I am on the phone currently with Verizon…(when I say currently-I have stayed with them for the last 10 years…Why? Not sure why actually?
Here is my problem, I just got the New LG Revolution 4G Smart Phone in the mail today. Now before this phone, I was the guy who was super excited to get a smart phone other then the generations of BlackBerry’s I had gone through, so after I heard about the Android coming out, I jumped on it with Puma speed. This leap as a junior predator was poorly planned. Although when the machine came to the house it was super slick looking and initially the excitement of the size started to fulfill all of my inadequacy issues, but as soon as i started to use it for more then a day, I came to realize that I jumped back 10 years, because I was now using a device that worked worse then my first generation Gateway Tower.
The battery died within an hour, email messaging was super cumbersome and slow, and the phone would freeze up continuously. I finally couldn’t take it and went and bought the “longer” life battery that they have as an upsell for like 65 bucks. I was happy with my purchase for about 20 minutes when I realized the lack of change.
So with my head dropped and my spirits squelched I took my new Droid phone back to Verizon and readopted the BlackBerry device, but the newest one they had.
So my story doesn’t end there with going back to the BlackBerry. Yes it seems like the moral was “Technology sucks, stick to what works” but, it isn’t…in fact. By the end of this story, the moral turns out to be the opposite, and like everything in life, things always tend to be more grey then Black or White.
My new BlackBerry was warming, because it had something we all find comfort in…familiarity. I sent out emails, I made calls, sent out text, checked the internet and easily navigated through the social media settings…Wait, What!??? ^%$^$^$~ Alright , so I couldn’t navigate through Facebook all that well or simply check my tweets, or upload a video, or watch something on Netflix…but who uses a phone for that anyway right?
Well, it turns out the majority of the population. And I was left with the of Pinto of Smart Phones, (is BlackBerry even considered a smart phone). During this same time BlackBerry must have felt the pressure of the 3G push and started to drastically and in a panicked state change their platform around…like a billion times, so that everyday my phone was resetting and crashing because there were new updates every hour. They were trying to feed a live Turkey to an Ant. Saying things like “look at our cool and new look! Take that Iphone!..We bad, we so bad.” You see I had the BlackBerry that had the 2 inch screen. And normally I wouldn’t mind that problem, if the phone itself worked great, but with the daily crashes, this was feeling all too familiar to my previous Android experience. Although this kind of familiar, I wasn’t in to.
This is where I decided to name the situation I kept falling into…I called it ~ “NOT MY PROBLEM”
Clearly Android’s issue was that they created a machine that was trying to rival the Iphone, so they rushed the product out while it still had a hamster wheel controlling it.
Then BlackBerry gets whimpery, and in a panic they do a Hail Marry by kidnapping a Apple developer forcing him to fit a round ball into a square hole.
The point is why do I have to deal with this first generation cold war crap? I am already paying my cell phone provider 150 a month for a phone that frankly works only 50% of the time and that’s when the call doesn’t drop.
AHHHHH!
What do I do about it???? What can I do about it???
Nothing: Write a post, buy a new Smart Phone, and fall back into the vicious cycle.
I learned my lesson. This new Smart Phone is a third generation device, so hopefully, the kinks have been ironed out, but now here is the new problem that just popped up.
While moving my contacts over to the new Smart Phone LG Revolution, I found a big issue with Verizon’s Backup Assistant. Now just so you guys know I have about 9800 contacts in my phone. Some of those, through I believe Gmail integration and Facebook integration have caused a portion of my contacts to duplicate (not just one duplicate contact, but one person is in my contact list 100 times.)
-I asked the Verizon rep (who incidentally I am still on the phone with as I write this):
“Does Verizon’s Backup Assistant have a way of merging duplicate contacts together?” She said…it does not. (Currently I am now downloading 9442 contacts to my new phone. )
I also asked the question:
-“Does downloading almost 10k contact to your smart phone affect the performance of the phone?” She had no idea.
I then asked:
-“Is there a cloud where all these contacts could be stored, so all I would have to do is go to my say ‘DropBox type of cloud server’ from my phone and access my contacts? Keeping the 8 Gigs and 512 Megabytes of ram to work on the more pressing features, such as internet speed?” She said, no Verizon doesn’t have that.
Now for a 2 second rant. This is where the grey comes in. I cant understand why mainstream companies don’t use easy tech solutions. They are suppose to be on the cutting edge. What is the reason for certain things being cutting edge, and certain things stone age?
A cloud server would be a perfect idea, but if it was implemented that wouldn’t serve the cell phone’s agenda. Currently cell companies have few competitors.  
It seems so hard for people to do something so simple that servers not just some of the need but all of the need. They assume that because they are the big boys, their tactics can continue. I don’t want to sound like the angry little consumer, but I only feel like that when I am treated like one- little and insignificant.
Am I just ranting or does anyone agree with me here???
SO what is the solution?
Not that there can be or will be one. I am still seeking that out. I think there might be hope. There is only so much we will all take. I know of a 15 year old kid who has an Ipad device and has set up a phone number with GOOGLE VOICE where it is directly forwarded into his Google chat and Gmail-so that he can respond to the call right away. So, he’s doing this without a cell phone, removing the need for a cell phone. NO data plan, no text plan, nothing but possibly having a Ipad on 3G network. Which you can get for as little as 15 dollars a month. No contract or fees. And with wifi hotspots becoming more common he might be able to find a way of not paying at all.
In fact there was rumor started that in the Fall, Apple will be releasing an Ipod Touch with a microphone and connectivity to 3G…I wonder if it is only a rumor?
So do you think this might solve some of the problems.
I see your problem – you don’t have an iPhone!