To put it plainly, I am angry, at telecommunication companies.  For those of you who follow me on facebook, you may have noticed that I have been posting a lot lately about development on android.  I must say that I love that platform, and it is the best implementation of Java that I have seen.  Yes, it will take some getting used to in order for me to be happy about coding interfaces in XML, but at least it’s not in an interface builder.

Anyway, talking about development is not the reason why I’m writing this.  I’m angry because of how telecommunication companies really do a good job at spoiling a good product.  Currently, I am using Verizon Wireless, on a completely horrid phone, which is okay, so long as no one actually expects me to always have that phone on me.  However, I am in the market for a better phone, or at least a better portable communications device, my portable media player needs are currently  being satisfied with an old SanDisk Sansa e260 running rockbox (a very good project by the way, you should check it out at: http://www.rockbox.org/).  Well, I  could wait until the supposed G-phone will be released early next year, or I could go into T-Mobile’s phones.  (If I did go to T-Mobile, I would also be interested in getting the Nokia n900, another fine device, running Memo).  However, both of those cases would require me to find some way to circumvent Verizon Wireless’s two year contract.  Which, while I’m confident I could find a way provided I spent enough time looking for loopholes in the contract (I have already found a few, it’s just a matter of exploiting them), I do not want to make that effort, especially as seeing that, currently, the most powerful android phone on the market, the Droid, http://www.droiddoes.com is on Verizon’s network.

Now, don’t get me wrong, I think the outward appearance of the droid to be very scary, sort of like HAL, or something’s about to get you, which may be bad for Google’s PR, which needs to remain as a ‘happy friendly company’, who’s slogan is ‘don’t be evil’, for, with their incredibly large size, if they get a reputation of being the ‘evil eye’, they need to worry about the government splitting them up.  Still though, this phone is cool.  I just find it odd that they’re marketing a phone directly to people exactly like me, and yet, everyone I talk to, at least the one’s like me, find it to a certain extent as ’scary’.

 

Looking at all of these features, they all seam really, really cool, however, we won’t get to use over half of them.  Most of these features assume you have a near ubiquitous connection to the internet.  Which, is okay under wi-fi, however, forget about using Verizon’s 3G network.  They basic plan will get you 450 minutes of ‘talk time’, and than you can pay for browsing the internet, pay through your nose that is.  With about $1 a MB, it’s so outrageously high, you have to buy their ‘unlimited’ plan to actually use the device.  A plan that costs $70, and still only gives you 5 GB a month of bandwidth.

 

I want an android based device, but all of the fun is really spoiled by the telecommunications companies that are behind them.  So, until then, I will stick with my crappy phone, however, rest assure Verizon, I won’t renew my contract when the time runs out.

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