#184. Phones and Phone-Like Devices, Ranked, Kinda
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This short bonus episode, taped right after the guys' BlackBerry review, ditches new releases entirely so Sonny, JVL, and Mike can rank their own personal phone histories by how exciting each device felt at the time. Sonny traces a straight line from a Nokia brick in college to his first flip phone around 2006-07 to an unbroken iPhone streak ever since, recalling that he was sold within thirty seconds of a coworker showing him the original. JVL counts down his five most thrilling gadgets in ascending order — the iPhone 3, the Motorola StarTAC, the Motorola MicroTAC, and the Palm Pilot (on which he once burned sixty hours hand-transcribing his address book with a stylus) — before crowning the HD DVD player his all-time number one, insisting the jump to 1080p outdid even the smartphone revolution. Mike, the group's Android holdout, remembers his mom's early car-bound cellular phone and his own beloved Nokia 3310 with Snake, and confesses he only switched to an iPhone two months ago for work dual-SIM reasons after years of resisting just to spite his iPhone-owning high-school friends. Along the way they debate whether Blackberry's DC dominance came from Verizon's early exclusivity or its end-to-end encryption, needle the movie's hand-wringing over its China manufacturing given the iPhone's own supply chain, and rave again about the slow-pullback warehouse reveal shot in BlackBerry. There's no extended opening banter this time — Mike cold-opens straight into the phone rankings and the episode wraps quickly once everyone's device history is exhausted.
From the show notes
We talked phones! None of us owned a BlackBerry but we have owned many other phone and phone-like devices.
Full transcript
Mike00:00:00Welcome back to the sub-beacon bonus episode we just discussed blackberry everyone should go see it and we thought let's talk about phones phones phones ranked with from from from the one that Alexander Graham Bell developed where you had to like take off the receiver all the way up to the.
Sonny00:00:30iPhone whatever we're on fourteen Sunny JVL what's your favorite phone I don't know how we want to do this I don't know I don't know what the actual format of this the show is but I I think the the best way to do it is to run through our own personal history of phones and see how that stacks up against okay everybody so here are the phones I have in my in my lifetime here the phones I've interacted with I've had a landline obviously. Corded hand line cordless I feel like those are two different things and can yes we can we can discuss that I had the the bag my parents had like one of those bag phones you know you like plug in your your car cigarette lighter that was like an emergency phone I had in my car it just in case there was a you know a disaster when I went to college I had a nokia the nokia you know the brick the brick that you could be indestructible phone. And then that was that was that for a long time I finally got a flip phone in like two thousand six or two thousand seven or something like that which was the first time I ever really started texting with the you know alphanumeric whatever and then and then after that I got on the iPhone track and I have never gotten off I've had iPhones ever since two thousand first person who I knew it's it came into my office to show it to me and it instantly I've been a total skeptic and within a thirty seconds of having it I was like yes I must have one. I mean it's an it was an amazing piece of technology and I was you know I had I had had an iPod an iPod before that and so I had I was like kind of in that Apple ecosystem anyway right and I was like I was like I like I mean my iPod was a game changer for me it like I could have all of my music you know but the but the iPhone the iPhone is like such just such a revolutionary piece of technology that I have I have been now I guess fourteen years now using I've thirteen years now. Something like that been using using my iPhone in various iterations I've probably had five of them over the years and you didn't have a Blackberry storm but never had a black I never had a Blackberry I never I never got the Blackberry because I just didn't I didn't really need one I was not you know I just didn't it wasn't it wasn't a thing I really needed so I never I never had one and then the iPhone because it was because it was a thing that I could use to replace my iPod which had finally failed and like it is.
JVL00:03:00It did everything I needed it was a great great Mike were you a Blackberry carrier never no so ever I was not so we living in DC as we all did I would say seventy to eighty percent of the people we knew had Blackberries a lot of black DC is a black was a Blackberry town because they were working the government right and I view this is what's interesting there was there's a moment in in Blackberry the movie where they talk about how they turned the Blackberry into a status symbol. Right if you had a Blackberry that it meant you were important and that is certainly true on the other hand the way I looked at that during that world is that the people who had Blackberries were were basically indentured servants. Because what it meant was that their bosses could reach out and task them with shit eighty five times a day no matter what time it was and so I never wanted a Blackberry. And. I was I was glad we didn't have it and. I so while it was true that you could see again this is such a it's a beep thing right like it the kind of town that DC is these little lower level functionaries really did see their Blackberries as status symbols oh I'm sorry I would like to be having a burger at five guys with you, but I need to check my Blackberry hold on.
Sonny00:04:22Oh yeah.
JVL00:04:24Hold on.
Mike00:04:26Oh the the congressman needs the hold on the congressman needs. Oh yeah, all that, but can I can I suggest there might be a more prosaic explanation as well sure, which is that like black am I correct that Blackberry was as the movie demonstrates was sort of Verizon was first in on on Blackberry and DC is a Verizon town I mean that that is I mean that that they're all government contracts.
