Tweetin’ ‘Bout My Generation

I have two teenage daughters, one in high school, the other a year from entering. Both have been raised with a digital gadget of some type in their hands. At first, they were made by Leapfrog and Mattel and focused on education and dexterity. Later, the children’s mobile device of choice was from Nintendo and delivered gaming and entertainment (“backseat babysitters”). They then moved onto Apple devices, primarily the iPod Touch and borrowed or hand-me-down iPads. And, you know what they say: Once you go app, you’ll never go back.

I stop and think about how they, the pinnacle millennials (born in 1999 and 2001), view technology differently from their parents’ generation. Both they and their parents are gadget-toting online addicts with active social media accounts. The similarities in our perceptions of technology and how we use it far outweigh the differences. But those differences are interesting and worthy of further exploration.

For people of my generation—middle aged geezers too young to have seen The Who at Woodstock, but too old to have fond childhood memories of Gameboy or Hello Kitty—consumer technology still has a decidedly sci-fi feel to it. We indulge frequently in mobile device tapping and social media because it’s simply so amazing to us. We still have the “gee whiz” afterglow. But our kids don’t hold that same amazement—just like how my generation wasn’t amazed by color TV or electric windows in cars when we were teens. To them, these broadband-connected touchscreen gadgets are the norm. They have almost no memories of not living with one on a day-to-day basis.

Another interesting thing I’ve noted is how it is my generation, the middle-aged dorks, who lust most for the latest technology and better whatever. My daughters are more focused on what flows through their devices, not the devices themselves. They suck down Tumblr and Instagram and YouTube using “computers” and home theater equipment with screens ranging in size from 3.5 inches to 60 inches (afforded by cool wireless streaming tech like Apple’s AirPlay and Google’s Chromecast).

When I asked my thirteen-year-old if she would prefer a new iPad Mini or a new iPod Touch, she seemed disinterested in both—like she simply didn’t need to upgrade because everything she wanted was there on her late-generation Touch. When pressed, which device did she choose? The less expensive, not-as-nice Touch. Why? Because it’s more mobile. Her back pocket is the litmus test. The iPad Mini she considers too big. The Touch (or iPhone), for her, is the perfect size. Sometimes even the youngest generations embrace the “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality. (For more consideration of smartphone display sizes, see my blog post Smartphone Display Size: Two Perspectives.)

My older daughter, a year or so ago, broke the screen on her iPod Touch. It looked really bad; I couldn’t have used the device for even a day. But she somehow managed with it for several months. To my generation, tech gadgets—especially the best and latest examples—are very much status symbols (just like a sports car, Rolex watch, or expensive dress). And to have a cracked windshield on your BMW would be a shame. Unacceptable even. But to my daughters, all of their friends have either iPod Touches, iPhones, or Android tablets or smartphones. These slick devices aren’t really status symbols to these kids; in their world, everyone is using BMW-grade mobile devices. What matters much more to millennials (at least mine) is the health and vitality of their internet-based social lives, even if they are mostly consuming the communications of others, not necessarily tossing out media themselves.

I’m kind of the opposite. I’d love the latest greatest smartphone or tablet every year. If money grew on trees, I’d always upgrade. It only keeps getting better. But to my daughters, the millennials, the social media that flows through those devices is the real focus. The manner in which they get there—the hardware device in their hands—isn’t nearly as important.

Curt Robbins

[See also Social Media’s Anti-Socialization Myth.]

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Curt Robbins is author of the following books from Amazon Kindle:

• Home Theater for the Internet Age ($9.95)
• Understanding Personal Data Security ($4.99)
• Understanding Home Theater ($4.99)
• Understanding Cutting the Cord ($4.99)
• Understanding Digital Music ($4.99)

You can follow him on Twitter at @CurtRobbins, read his AV-related blog posts at rAVe Publications, and view his photos on Flickr.

Smartphone Display Size: Two Perspectives

Of all the modern mobile devices available to consumers, smartphones surely grab the lion’s share of both headlines and water cooler chatter. Not even the revered new kid on the block, the tablet, can keep as much of our collective attention as its smaller cousin. However, this back pocket technology can be confusing for a variety of reasons. First and foremost, smartphones are such a dynamic and rapidly moving target. You can be a genius regarding the latest smartphone functions and technologies, but two years later you’ll barely be familiar with available models and won’t recognize half the acronyms.

Yes, stalwarts like the iPhone and top Android models like Samsung’s Galaxy, HTC’s One, and LG’s G3 will probably be around for years to come. They’re all great and can easily make you very happy. Most will serve loyally for the duration of a two-year service contract. If treated politely, they will last well into a second life as a hand-me-down for a teen or whoever buys it on Craigslist.

