Tech keeps getting better & I keep getting less excited....

[jaj324]

This post will probably resonate more with the over 30 crowd than the 20 somethings. Anyway, remember back in the 90's when smartphones didn't exist and you would be so excited to get the newest, high end flip phone. A Motorola with a color screen on the inside AND the outside. It would have games and you could even send these new things called text messages. (if it was digital instead of analog) I was more excited by new tech then than now.

Then along came the early smartphones. WM phones and Palm Pilots that were actually phones too (Treos). You could call, txt and if you were really lucky you could figure out how to email too. That was an exciting time.

Then along came the BlackBerry. Man, if you had a company issued BlackBerry you were surely important. Mobile email became standard along with games, txt and talk. Exciting times for sure.

Of course nothing in the history of mobile technology rivals the introduction of the iPhone. It could do EVERYTHING!! Those were very exciting times.

Now mobile technology has advanced exponentially to the point that I'm no longer excited or impressed. I mean, sure, I love getting a new device but it just not the same anymore. Technology has become such a part of our daily lives that we take it for granted.

Personally, I miss the early days when getting my first flip phone, a little black Motorola StarTAC was truly an exciting day!!! I mean it had a little battery on the top part of the flip, a short stubby antenna and slid into a little belt clip that made it as small as most pagers!! That was cool!!! in '96

 

[Muessig]

The flip phones were definitely exciting, but what about the advent of the mobile phone itself? Remember this?



I remember what you're talking about though and it seems everything is becoming standard. Every new phone can do everything, has a touch screen etc. We're just waiting for the next big thing now.

 

[Jaskys]

lol i still remember feature phones, it was so easy to choose between them.
Only important things of them(atleast for me) was camera and design.
Was using Sony erricsson cyber shot phones for such a long time, never thought that im going to leave Sony brand thought.
Deal breaker was WP8, there's no sony phones with wp8....

 

[Chregu]

I remember the times when I bought a new computer every year and upgraded it in between, just because the new hardware provided such an impact on performance.

No I'm using my almost 6 year old computer and just want to replace it, because I imagine everything will run much smoother with an SSD and don't know if the mainboard would take the upgrade...

In regards of phones, yeah, when they presented the Galaxy S4 I just thought: "Well, some increased numbers... and that's it?"

At least Apple forced the development of all the Ultrabooks, what is a great thing, and the Lumia 1020 camera is quite impressive. There are still things that amaze me, but you're right, it all slows down.

Don't really see what could be the next big thing. And when I look at recent "innovations" I don't expect too much in the near future. Some breakthrough in battery technology would be nice though (they are getting better, but displays are getting bigger and wireless technologies more power demanding, so we just don't realize it).

 

[jaj324]

Back then a nice phone was somewhat of a "status symbol". Less people had cell phones and very few had the nicer ones. If you had the newest and nicest you stood out from the crowd. Now you can roll down the street in the worst part of any town and see kids with iphone 5's and Galaxy S4's.

 

[baseballbert]

I used to have the cell phone with the shoebox sized base attached to the phone with a cord!! Then a nokia phone if some kind, a tiny Motorola flip phone and then RAZR when I thought it was cool. I used to love "Midnight Pool" on that thing.

From there BB Pearl, Curve, then a slew of iPhones, L900, L920.

I sort of miss the simplicity of the RAZR sometimes!

Sent from my RM-820_nam_att_100 using Tapatalk

 

[GoodThings2Life]

I *REFUSED* to own a cell phone until 2007, and I bought an HTC Mogul on Sprint. Hated the iPhone from day 1.

I lost interest for a while, but Nokia keeps me excited now... Usually the high end is what I buy, but I'm more intrigued by how good their low end is and how low the cost is. It's what HTC and Samsung were doing before the One and Galaxy.

 

[squire777]

I think the difference now is that tech has gone mainstream which makes it less interesting than before. Everywhere you look someone is talking about some app, some smartphone or some tablet. It just sounds like overkill at times you just want to get away from it all and enjoy the fresh air.

