Thought came to me, around all of the mobile devices I've owned over thirteen years and trying to go back and name them: Might be interesting to post all the Apple/non-Apple phones you've owned here (that you can recall), and relate anything notable about them.
2001 - Nokia 5110
![Nokia-5110-03.jpg]()
Identical to the middle faceplate. It stayed mostly in my glovebox turned off, surviving in direct violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Like everyone who owned a pre-bloat brick cell phone with a goofy little antenna, I have a certain amount of nostalgia for it, but would probably dread life with it today. Or else I'd carry more magazines and books. My social life would be limited because I'd slam straight into fewer people.
In any case it's the reason half of my phone contacts are in ugly block capitals.
2003 - Nokia 3595
![h395.jpg]()
Mine eventually got customized with clear buttons. From back when the kiosks in the mall that now peddle rubber cases would sell the equivalent of Altezza taillights, stick-on portholes, and car bras for phones that were, in retrospect capable of doing basically nothing. They were equivalent to Hyundai before Hyundai actually sort of started marketing somewhat desirable cars. Why anyone cared about those things is a mystery to me, looking back on it, but having a totally stock cell phone at that moment seemed like it was going to keep me from getting hand jobs, or else functioned as a secondary vent for my paranoia.
2005 - Motorola v551
![05V551.jpg]()
First phone from the era when phones started being able to do 'more', and less well at that; I fricking hated it. This time period people first started texting me, and I didn't like that, not at all; never got around to actually texting anyone back til I had a full keyboard. Plus side, I had a lot of interesting conversations on this particularly and had it when I met my wife; as a negative it would power off if I ever slapped it shut. I had to very gently close it, so I couldn't be too mad at her or else she'd try to call me back and get my Voicemail. And I never checked that either.
2007 - Samsung BlackJack
![Samsung-blackjack-phone.jpg]()
I miss this thing; it was made out of soft touch plastic, and felt like a bald or shaved dog's stomach. Unlike any iPhone, its potential energy doesn't carry it immediately toward the ground on anything with less friction than mud. It had clever ideas that went nowhere, like two switchable batteries (of different physical sizes and theoretical capacity, and having separate back-covers even to accommodate), and a separate charger for easy switching, and came with a Bluetooth headset that stopped working after about a week. The keyboard also got very stiff and stopped working for about a month, before bouncing straight back.
I got this thinking that it would beat an iPhone purely by having 3G connectivity. I was pretty wrong about that, but it introduced me to having a somewhat useable internet and keyboard interface and I was satisfied. The Windows Phone 5 install on it eventually got really corrupt and put my texts and call history non-sequential. Also the last one that said Cingular on it.
2009 - 3Gs
My first iPhone! Talking about it will be boring other than to say that at a certain stage, it would only charge when switched off; wish I hadn't figured that out, I could have justified a new phone
It was during the update immediately prior to being able to update iOS OTA, so I was stuck in iOS whatever land. As a consequence, this phone is a bit fast and smooth to this day, when I fire it up. I gave it to my wife to use as an iPod at some point where she had a dumbphone. Power button broke off at that point.
2011 - iPhone 4
Full of disappoint; Never liked the way the thing ran compared to the 3Gs, and realized that 90% of the time I'm in no shape for anyone to look at, so a front facing camera/Facetime are useless. The home button never really worked properly. Eventually the volume button broke too and I lost all respect for it, then iOS 7 ...
Chocolate got in the headphone jack; was a boring day or two at the gym, til it melted out. It became sketchy with charging (not to the degree that my 3GS was), so I sprayed contact cleaner in the charge jack, didn't solve the problem and created a large blotch on the screen; kept the screen on full blast bright overnight in a bucket of rice, cured.
Well I suppose it was pretty durable aside from the hardware/buttons. Never had a case, and it has not a scratch on it, but for a small ding in the plastic screen liner thing from falling from an RV to asphalt (at a gas station on top of big Sur, paying ten bucks a gallon or so iirc).
I held onto it longer than I wanted to, as I kept being disappointed by subsequent phones, and kept telling myself to wait. I never really reached a point where I thought the next one was 'genuinely better,' but at some point 'better' just meant 'faster/useable' so...
