, less interoperability, and there was that thing that few remember called Y2K. To deal with these challenges the carriers had to hire and maintain large staffs for testing and quality assurance.

Some years later these entrenched departments became unnecessary, however none of them saw it this way because they wanted to keep their jobs. First Blackberry, then Apple, and finally Google had made these steps superfluous. The software was smart enough to do this for the carriers. All those Executive VPs and Directors liked there jobs so they came up with bad science and big spreadsheets to rationalize their work. Unfortunately that also meant they had to do something. So now we have crapware and UI “improvements” invading our phones the same way that they invaded our desktops.

I ordered my Galaxy Nexus online from the Google Play store. The entire purchase took three minutes, and the phone was shipped to me overnight, and I signed for it. Unboxing was ridiculously simple and I charged the phone to 100% before I inserted the SIM card. The charging time helped. I used that hour to make sure my photos, music, and sundry was all backed up.

The Nexus lacks an SD card slot, but that isn’t a flaw. I think that the 16GB of internal memory are more than sufficient. Especially considering that Google Music and Google Video are cloud services. Having a huge bucket of internal memory is less important now than it used to be. Honestly, since 16GB SD cards became commercially available I have never had more than about 10GB of media on any phone. I doubt my habits will change much moving forward.

When I booted the phone for the first time I was asked to sign into my wireless network before signing into Google. Then I signed into Google and we were off. SimpleMobile does require a few minutes of additional manual programming for network and MMS access. Fortunately I could wait on that while my phone did the Android update dance. Once all of the standard applications were updated I added my personal applications; SwiftKey, Evernote, Kindle, BeyondPod, Astrid Tasks, AirDroid, Shazam, Tumblr, and Pocket. I also install pretty much all of the Google Android extras like Goggles, Translate, Reader, Chrome, Voice, Google+, Drive, and Shopper.

So getting everything signed in, updated, installed, and syncing took about an hour and then I got to play. This phone feels incredibly fast, fast, fast. Fast screen switching, fast animations, fast touchscreen. Even the Camera is great for my purposes and takes quick pictures. Searching and connecting seems fast for a 3G phone. WiFi speeds seemed about twice what I was used to.  Everything about this phone seems clean and fast. Google Now takes a little learning, but one you have the hang of it seems very nice. It makes me wonder what the next few iterations will feel like. Did I mention it was fast, okay, just checking.

The Tech rumor machine is now predicting five Nexus phones from different manufacturers in the pipeline for 2013. Once people start to see the utility of an unmuddied Android phone I think that the Nexus ideal will become the de facto user choice in the Android world. Just like I think that the Microsoft Windows Tablet will be a huge leap forward in the Windows user experience.

You can buy the Galaxy Nexus at the Google Play store. Buying it anywhere else just doesn’t make sense, but buy it. This is the best phone I have ever owned. 

Leaving Sprint

I know that phones are important to people. My phone is how I run my business and my life. I don't expect that to change anytime soon. 

About eighteen months ago my sister first told me about SimpleMobile. For $40 per month, taxes and fees included, she was getting unlimited service. I was shocked. I was paying Sprint about $150 for the same service, but I was scared to change. Sprint’s coverage was outstanding in the Tampa Bay area. My EVO 4G phone was also outstanding. I didn't feel I could risk losing calls, because my business is my phone. 

You couldn't have found a more vocal and supportive customer for Sprint than I was. Of course they weren't happy with that, or so it seemed. My first problem was my rebate. I know, I should have known better. Sprint insisted that they would rebate me $100, by check, when I purchased my EVO. Well guess what? They lost my rebate paperwork, three times. Even though they had all the information, and all of the purchases and activation were made at a Sprint corporate store, they were very sorry that they couldn't help me. I never got my rebate.

Two years before I had bought a Treo 800w. It was an awesome phone, when it worked, but Sprint gave me nine of them over a ten month period. That they refused to simply move me to another phone was upsetting, but I had everything backed up and syncing so the problem wasn't insurmountable. The next phone was a Blackberry Tour, and it was fantastic. I had zero problems with the service, the phone, or anything for nearly sixteen months.

My beloved Blackberry had eaten three batteries, two cases, a holster, and a headset. Call quality was still good, but I wanted more capability. So when Sprint debuted the EVO I kept my eye on it. The Treo 800w experience had taught me to be cautious about jumping to a new phone. I read service bulletins and user experiences. Several months later I took the plunge. Android was exactly what I needed, and the EVO did the job admirably. Even though I had to purchase an extended battery for $60 to get through a day away from a desk, and I rationalized that the added expense of getting screwed out of the rebate was unfortunate but not unforgivable.

Let me just say that I was wrong.

After six months the motherboard failed on my EVO. In the next six monthe this happened 4 times. Although the people at the local Sprint store were apologetic, Sprint had again decided that after three replacement phones I again should not move to another phone.  This is a pretty important point.

After the purchase of my Treo 800w and the resulting awful experience Sprint had instituted a policy of allowing customers to “crossgrade” to a different phone model after three warranty exchanges or a defective phone. This policy remained in force for the entire time I enjoyed my flawless Blackberry experience. After I bought my EVO 4G Sprint revoked that policy. I had a rather heated discussion with several people at Sprint who insisted that they were very sorry that they couldn’t help me. I swallowed hard. Then Sprint announced the iPhone 4S.

For the last few years I had been a Sprint Premier customer. We got some cool benefits like a special toll-free number, annual phone upgrades rather than every two years. Stuff like that. So I figured that I could hold out and jump to the iPhone when it debuted, and that was only three months away. So six weeks before the iPhone debut, Sprint cancelled the Premier program. I was told, very politely, that I could hang.

I took deep breaths even then. I weighed my options, MetroPCS, Verizon, and the dozen or so other carriers available. My sister kept talking about SimpleMobile. I started to listen.

It was almost eerie. As I investigated other carriers it became more and more obvious that Sprint was wildly overpriced. Most US carriers are overpriced. That is why they are some of the most profitable cellular carriers in the world. Also during this time Sprint began to experience a number of Network outages in the Tampa Bay area. I was told by some anonymous Sprint employees that this was partially due to Sprint’s decision to abandon WiMax for its 4G service and move to LTE technology. I went to my local Sprint location one day to complain and the showroom was full of customers who were sharing my frustration with the network issues. I was asked politely by the store manager to call in for a service credit because it would be over an hour before they got to me. He explained that they were aware of the issue at corporate and so I did.

I was told by customer service that there were no issues in Tampa Bay at all. That there hadn’t been in months and that no credit was due. I asked for a manager. I spoke to two managers. I related my entire tale and my desire to stay with Sprint. I was assured that no one at Sprint would issue me a credit. I was incensed. I asked the finance manager bluntly. “Are you saying that my business and my eight years as a customer mean nothing and that you will not issue the credit that your store manager assured me was forthcoming?”

There was silence at the other end of the phone. I asked if she could hear me and she said, “Yes sir.” I asked again and she said, “No sir.” I thanked her for her time and hung up.

In the next five minutes I purchased a used unlocked Android phone and a SIM card for SimpleMobile. I activated and within five days I was a SimpleMobile customer. I doubt I will ever go back to Sprint or any other traditional carrier. SimpleMobile has been awesome.

Now we can do the math. I am saving over $1000 per year on my service. My monthly bill has dropped from $147 to $40. Even with the purchase of a new unlocked phone each year I will save on average $600 per year.

I purchased a Samsung Galaxy Nexus from Google directly two weeks ago. That experience has been very positive as well, and I will write about that next time.