I also feel like the tech industry is being pushed hard to get people to spend their hard earned money in a time of recession and also to boost up tech stocks. It's a little silly for people with a fully functioning iPhone 4S to go and buy an iPhone 5, or replace a functioning S3 with an S4, or a 920 with a 1020 etc. People need to be more wise with their money instead of just following the latest fads.

I used to rush out and buy the latest gadgets, upgrades for my PC and a lot of other money pits but I have cut back recently. I try to stick with one phone, one camera, one computer, one laptop etc as long as they are still functioning well.

 

[LMZR]

Just wait, there will be something we didn't expect before that we might have never have anticipated before.

 

[sdc1]

My first was a Nokia 5110 in 1997, see my avatar, and I thought I was the daddy. I remember rolling home and unboxing it and the excitment I felt at the time. That excitment hasn't been matched since. I love getting a new phone, the tech still amazes me. I have in my pocket a computer more powerful than the one that sent men to the moon. It's incredible really.

 

[N_LaRUE]

I personally think we're far away from the next big innovation that will excite us. Especially those of us who used to get excited about it. I've been a bit of geek for many years. I've been using a computer since I was about 10 years old and I'm over 40 now. So I remember all those advancements and so on.

I'm not sure where tech will go from here personally. I think we in a stale point were nothing is really going to overly excite us much. I think that is why when the 'next big thing' comes out we are all sort of 'meh'. I blame Apple for the over hype and I think that's part of what did it.

I also think all the over graphical movies may contribute to this as well.

 

[Chregu]

I'm not sure where tech will go from here personally. I think we in a stale point were nothing is really going to overly excite us much. I think that is why when the 'next big thing' comes out we are all sort of 'meh'. I blame Apple for the over hype and I think that's part of what did it.

At least Apple can innovate their donkeys.

...same joke, other thread, still off topic, so I think I'll be okay.

 

[stmav]

 

[mase123987]

I still get excited.

Just a couple years ago, I never would have thought I could stream video from my pc at home to my phone, and then wirelessly to my parents tv to show them.

 

[ryansstuff]

I believe leaks are the reason I don't get excited any more. everything leaked before it shown off. well apart from the surface. that's was the last great one.

 

[jmshub]

I think that there is a certain sense of fatigue that sets in after closely following technology for so long.

There is another thing too... In the 90s, when new processors came out, the 386 and then the 486, that speed meant that computers were really able to do things that they simply couldn't do before. Even thru the early 2000s, that bump in specs opened up a whole new realm of possibilities. Now, the difference between my 4 year old dual core desktop PC and a shining new haswell system doesn't really grant me anything but some efficiency and a little more performance. Don't get me wrong, battery life can be much improved, and faster pcs are still moving us into the future, but it is somewhat diminishing returns, at least until we hit some new major breakthrough.

Phones, I believe, hit that stalemate much quicker. While these devices are more powerful and interesting that anytime in history, they are quickly hitting the point where any features added to the device are incremental at best, gimmicky at worst.

 

[MSFTisMIA]

My most memorable phones were the Siemens C-45 (very first cellphone) Nokia 7210 (first color high end phone), Sony Ericsson M600 (1st smartphone). The two phones that blew my mind back in the days were the StarTac and the Sony Ericsson t-68i. Man I remember how fly it was seeing those in action. I just got into the phone stuff as a hobby when feature phones were about to take off in popularity were I'm from originally.

I'm like most posters in this thread. The time changed. The tech is nice now, but lacks that mind blowing pop as it did back then. I'm amazed to see where we are, excited to see where we're got ng, but content to read reviews, demo phones in stores but be very selective in what I buy...

 

[jaj324]

I'm having another round of tech nostalgia.....I've been playing around with a new tablet that I bought earlier this week, a Google Nexus 7 2. I should be very impressed by it's awesome performance, thin design and unbelievable screen but I just can't get too excited about it. When I realized how connected the tablet is to my Chrome browser on my desktop I got a little excited for a split second then I thought, great, now it's even easier for the NSA to track me

I was way more excited the day I connected my WebTV to my Sony WEGA TV with the flat front....