

The End Of Stuff - alexandros
http://bitworking.org/news/2010/08/end-of-stuff

======
andrewljohnson
Good article, and true for me as well.

Let me just say though, as a developer of a compass/GPS app for the
iPhone/iPad/Android, and as a serious hiker, I do not take my Garmin GPS with
me anymore. I bring paper maps and a compass for back-up, but I never use
them. My iPhone is plenty good enough for me.

On the other hand, I'm also a serious enough photographer that I prefer an SLR
to my iPhone camera, and even though we built a camera into our app, I never
use it personally.

~~~
nkassis
On mountain bike trips I use my android phone now, I rarely get to anywhere
that lacks phone signal but for a real trip that might require a real
gps+compas+paper map.

~~~
listic
Do you mount your phone on the handlebar? What if it gets wet?

I have bought Garmin device[1] for hiking and mountain biking specifically so
that I wont' need to worry about it getting wet. And for long battery life and
changeable commodity batteries, too.

[1] Garmin Oregon 450
[https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=63349](https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=63349)

there's also top model '550, which adds camera.
[https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=26875](https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=145&pID=26875)

~~~
nkassis
I have a pocket at the top of my camelback that gets good enough gps reception
to do things like trace my route and such. I have a regular computer mounted
on board. If I had the money I'd get something like this:
[https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=160&pID=10885](https://buy.garmin.com/shop/shop.do?cID=160&pID=10885)

------
prs
I have this analogy in mind where the modern-day smartphone is the equivalent
of a technological swiss-knife. In 80% of all situations it is sufficient for
the task at hand.

~~~
imd
Jesse Schell ([http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-
bo...](http://g4tv.com/videos/44277/dice-2010-design-outside-the-box-
presentation/)) said convergence doesn't generally happen, except for the
"pocket exception", which includes swiss army knives and mobiles. He predicted
the failure of the iPad because of this.

~~~
jonhohle
Didn't watch the presentation, so maybe it's addressed, but what is the iPad
the convergence of? Unlike a Swiss army knife (knife, saw, scissors, tweezers,
toothpick, etc.), or pocket computer/phone/camera. It's a relatively different
type of device (not a necessary new one, though), not a mashup of otherwise
independent devices.

~~~
ThomPete
he said that technology diverts, he made the pocket exception.

So according to him the iPad isn't a convergence but a divergence.

------
ja27
I don't use it often, but I keep a real GPS around for two reasons: it runs on
AA batteries and doesn't need a cell tower. I actually bought it a couple
months after being lost in a hurricane-stricken area. Even maps don't work
well when all the street signs are blown down (or away). But I've been on
enough back roads in the years since to know that I can't count on a phone GPS
for maps.

I also carry a decent flashlight (Fenix LD01). I used to carry a weaker light
(Arc AAA-P) but once I had to go from full daylight to a dark interior room
with it in a hurry during a power outage and the little light was useless. A
phone's screen or photo "flash" LED would have been even worse.

I still carry paper notebooks (Moleskine and others). I use Evernote and stuff
for notes on my phone, but I still keep some more personal things on paper, in
one place. I also can't sketch worth a darn on any of the phone sketchbook
apps.

Dropbox is what eliminated USB thumb drives for me, not my phone. I still keep
a couple in my bag, but mostly to boot from.

~~~
andrewljohnson
Phones don't need cell towers for GPS, if they have a GPS chip like iPhones
and Droids! Not even ones with A-GPS... this is a common misconception.

~~~
leviathant
While a phone doesn't need a cell tower for GPS, they for the most part need
one for viewing their location on a map, and I think that's why people say
they need a cell tower for their phone's GPS.

Long story short, my wife and I were trying to find the house we were crashing
at in upstate New York one evening after a piece of hers was performed at
Bard. I'd punched the address into my iPhone and off we went. Only in the last
few turns did we realize that Google couldn't find the address and auto-
corrected us to the wrong county (UGH). We tried entering the address again,
but had no signal. We were only using the iPhone because we couldn't find my
Garmin. Later when we returned home, we still couldn't find our Garmin, so I
bought a newer one, refurb, off Amazon for ~$150. It tells me the speed limit
of the road I'm on, shows me which lane I'll need to be in when a turn's
coming up, acts as a bluetooth speakerphone and interface for my iPhone, gets
traffic updates and gas prices from some kind of FM broadcast service.

Yes, convergent mobile devices will get there eventually, but there are still
benefits to specialized devices.

~~~
andrewljohnson
This just is not true. The cell tower isn't needed for GPS. When you say you
need a tower to see yourself on the map, that's the same thing as saying you
need a tower for GPS.

If you mean you need the network connection for the maps, this is only true
for the Native Maps app (which even does some caching). There are many, many
apps that let you store maps offline (including my own).

~~~
gaius
A-GPS near a cell tower is great, but a WAAS antenna beats it in the
backcountry.

