Everybody who knows me knows I’ve always been (mis)using my mobile phone a lot. It all started with a Nokia 3310, which I used for texting my footballfriends and composing ringtones. A couple years later I spent a lot of money on a Samsung with Vodafone Live! and today I’m cherishing an iPhone. This last phone makes it even hard NOT to use it: I find myself constantly browsing, mailing and playing games with it. While I’m working on my desktop it has even become a second screen for my email and/or twitterupdates.

Not surprisingly it felt kinda weird when I decided not to take it with me to Amsterdam for Queensnight and –day. But hey, I didn’t want to get it trampled, stolen or ‘beered’; we all know the doom scenarios. And how much could I even miss it when I was with my friends anyway? So instead I packed my Kruidvat-stuntdouble and headed off.

To answer the question, I missed it pretty much. Although I had such a great time with my friends and despite the rain it was my best Queens’weekend’ ever, I found myself reaching into my pockets and being disappointed multiple times. I had no music in the train to Amsterdam nor did I on the way home. When I couldn’t remember how to reach the Marnixplantsoen where some of our favorite dj’s threw a party we had to continuously ask people. I wanted to check Twitter a couple of times to see what other friends were doing. I wanted to Shaza’am some songs. I wanted to save some new numbers which was a struggle with the stuntdouble. I tried to take pictures but the quality was way too poor (and I don’t mean ‘cool’ poor like Hipstamatic). All those small things I normally do seem to be so ingrained I never thought I needed them. Another example, on the way back we had to stand in line for 15 minutes to ask a NS-employee how to get back to Utrecht. Isn’t there an app for that too?

So when I ran into the first kid on Queensday crying about his lost mommy and daddy I felt like joining him: “I want my moooo-bile”.

What does this tell about me? When someone mentions he or she uses his smartphone solely for texting or calling I want to point them on the endless possibilities of the device. It can be used for everything: to survive endless train journeys, to know what your friends are doing, to gain inspiration, to plan routes and so on. Maybe I’m just really comfortable with the idea it has become an extension of my life, it makes everything so much easier. I like the idea that you can do everything with one device, wherever you are. Just take a look in the future where we can pay with our phones, identify ourselves with it and explore functions like Layar. No more wallets, laptops, or music players are needed. 

It includes big parts of my education and work, thinking up new scenarios for mobile use in advertising and education. But before creating more mobile applications, there’s one that deserves attention…an app that prevents my smartphone from getting stolen, trampled or ‘beered’!

Typed on my iPhone.

tagged with: beered, applications, iphone, mobile

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