Learn something new
Currently I’m teaching myself how to develop applications for Android. Arguably, I’m a bit late, but I’ve been busy finishing my studies in computer science and, in my free time, advancing to higher levels of profession in various fields such as web development, java ee, databases, performance research, web crawlers, automated load testing and other stuff. And despite being a computer scientist and software engineer, I still love to draw, design and layout things. It makes me happy to work on every layer of an application, no matter if it’s about databases, business logic, algorithms, UI or graphics. It took a lot of reading and practice though.
I just completely ignored the upcoming mobile world.
I never had a cell phone, not even at school. I got cable in 1999 and from then on I was online almost all the time. And so were my best friends. What’s the point of having a cell phone, if all you need is an instant messenger and a VoIP client. I had no respect for expensive shitty devices that could do little more than a tamagotchi. It took some time until I realized that cell phones where actually useful for dating girls. Exchange numbers, stay in touch, pretend that pay-per-160-character-messages could possibly mean something or even compete with endless IRC sessions. I might have underestimated the social aspects of having a cell phone. And drinking alcohol. Soon however, the web solved that problem I was still unaware of. I met my first girlfriend online and continued to not care about alcohol and cell phones.
I even swore in front of my friends, that I would never buy a cell phone until it could do anything a personal computer could do in 2003. Back then I had a single core Athlong running at 1,4 Ghz. We all felt certain that this would never happen and, being defeated, they accepted my ongoing cell phone abstinence. However, with the release of the iPhone in 2007, I realized I was wrong. I didn’t buy one, not because I couldn’t afford it (which I couldn’t), but because I still felt it was inferior to a PC. I believed the touchscreen was shitty (which it wasn’t), the resolution was shitty (which it was) and the device was not ready for pleasantly browsing the web (mobile browsing still sucked). But it was a good looking device that was no longer a boring cell phone. Rather a mobile version of Skype. No more SMS, prices for phone calls decreased, you could check your voicemail on a mobile computer’s touchscreen, use Google anywhere etc. I was, to a certain degree, excited. And I suddenly knew I had lost. It was just a matter of time.
I didn’t care about “apps” though. I cared about programs. Real software. On a big screen, using a keyboard and a mouse. I cared about speed, responsiveness and productivity. About choice. About great websites. When I started “coding” HTML in 2000 I designed for 800 x 600 px. When it was finally safe to assume moderately higher resolutions, I became the happiest little fuck that has ever existed. That’s why the term “app” sounded like bullshit bingo to me. There was no way I’d be going back to whatever shitty low resolution and screen size that piece of iPhone shit display had. Ever.
In late 2012 I bought a Samsung Galaxy Nexus. It’s got a 720 x 1280 px HD-ready display and a 2 x 1,0 Ghz dual core CPU. Science fiction just got real. Affordable mobile devices finally met my personal requirements. Awesome.
I’m a complete idiot :-)
https://images.unsplash.com/photo-1457302662404-c3ba082b096e?ixlib=rb-0.3.5&q=80&fm=jpg&crop=entropy&s=19b4cf6023885666001be05093a1c822