Mobile

During the summer I discovered something new which really annoyed me — even more than all the other things which really annoyed me, such as people who walk too slowly — and that was flaky or absent internet connections. In the years since I first got on the internet — via 14.4K modem, in case you were wondering — I seem to have become rather attached to it. An absence of connectivity — or worse, the taunting, tantalising, frustrating promise of an almost connection — suddenly became the most frustrating thing in the world. I wouldn't say I was addicted... but then again, I did stop halfway through writing that last sentence to check Twitter, so maybe...

During the week I was away, I burnt through 28Mb of data. And this wasn't your average, everyday data. This was premium, first class, solid platinum, diamond encrusted roaming data. I know it was stupid, but I really couldn't help myself. Most of it went on Google Maps, helping a rather tired and stupid novice traveller during his first stumblings about Japanese streets find his way to his hotel. (One observation I'll make is that the caching of map data by the Map app in iOS 5 seems greatly improved over previous versions. Despite infrequent use ours or days apart it was very rare to find it having to re-download tiles.)

The rest of my roaming usage went on Foursquare. Okay, I'll admit I seem to have become rather fond of racking up check-in points, but in my defence these also served as a handy log of where I'd been. I also found the lists of near by points of interest to be useful. I somehow managed to resist heroically the urge to check Twitter every few minutes — it probably helped that the timezone difference meant that most of the people I like to follow weren't active while I was out and about.

But the thing is, in this day and age, we shouldn't have to live like this, furtively nipping into Settings to turn data roaming on for the length of a download or check in and then quickly turning it off again. Smartphones are wonderful devices, but under these conditions we discover exactly how reliant on a network connection the majority of the really useful apps we use are. (And as a quick aside, can I just wonder aloud how the hell Words with Friends is allowed into the App Store when it blatantly quits if you try to run it without a connection.) I've observed before that the current Mobile trend is just an intermediate stage towards an eventual world of ubiquitous computing. To help us get there, we need to make sure that reliable data connections are always available wherever you are in the world, and that it doesn't cost an unreasonable sum to tap into them.