------
akgerber
True enough. But for this to truly happen you need to have a device with a
battery that you can feel confident will last all day with regular use.

~~~
gaius
About 10 years ago, I arranged to have everything powered by AA batteries -
even my PDA and my phone (it was a Motorola brick). Everything but my laptop,
but the PDA (a Psion 5) would do in a pinch. GPS and CD player as well. Torch.
Alarm clock. Nowadays I don't think you can even buy stuff to do that with,
everything has a proprietary battery and charger.

~~~
listic
Yes, that tendency bothers me as well. If you want to buy that kind of stuff
that is powered by commodity batteries, you are really limited.

Some recent stuff you should be able to buy easily (though they are powered by
AAA betteries, actually):

iriver T60SE mp3 player
[http://www.iriver.com/product/view.asp?pCode=001&pNo=73](http://www.iriver.com/product/view.asp?pCode=001&pNo=73)

WikiReader <http://thewikireader.com/store/>

but, alas, those are few and I feel like these things go against the general
direction of technological progress.

------
jleader
"The end of stuff" seems rather hyperbolic. More like "the consolidation of
gadgets I don't actually use that often".

The Swiss Army Knife analogy is telling: how much have sales of Swiss Army
Knives affected sales of woodworking tools, kitchen cutlery, garden shears,
fancy bottle-openers, etc?

I can certainly see smartphones supplanting special-purpose devices that have
similar form-factors and UIs, such as hand-held GPSs. But devices that have
different physical forms or interfaces will still retain their popularity for
serious uses. For example, how many smartphones can be tripod-mounted? Anyone
who spends hours typing large amounts of text on a laptop every day is
unlikely to want to replace it with a smartphone (unless the benefits of
increased portability so outweigh the inconvenient interface).

Don't get me wrong, smartphones are great, and increased versatility is cool,
and having lots of gadgets in my pocket all at once is wonderful (I've carried
the same Swiss Army Knife in my pocket since 1979), but there are times when I
want buttons I can press without looking (like a stopwatch), or a device I can
glance at unobtrusively without having to pick anything up or pull anything
out of a pocket (like a wristwatch), or a compass I feel comfortable carrying
in my hand while running through the woods.

------
dekomote
One thing that bugged me tho. Why android? Symbian did that years before
android. IPhone too. Even simple Nokia/SonyEricsson not-so-smart phones were
able to do most of those listed tasks years before android. We realized that
statement that 1-task gadgets/tools will sooner or latter die long time ago.

Edit: Spelling

~~~
gbhn
I don't think the author was saying Android specifically or uniquely enables
this (that's just his experience with this process), but rather that the
smartphone product does.

------
Tichy
Surprisingly, I meet a lot of people who still use wrist watches. It almost
feels like a renaissance of the wrist watch to me.

Can't wait to get rid of stuff. Unfortunately, computers and phones also
aren't immune to cluttering, though. In fact, it is even easier to amass
virtual stuff.

I have fund it is almost impossible to clean out a computer manually.

The next step will be uncluttering computers by moving stuff to the cloud. The
last clutter will consist of bookmarks.

~~~
gintas
The cloud can (and will) get cluttered too...

~~~
Tichy
That's why I mentioned the bookmarks, which point to stuff in the cloud.

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vishaldpatel
Some things are cooler / more fun than others. Like, wearing a watch or using
a real compass.

I have a notebook in which I write directions to a place before going there
for the first time. Lame, I know... but every time I have a get a copilot,
they end up looking through the book. I doubt they would have done the same if
the directions were stored in a smartphone.

Cash is still king.

------
robryan
I like the idea of having less stuff in general, I think there was a pg essay
on it a while back.

Temporarily moved back to my Dads place recently so I had to cut back down to
only really having a room for my stuff, was a great opportunity to clear out a
lot of stuff that I wasn't really using.

------
sliverstorm
Strangely enough, I completely don't agree. Most of these items are available
on my phone, but if I wanted to really use them I'd buy the real thing. For
example, if I needed a GPS unit it'd be strapped to the bars of my bike, so
it'd need to be durable, waterproof, operable with gloves- things my phone is
not. The same applies in one fashion or another to almost every device on that
list, particularly calculators and alarm clocks.

~~~
patrickk
Iphone bike kit:

[http://gizmodo.com/5605254/liverider-kit-makes-your-
iphone-a...](http://gizmodo.com/5605254/liverider-kit-makes-your-iphone-a-
computer-for-your-bicycle)

I haven't used an alarm clock in years, I prefer the iPhone in airplane mode.
The iPhones calculator seems a perfect replacement for a physical calculator
too.

~~~
sliverstorm
To clarify, 'bike' refers to a motorcycle, and the iPhone would probably be
useless in the backcountry where I'd be using it. Plus if I bin the bike in a
river, the iPhone sure as heck won't survive.

Phone alarm clocks are not nearly as effective as my real alarm clock at
waking me up; my alarm clock is LOUD and PIERCING and ANNOYING- but I do sleep
like a log.

As for calculator, I see that the iPhone can be a scientific calculator, but
from the looks of things, I'd still prefer to have my $10 calc in my hands
when I'm designing something. That, and/or matlab.