But how do you cut through the marketing and product review hype, manifested as a thick fog of new age corporate babble, hipster imagery, and obscure acronyms, to purchase a phone that’s best for you and your lifestyle? How do you escape the primitive and illogical concept of a phone that’s “best” and instead seek out one that’s most appropriate—all while potentially costing you less than many competitors?

Simple. Determine your priorities.

In terms of a mobile gadget like a smartphone, these priorities pertain to digital media. Specifically, images and video. Smartphones are single-handedly crushing the camera and camcorder markets. Consumers are choosing to replace their point-and-shoot and even high-end, bulky DSLR cameras with svelt smartphones. This is a real validation of the fact that some smartphones are very good at capturing data, such as photos and high-definition video (including super-slick panoramic images). Premium models like the iPhone, Google Nexus 5, and Motorola Moto X (as well as many others) all capture high-resolution photos and high-definition video (sometimes with stereo sound). It’s the type of stuff that you can display on a huge 70-inch TV hanging on your wall and say “Wow, that looks really great.”

Smartphones are increasingly good at displaying a variety of media, specifically video and photos. Larger displays (even from traditionally conservative Apple) are allowing smartphones to better accommodate high-definition video sources from Netflix, YouTube, and Hulu Plus. Stereo speakers are helping improve the audio portion of the equation, even though this is still the Achilles heel of mobile device media playback (and one reason headphones are so popular).

Choosing the best phone for your particular needs, and getting the best deal on it, is a matter of determining which function—capture or display—is most important to you.

Personally, I favor capture, not display. However, I’m also the unofficial family archivist, an amateur photographer, and work out of my home office (where, if I want to consume video, I’ll use Chromecast or AirPlay to toss it up on a 60-inch plasma display with subwoofer-enhanced surround sound). I capture tons of video and photos and grab a few on nearly a daily basis. For me, the size of the display (the current obsession of the marketing efforts of so many smartphone companies) isn’t very important. Because most consumers upgrade their smartphones every two years, along with their service contract, a given model will typically provide only a couple years of service. However, the audio, video, and images captured by your smartphone will be archived for (hopefully) hundreds of years. (To learn how to preserve your data for centuries, check out my Understanding Personal Data Security book.)

Because I’m so picky about the quality of the media I capture and the memories of friends, family, and special events that are so precious, I really have little regard for the size of a smartphone screen. In fact, larger phones are more cumbersome and less comfortable stored someplace like the back of my jeans or in a jacket breast pocket. And less comfortable means I’ll be less likely to have the device on me. Meaning fewer Kodak moments.

If you’re a person who travels a lot or, for whatever reason, spends lot of time sitting around sucking down a variety of media, a smartphone with a larger, higher-quality display (OLED technology is a big winner among the Android phones) and a nice set of in-ear headphones might best serve you. If, however, you’re more like me and it’s all about the media you capture and plan to keep forever, a phone with a smaller display—but superlative camera and camcorder functions (like the iPhone 5S and 6 variants)—is the ticket. After all, what you capture amounts to more than mere photos and videos. These are the digital heirlooms that you’ll pass on to your children and grandchildren.

As the PR machines choke and sputter and everyone gets excited about the latest generation of the most popular smartphones in our annual hypefest of product introductions, remember that sometimes smaller is better. All you really care about might come down to capture quality, not video playback. Besides, think of all the money you can save buying last year’s model instead of that fancy new-and-improved toy, ala nothing more than a bigger display that’s helping write all the headlines for lazy journalists and bloggers and eating up your disposable income.

Happy shopping and choose wisely, grasshoppa.

Curt Robbins

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Curt Robbins is author of the following books from Amazon Kindle:

• Home Theater for the Internet Age ($9.95)
• Understanding Personal Data Security ($4.99)
• Understanding Home Theater ($4.99)
• Understanding Cutting the Cord ($4.99)
• Understanding Digital Music ($4.99)

You can follow him on Twitter at @CurtRobbins, read his AV-related blog posts at rAVe Publications, and view his photos on Flickr.

The Efficiency of Flipboard

When I got my first iPad, the third iteration and first model sporting a high-resolution “Retina” display, there was an app I was really psyched to install: Flipboard. Flipboard is a highly customizable news aggregator, or “newsreading” app, that has become an indispensable part of my daily news gathering, reading, and social media consumption. This media aggregator can also be leveraged for targeted research (which I commonly do for my consumer tech books). Flipboard is the pinnacle “go to” app for tens of millions of mobile technology consumers. I’m obviously a big fan.

