Galaxy S4 or iPhone 5?

Way back in June 2011, in a piece called My Smartphone – My Life (about the uptake and use of smart phones like the iPhone, Blackberry and other devices), I mentioned some of the problems I had been having with my iPhone 3GS unit.

Despite its many limitations―that have only grown worse after each major iOS update―I still have that phone. I have been ‘making do’ with it for the past two years while I waited to see how the device, and its many imitators would evolve.

Yesterday, I finally made the move to replace the iPhone 3GS. But instead of purchasing the latest iteration of this groundbreaking Apple device, I made the move to the latest Galaxy S4.

Yes, dear reader, I am officially over the iPhone. There, I said it. And the sky didn’t fall in.

I have had the Galaxy less than twenty-four hours, so don’t expect an in depth review of the phone here. However, I will certainly write more about the device once I familiarise myself with its design, user interface and standard applications.

While I have moved on from the iPhone (at least for the next two years), I am still firmly attached to my iPad 2. I have looked at Samsung’s flagship tablet device, the 10.1 inch Galaxy Tab 2, and see no reason to upgrade to either that or the latest iPad. At least, not yet. As someone who is not wedded to one particular company and their products, it will be fascinating to watch how tablet devices evolve over the next couple of years.

In my final paragraph for My Smartphone – My Life, I wrote, “…these are the early days of smart phone development and use, and I for one, am quite sure that these ubiquitous devices will only get smaller, faster, cheaper and more powerful over the next five years. I am also sure that … there is no turning back to the ‘old days’ to embrace anything less than state of the art, when it comes to modern phone technology.”

Today, I feel like I have embraced what I consider to be the latest ‘state of the art’ smart phone technology with my purchase of the Galaxy S4. Only time and practical experience will confirm whether I have made the right choice. I console myself with the knowledge that by the time I am ready to upgrade to a newer smart phone in a couple of years, the technology will have progressed exponentially to… who knows what? There is one thing I am sure of: it was way past time I upgraded from the iPhone 3GS, and whatever I ultimately think of the Galaxy S4, it already looks and feels light years ahead of my old 3GS unit.

I would love to hear your opinions regarding the relative merits of my decision. What do you think? Did I make the right choice? Over to you, folks, iPhone 5 or Galaxy S4 - or should I have changed to something else entirely?

TED on Tuesday: Deep Sea Diving…in a Wheelchair

Image courtesy Sue Austin website...

Multimedia, performance and installation artist Sue Austin challenges our notions of what disability is. Sue is the founder and artistic director of Freewheeling, an initiative aiming to further the genre of Disability Arts.

Sue states: "My studio practice has, for sometime, centred around finding ways to understand and represent my embodied experience as a wheelchair user, opening up profound issues about methods of self-representation and the power of self-narration in challenging the nexus of power and control that created the ‘disabled’ as other."

When Sue got a powered wheelchair more than sixteen years ago, she felt a tremendous sense of freedom. However, others looked at her as though she had lost something precious―her ability to walk and move about freely. On the other hand, for Sue Austin, the power chair gave her precisely that ability. By adding modifications and additions to her chair, Sue is able to create art, and just as importantly, travel and explore the world in ways that almost defy the imagination.

This talk, filmed at TEDxWomen 2012 includes stunning footage of Sue as she dons an oxygen tank and breathing apparatus, and turns her powered wheelchair into an underwater vessel that propels her across vast ocean floors, and amongst schools of multi-coloured fish. In doing so, Sue Austin reshapes how we think about disability, and proves once again, that where there is a will, there is always a way.

More Information

TED Online…

Sue Austin’s website...

Sue Austin on Twitter...

Freewheeling...

In Review: Gone To New York

~ I have only read one other book by Ian Frazier, and that was his paean to the American prairies called Great Plains - a book I thoroughly enjoyed and reviewed here…

When I saw a copy of his 2005 collection of essays about New York City, Gone to New York: Adventures in the City making the decision to buy it was easy.