Sonny00:04:49Yeah, but it was also it was the end to end encryption, which was the big thing for like so this was like this was a thing during the Trump years Trump had an iPhone he like using his iPhone, but it's not secure in the same way. Blackberry is secure. It was a real problem.
JVL00:05:04So so what what what's your phone look like JVL what your your phone history, so I my phone history is is similar to Sonny's I was going to rank for you my five favorite devices in in the way in which they excited me, which is separate from their utility there. So beginning at the at the bottom of these number five. Was the iPhone three, which was my first iPhone I waited for the iPhone three after seeing Sonny's iPhone I thought it was fantastic and I wanted one immediately, but like Apple always does. Apple launches their new products minus features that they already have that they know are crucial so that their second generation and third generation products are already going to be gigantic leaps up the tree so that all of your early adopters will get the. First one, but then they'll have to get the second one and the first iPhone was not on a three G network and if there was another technical limitation to it having to do with the screen, I think what didn't have a camera. It was that it didn't have so it wasn't until you get to iPhone three that you have what is what should have been the launch product for the iPhone and for which they had the technology of the time it wasn't like they had to go and invent this other shit right but they you know they slow walked it up and so the iPhone three was for. Me a super excited revolutionary was great number two the motorola star tech so the motorola star tech was the first cell phone I had that was small enough to carry around and the the idea that I could have it and carry a cell phone in my pocket was just mind-blowingly cool and did I use it when I was walking around no not really. Because it was super expensive to call things you were paying for minutes I mean it you were paying like you know eighty cents for a minute of phone conversation or something like that on your your motorola star tech and from singular I think I was on the singular network which I think is at&t now I don't really remember singular singular no no singular yeah singular is at&t yeah number three for me was the motorola micro tech which was my first cell phone. Which was as you say sunny it looked like a military contraption it didn't look like a and I bought this when I fall in graduation from college I drove around the country for four months playing basketball and I wanted to have a cell phone with me in case I broke down in the middle of nowhere and this thing sat in the glove box of my car I think I probably used it four times total because again it was fabulous you know every phone call you made was like six dollars so I did I it was a you know in case of emergency break glass. But the idea that you could have a phone like you me as a twenty two-year-old nobody could afford to have a phone stuck in the glove box of his car was wild and was just super cool and even though I never use it and probably didn't need it it was great to have it number two so we're getting more excited as we go here the Palm Pilot Palm Pilot features in Blackberry the movie and there was there were two of them. There was the Palm Pilot and then the Newton which was the apple version of the Palm Pilot and the Newton was an obviously compromised device from the start the Palm Pilot was the much more refined better version of this and the Palm Pilot it was a black and white not even black and white like an LCD almost a calculator type touch screen and you had a stylus and the idea was though that you would just write in your normal handwriting and the Palm Pilot would transform like it knew that your cursive T was a T right. And they did that you could have take notes in it and write things down in it and have your entire address book in it instead of carrying a you know just like a a spiral notebook like an idiot like an idiot using paper and graphite you could use this brick of gray plastic and when I bought my Palm Pilot I spent sixty hours writing all of the contacts from my physical address book into it and then when I bought my next one. Palm Pilot I had to do it all over again there's no way to transfer contacts from one pilot to the next Palm Pilot and in but you kept the but the Palm Pilot they were telling you that like when you're actually doing that you're training you're training the Palm Pilot to understand your handwriting as if it's some fucking neural network that was like no that's not but man was I super duper excited about the Palm Pilot it was the least useful of all these things I've just spoken about. The least useful but the thing I was the most excited about because it felt like the future could you even use it as a phone oh no yeah exactly it wasn't even it wasn't a phone no but it felt like a Star Trek device it's like this thing that you could do like text like you know you take your notes into it and what it it just felt like something out of science fiction in a way that the phones didn't the phones felt like a natural evolution of these things which already existed right the iPhones felt like a jump up the evolutionary scale from the Palm Pilot but it was still you know like the Palm Pilot was this thing like the Blackberry it was this thing tied it was a device that was one of those things the cell phones were all just like evolutionary jumps up from the telephone the Palm Pilot felt like something totally new and as exciting as all these are the the the gadget that I was the most excited about and have I've never had it equaled the HD DVD player I realize it has nothing to do with communications this but it's all just it's all just devices and stuff and the idea that I could finally watch movies in high definition which now if you watch two if you watch 1080p now your eyes hurt yeah but the jump up from normal four three ratio television horrible to 1080p was so enormous it was like you could finally see things for real in your home yeah in a way that had never ever been possible before and I I still remain more excited about that than any of these other things if I could have access either to a smartphone or to like you know if I had to choose a technology having being able to watch things in high definition at home in the right aspect ratio or like carry around a smartphone I would rather be able to to watch things at home in high definition
Sonny00:11:59nothing beats it all right there well there you go uh Michael Mike what was your what was your phone