Flipboard is one of those great apps/media services that is not only super-easy to configure and use, but could even become a part of your obsessive daily regiment of screen tapping. With more than 100 million users, it’s one of the most popular news aggregators to land on a smartphone or tablet (you can now also access it from its website). You can connect your Twitter, Instagram, Google+, and Facebook feeds to the service, keeping you uber up-to-date and embracing the one-stop shopping philosophy and efficiency that top-shelf news aggregators so capably deliver.

Minimal, Attractive Ads

I don’t typically like advertising-supported apps, but Flipboard features professionally designed national ads sprinkled on just lightly enough that they never seem to get in the way. However, this volume will surely increase; Flipboard’s ad burden could become unacceptable, especially to overly sensitive fans of ad-free subscription pricing models (like me).

Now you know why Netflix is so popular; it’s not the semi-stale selection of movies, but rather the lack of commercials. It’s currently impossible to rid your Flipboard feed of ads. Unfortunately, paid subscriptions aren’t available. It would be nice if, in the future, the service offered both a free, ad-supported version and also a feature-enhanced, ad-free paid variety (like the Pandora music streaming service).

I rely on Flipboard to such a great extend that I began using one of the neater features of this service, its magazines. A “magazine” is basically just a collection of articles found via any Flipboard media source. Magazines are available to everyone on Flipboard. You simply tag an article for inclusion in one of your magazines (you can maintain several) and it instantaneously appears within its pages, or boards (thus the name of the company).

Even nicer, there’s a few Flipboard extensions for the Chrome browser that allow you to add virtually any web-based article or content to a magazine (I use + Flip It; also check out Add to Flipboard). Simply click the Flipboard icon on the Chrome toolbar, choose the destination magazine, and viola! It’s there until you choose to remove it. This can be done from both the desktop and mobile devices, like your iPad.

Magazines Are Great

A Flipboard magazine can be updated as frequently—or infrequently—as the owner prefers. Magazines don’t cost anything to create or maintain and provide a wonderful service to the Flipboard community: Member-curated content. Articles found in magazines often touch on eccentric niche interests and major trending topics alike, providing a very filtered view of the millions of highly dynamic articles offered by Flipboard.

We get enough content curated by corporations; it’s a refreshing change to consume what a peer of mine, i.e. another member of Flipboard and probably just some middle class shlep like me, has collected. One of my Flipboard magazines, Middle Class Tech, is a collection of a few hundred articles from news sources like Ars Technica, The Atlantic, Transport Evolved, GigaOM, CarNewsCafe, Engadget, Teslarati, and many others. It focuses on affordable technology that touches the lives of middle class consumers, especially early adopters and cord cutting nuclear families.

Check It Out

If you’re not familiar with Flipboard, but a user of mobile tech, I recommend checking it out. Then again, I’m a Netflix-addicted cord cutter who doesn’t watch the local newscast or read a newspaper (I want it all on my tablet or smartphone). Beyond the basic ability to choose the media outlets from which you want to receive articles, Flipboard’s magazines provide you with a look inside the hobbies, interests, and passions of fellow users of this service. This is the next generation of the RSS reader, and so slick you’ll never look back.

I even use Flipboard for article and book research. In fact, I’ve created six different Flipboard magazines for topics ranging from SpaceX to hydrogen fuel cell cars. It allows me to easily collect and archive articles about these topics so I can conveniently access them on any mobile device in the future—like when I’m writing a freelance article or developing a book related to those topics. You may find similar uses for magazines that you, or others, create.

Be Self-Centered

Typically, Flipboard  promotes its magazines as a way to act as a curator and make your collections available to others. Which is certainly true and the primary purpose. However, these magazines are so easy to create and maintain, you should seriously consider creating some soley for your own use. The fact that others can check them out is just icing on the cake.

Regardless of whether you latch onto Flipboard’s magazines as either a curator or consumer, I encourage you to check out this 21st century method for collecting up-to-the-minute news from dozens of media sources, including long-form articles and your social media accounts.

[This article was originally published on August 27, 2014 and updated on September 18, 2015.]

Curt Robbins

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Curt Robbins is author of the following books from Amazon Kindle:

• Home Theater for the Internet Age ($9.95)
• Understanding Personal Data Security ($4.99)
• Understanding Home Theater ($4.99)
• Understanding Cutting the Cord ($4.99)
• Understanding Digital Music ($4.99)

You can follow him on Twitter at @CurtARobbins, read his automotive articles on CarNewsCafe, his AV-related posts at rAVe Publications, and view his photos on Flickr.