Gone to New York collects together twenty-two essays that examine aspects of life in New York City that are by turns, poignant, funny, serious, and insightful. The essays come from a variety of magazine sources, including the Atlantic, and The New Yorker, for which Ian Frazier continues to write as he has since 1973. Each story in the book contains a year of publication, and these range from Antipodes (1975), to the 2005 essay, Out of Ohio.

Along the way we meet a succession of New Yorkers, each of which is unique in their own way. There’s George Willig, the man who scaled the World Trade Center in 1977 using handmade clamping devices; we learn about Clifford Holland, that man for whom the Holland Tunnel is named;  we meet Martin Tytell, who at 83 years of age in 1997 (when the essay Typewriter Man was written), may have been the last manual typewriter repair man in New York City. We visit crime scenes, take bus rides, walk Canal Street, and stop to remove plastic bags from trees.

Two of the most touching stories are To Mr. Winslow (1993), and Street Scene (1995). In the first essay, Frazier writes about Allyn Winslow, a forty-two-year-old drama teacher who was shot and killed one June morning, after refusing to hand his new bicycle over to four teenagers. In three brief pages, Frazier documents the creation of a memorial to Mr. Winslow, that appears over several days on the exact spot at which he died. He records items as they are added to the memorial by locals, who in most cases didn’t know Allyn Winslow personally, but who were still moved to remember his passing.

Then, over a period of five months, Frazier traces the gradual breakdown of the memorial as summer rains, vandalism, ongoing park maintenance, and winter storms slowly eliminate signs of the original location, so that eventually all trace of it disappears. And thus, with its final disappearance, one is left to wonder if anyone―apart from the writer―still remembers Mr Winslow.

Image courtesy of Bag Snaggers...

[Image Right: The actress and singer, Bette Midler using a Bag Snagger to remove plastic from a New York City tree. Background to this photo is recounted in the essay, Bags in Trees: A Retrospective.]

In Street Scene, Frazier watches as a woman administers mouth-to-mouth resuscitation to an elderly woman who lies on a Brooklyn sidewalk. Assisting her is a young male who counts off “One, two, three, four, five,” as he in turn administers chest compressions in an attempt to keep the elderly lady alive. Eventually, an Emergency Medical Service truck arrives and the paramedics take over the life-saving work of the volunteer rescuers. Ian Frazier watches as the male and female part without a word, and go their separate ways. At least Frazier has enough presence of mind to approach the man to thank him for what he had done.

He then runs after the woman, who was by now well down the block: I tapped her shoulder and she turned and I said thank you. Her eyes were full of what had just happened. There were tears on her upper cheeks. She said something like, “Oh, of course, don’t mention it.” She was … an ordinary-looking person, but glowing beautifully.

Earlier this month in my piece Reflections From The Window Seat, I asked the question, “…when you travel, where do you prefer to sit: window, aisle or middle seat?.” I added that I am definitely a window seat traveller, and went on to elaborate further about why. In Frazier’s essay, Route 3, I was delighted to read this: I usually travel to and from the city by bus. Most bus commuters sensibly occupy themselves with newspapers, laptops, CD players, and so on. I always try to get a window seat and then look at the scenery. If this were a ride at an amusement park, I would pay to go on it.

Frazier then goes on to describe in detail the bus journey along Route 3 between his home and the city, and I got a lot of satisfaction knowing that I had found a kindred spirit when it came to the joys of window seat travel. Even if the journey was only between workplace and home.

It probably isn’t necessary to be a New Yorker, or to have visited the city, to get the most out of the twenty-two essays in Gone To New York, but it helps. Having said that, most people reading this have been to New York City, if only through the medium of Hollywood movies and countless television shows. It should not be too hard to imagine yourself walking along Canal Street with Ian Frazier, as he points out some of the streets quirkier characters, and grumbles about the plastic bag tangled in the branches of the tree you are passing under. Speaking of which, here is an American television news item which includes Ian Frazier and his friend Bill McClelland using a Bag Snagger to remove plastic from trees.

Gone to New York: Adventures in the City is a delightful read, and is well worth seeking out either online, or through your local bookstore.

More Information

Ian Frazier at Wikipedia…

At The New Yorker…

At The Atlantic…

Ian Frazier on Facebook…

Bag Snaggers.Com…