Mike00:12:07my so my mom had was an early relatively early cell phone adopter I remember she had an air touch cellular which was a provider that I think ended up getting eaten up by Verizon um but she had to
JVL00:12:22carry it like on a strap like with the early early cell phones not that early but it was my memory
Mike00:12:28of it was that it was always in the car it was a cell phone it wasn't attached to the car but it was always in the car that's okay remember the idea was like if you were it was like an extension or or the next logical step from the car phone right this was like the idea um my first so I'm 35 so my first phone uh cell phone was the Nokia uh uh what is it 3310 um the the brick the nuclear do and uh you could play snake oh snake I loved snake um it was like it was like everything cool about the graphing calculator and none of the actual math stuff that you have to do you know um and then you know it it's like it's all kind of a haze I remember uh you know the Motorola razr and um you know the flip phone and then the one where I had one I can't remember who made it made it was maybe it was Motorola where you like the keyboard like shifted down from the rest of the phone like you turned the landscape wise and then pushed up I think that was Motorola was that Motorola it felt like Motorola was doing all that kind of like cutting edge with the with the phone design um and then I was a so I remember I was in college when the iPhone came out I remember where I was I remember which classroom in which building in which class I was in actually when I first saw it um I also remember former major league baseball player Pedro Alvarez was in that class um and uh he was not a former he was a future uh major league baseball player then but I remember a kid that I was I think was in my fraternity and he like he like showed up with the iPhone it's like oh what is that what is that um so that was very exciting but of course I did not actually get an iPhone of my own until like two months ago uh as you guys know I
JVL00:14:28was android ride or die uh why were you so why did you make that decision because that's a choice right you made a choice at some point in your life that I don't want an iPhone I don't can be confined by their sandbox I will live free in an open operating system that's exactly what went
Mike00:14:47through my head when I chose the was it really was it an ideological choice no but but there came a point so like I have a very core group of friends from high school that we are still very close we text constantly every day and they have made fun of me for years for not having an iPhone oh you didn't want to give them the satisfaction the gree yes so so there was a there was a bit of spike going on here a feeling that yes uh you you have I have power over you you pull and and the truth is is that like I I like my iPhone which I started this new job I I combined my phones I had an iPhone when I worked at CNN but it was a separate phone I've now combined them all into one phone which is an iPhone which has the best uh dual sim capability um better than the Android options so I had to do it I gave into it but like I did like having that bit of power and I do think that actually the whole iMessage thing like Google is correct that this is this is like an Apple problem not a Google problem with the with the with the green bubbles but um I have it it's fine it actually I've configured it to look just like my old androids so it's it's all fine they're all the same everything's converging toward the same thing
JVL00:15:58basically is there anything you like better about the iPhone compared to your Android or
Mike00:16:02like worse um I like it besides the build quality yeah I mean I I think it's like a sleeker phone um it is um look iMessage is like convenient you can see when people are typing all that stuff although my my wife has a Google five phone she's she's a cheapo and like you can do it on there too if you're if you're sending between Google uh Android phones so yeah but then you have two Luddites so hey we were a family of Luddites until two months ago
Sonny00:16:34there is one funny thing in the in the Blackberry movie that we didn't really talk about which is that it portrays this move to China as like a total abandonment of ideals and and you know this is where the worst products get made of course selling out what's that selling out right except of course like the iPhone is very famously made in China by a bunch of you know slaves in factories so like it there that was like that was an unresolved tension at the heart of that that little moment
JVL00:17:03yeah all right well I'm sorry I just I want to go back to Blackberry for a minute the the moment in in the movie where we get this is that things have gone south and uh Lazaritis is in we we start a very tight shot of him opening up a box of the new basically knockoff versions of you know Blackberry's knockoff version of the eye an iPhone that clicks right it has a touch screen and he pulls one out to look at it and it's like it's got wrong with it and so he opens it up and fixes it with his little screwdriver and puts it back and pauses and then goes to the next one to open those and as this is happening you're pulling back and pulling back and pulling back and you see that he is not standing in front of a single crate of these things he's standing in a warehouse full of them yeah and it's one of these great reveals like in uh Raiders of the Lost Ark yes I had the same thought or at the end of uh not the end the beginning of uh uh layer cake where you know how many fucking greenhouses are there and you pull back you say I'm sorry I just need to digress that about again how great this fucking movie is and you should all go see it uh all right so you don't the the iPhone stuff you don't
Mike00:18:22have any other nothing like like yeah it turns out this stuff really is better or no it's fine I mean the the thing is is that like the Samsung uh Google you know uh Android phones like they all have great cameras so it's not as if the iPhone camera is like some marvel it's it's fine it works fine and it helps me professionally as well because I get the sense that sources prefer iMessage um to see in my to see in their green little thing so I'm all about pleasing my sources um so no it's fine you don't use signal uh no because I don't do anything like with like I I'm not like you're not talking to dissidents exactly I'm not talking dissidents or like people in the intelligence community or anything like that so I'm talking to mere political uh figures so all right well that's all we're giving this bonus episode uh we'll see you next time
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