2014 - iPhone 5s
![video_camera-640x359.jpg]()
It's glorious to me, because it's the first phone that I've used that was genuinely aligned with my interpretations of "smooth" and "fast"; so it's staying on 7.1.2 . Not really sorry yet that I didn't wait another couple months for a 6 or 6+ , as this one is sized perfectly to fit in the ash tray of my car.
2001 - Nokia 5110
Identical to the middle faceplate. It stayed mostly in my glovebox turned off, surviving in direct violation of the laws of thermodynamics. Like everyone who owned a pre-bloat brick cell phone with a goofy little antenna, I have a certain amount of nostalgia for it, but would probably dread life with it today. Or else I'd carry more magazines and books. My social life would be limited because I'd slam straight into fewer people.
In any case it's the reason half of my phone contacts are in ugly block capitals.
2003 - Nokia 3595
Mine eventually got customized with clear buttons. From back when the kiosks in the mall that now peddle rubber cases would sell the equivalent of Altezza taillights, stick-on portholes, and car bras for phones that were, in retrospect capable of doing basically nothing. They were equivalent to Hyundai before Hyundai actually sort of started marketing somewhat desirable cars. Why anyone cared about those things is a mystery to me, looking back on it, but having a totally stock cell phone at that moment seemed like it was going to keep me from getting hand jobs, or else functioned as a secondary vent for my paranoia.
2005 - Motorola v551
First phone from the era when phones started being able to do 'more', and less well at that; I fricking hated it. This time period people first started texting me, and I didn't like that, not at all; never got around to actually texting anyone back til I had a full keyboard. Plus side, I had a lot of interesting conversations on this particularly and had it when I met my wife; as a negative it would power off if I ever slapped it shut. I had to very gently close it, so I couldn't be too mad at her or else she'd try to call me back and get my Voicemail. And I never checked that either.
2007 - Samsung BlackJack
I miss this thing; it was made out of soft touch plastic, and felt like a bald or shaved dog's stomach. Unlike any iPhone, its potential energy doesn't carry it immediately toward the ground on anything with less friction than mud. It had clever ideas that went nowhere, like two switchable batteries (of different physical sizes and theoretical capacity, and having separate back-covers even to accommodate), and a separate charger for easy switching, and came with a Bluetooth headset that stopped working after about a week. The keyboard also got very stiff and stopped working for about a month, before bouncing straight back.
I got this thinking that it would beat an iPhone purely by having 3G connectivity. I was pretty wrong about that, but it introduced me to having a somewhat useable internet and keyboard interface and I was satisfied. The Windows Phone 5 install on it eventually got really corrupt and put my texts and call history non-sequential. Also the last one that said Cingular on it.
2009 - 3Gs
My first iPhone! Talking about it will be boring other than to say that at a certain stage, it would only charge when switched off; wish I hadn't figured that out, I could have justified a new phone
It was during the update immediately prior to being able to update iOS OTA, so I was stuck in iOS whatever land. As a consequence, this phone is a bit fast and smooth to this day, when I fire it up. I gave it to my wife to use as an iPod at some point where she had a dumbphone. Power button broke off at that point.2011 - iPhone 4
Full of disappoint; Never liked the way the thing ran compared to the 3Gs, and realized that 90% of the time I'm in no shape for anyone to look at, so a front facing camera/Facetime are useless. The home button never really worked properly. Eventually the volume button broke too and I lost all respect for it, then iOS 7 ...
Chocolate got in the headphone jack; was a boring day or two at the gym, til it melted out. It became sketchy with charging (not to the degree that my 3GS was), so I sprayed contact cleaner in the charge jack, didn't solve the problem and created a large blotch on the screen; kept the screen on full blast bright overnight in a bucket of rice, cured.
Well I suppose it was pretty durable aside from the hardware/buttons. Never had a case, and it has not a scratch on it, but for a small ding in the plastic screen liner thing from falling from an RV to asphalt (at a gas station on top of big Sur, paying ten bucks a gallon or so iirc).
I held onto it longer than I wanted to, as I kept being disappointed by subsequent phones, and kept telling myself to wait. I never really reached a point where I thought the next one was 'genuinely better,' but at some point 'better' just meant 'faster/useable' so...
2014 - iPhone 5s
It's glorious to me, because it's the first phone that I've used that was genuinely aligned with my interpretations of "smooth" and "fast"; so it's staying on 7.1.2 . Not really sorry yet that I didn't wait another couple months for a 6 or 6+ , as this one is sized perfectly to fit in the ash tray of my car.
