Dear Samsung,
I have owned a Samsung S6 smartphone for several years. Permit me to offer an appraisal of this device.
Satisfactory Attributes
- Satisfactory reliability
- Appearance, size, and weight.
- Fits in most shirt pockets for maximum personal utility.
- Several useful functions and features.
- A QWERTY keyboard for faster texting.
- Takes video and stills.
- Sends video and jpeg files.
Unsatisfactory Attributes
- Bad, bad ergonomics overall.
- Silicone protective cases prevent easy insertion into shirt pockets.
- No inactive margin on screen side by which to hold the phone without activating some feature.
- In general the worst ergonomics possible for a camera. It would be difficult to worsen the design.
- Subject to mandatory creeping featurism. This is a type of cancer.
- Screen difficult or impossible to see in outdoor daylight.
- Too many features. In this regard it resembles a universal kitchen tool. Eventually you realize that all you really wanted was to dice the potatoes.
- I frequently lose photographic opportunities because the f*cking camera was inadvertently toggled into some other mode, preventing activation of the “shutter”. See #3, this section. !%#@*&@#*&!
What do I really want?
- A flip phone that has a QWERTY keyboard, or
- A good purpose-built camera that offers basic telephony.
Why do I continue to use it?
- Expectation of accessibility by family, friends, and employer.
- Connection with friends and distant family via facebook.
Summation
Samsung, I pity you because you are stuck on the endless treadmill of ever increasing novelty. Because of this users are forced to adapt to updates of the Système du jour. I only wish that S6 purchase transactions would change in like manner. Listening to Samsung bitch about having to alter their enterprise system annually to accommodate the hidden needs of unknown organizations would bring a bit of cheer in a sadistic kind of way.
Lamentations on Chemistry 
8 comments
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August 23, 2017 at 1:27 pm
Philip Rakita
I read the entire post and then realized that those same comments could be made about my new Apple iPhone 6s+, especially the difficulties with the camera function. I have far too many pictures with fingertips or thumbs gracing the edge.
August 23, 2017 at 5:51 pm
Ronda
I miss my $25.00 per month, pre-paid Net Ten phone – it became a dinosaur, so the company would no longer support it. It made phone calls and sent text messages and didn’t annoy me – what’s not to love? Oh wait, it didn’t have the cute emojis~ 🙂
August 24, 2017 at 8:53 am
gaussling
We must have our emojis, mustn’t we? I think they are like Chinese characters, which loosens my disdain for character based languages.
\;-)
August 24, 2017 at 9:15 am
Philip Rakita
Interesting and insightful observation about the so-called “emojis” and how they are used to convey information. Yes, there is a parallel with the pictograms in written Chinese and Japanese. Interestingly, written Japanese contains a mix of both pictograms (kanji) and phonetic letters (kana). I guess that’s the direction we’re going with English now..
August 24, 2017 at 4:12 am
anchor
Gaussling: Is apple any better? Some of the feature (like screen invisible to outdoor light) you speak of also exist in Apple phone as well. Anyway, most companies in Asia (Samsung, and many other Chinese garden varieties) are trying to mimic Apple phones and as such represent a knock of version of the same. Nokia, IMHO was areal market innovator is beginning to make some inroad into Apple/Samsung space.
August 24, 2017 at 8:50 am
gaussling
I was suffering from indigestion of the soul when I wrote that piece. You are right of course about Apple. All of these devices comprise a business model relying on planned obsolescence and continuous economic bubble generation. And we line up willingly to let them have their way with us.
August 25, 2017 at 7:57 am
Morris
Just had to say Goodbye to my dearly beloved Note 3, mostly due to its increasing power consumption as more crap was auto-loaded on it via “updates”. This made it draw more than the battery (even a new one) could supply, resulting in frequent spontaneous restarts when demand outpaced supply.
My most treasured moment was when I was able to use the integrated TV remote (it had an onboard IR beam) to gradually turn down the volume on the TV in a hospital waiting room. “The View” went from blaring to mute over a period of several minutes.
August 25, 2017 at 8:25 am
Philip Rakita
They used to sell remote devices that were “universal” TV “turn off” buttons some years back. I remember getting one and using it on those annoying and ubiquitous TVs that are hung from the ceilings at the check in gates of airports. Nobody watches the damn things anyway and their just an unnecessary addition to the background noise. I even considered getting a cell phone jammer. Outlawed in the US, they were available in Europe.