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Essays on Technology and Culture

Shitphone: A Love Story

As we approach the 10-year anniversary of the release of the iPhone, the category it blew up is starting to feel familiar. By now, an American who purchased a smartphone on contract in 2009 has not just bought but discarded at least three devices, and as smartphones mature, that is the reality of their use: to improve is to disappear just a little more. Aren’t we all just emailing and Instagramming and Facebooking and Snapchatting and WhatsApping and Angry-Birdsing anyway?

Shitphone: A Love Story — Matter — Medium

Cheap, and good enough.

Not everyone needs an iPhone, but everyone needs a smartphone. The future of computing for most people is going to be inexpensive, commodity hardware, and we’re getting close to having commodity hardware that’s almost as good as the top-of-the-line in terms of experience. If I wasn’t so tied to iOS, I might give a shitphone a try.