Korean Job Discussion Forums

[Who's Your Daddy?]

I've had the same phone since 2004. It works. It has a camera but I've never used it.

So, I see everyone buying iphone's paying $800 or something. My question is why? Do you get a model-girlfriend with it? What's the point? I'd still be calling the same people.

Why do you people upgrade to new phones? Well you get my view.

(Oh, and I still use MS Office 2003)

[Ramen]

i got it for playing games.

love the navigation as well.

[morrisonhotel]

I was hoping for an anti-Apple rant here. Man, am I disappointed. I'm reminded of this whenever someone mentions the iPhone.

[sadguy]

well if you're not a gadget freak then nothing is special about it. just stick to your microsoft office 2003.

your iphone is pretty much a mini portable computer + some cool other things. it has helpful apps that can help you with everyday life like a scanner that can scan barcodes and tell u the cheapest price in the local area.

[Who's Your Daddy?]

[nukeday]

i have a weaker, cheaper smartphone. it is nice having one device to make calls, listen to music, watch movies, and read ebooks. it makes commutes much more bearable and i don't have to carry a man purse.

the one i have makes for a very poor web browser though.

[happiness]

i see 2mil iphones were sold here. Im sure its because its the "no. 1" phone in the world (maybe) and someone pretty boys in a drama had one. comeon you know how trends are here...


i always have my MBP with me and I hear the same thing when I take it out of my bag in cafes "thats expensive" and "foreigners use that"
my kboss says its becuase designers and stuff use apple and the avg Korean doesnt do anything of that sort. Yeah, games and chat and stuff? Apple would be overkill. But I have seen a MBP now and then.

i havent seen as many tablets here, just a few of the tab and the ipad.

hmmm

[oldtrafford]

Iphones are like garlic bread, it's the future!!

[RMNC]

I like mine because of the web browsing. It's like a little laptop in your pocket. That's the best way I can describe it. Also, the interface is very fast and very intuitive.

[jacksthirty]

Music player and phone combined! Worth it for the Maps function in itself!
I like the apps, especially the Tap Fart one...

[tottenhamtaipeinick]

I use or should I say used mine for work mainly. I just handed in my letter of resignation today !

It is great for multiple emails. I can even read legal documents on it when I am on site and sometimes if desperate read a small plan.

Great for Internet as well and it has an ipod so yeah! I didn't even mention the billions of apps that have come out. I got free tom tom and language apps like the Korean one.

Honestly for someone who isn't a gadget freak this was the best thing I have ever owned. Oh and mine was free from work !

[AmericanBornKorean]

Because they's purty

[rchristo10]

Not to go bursting any bubbles, but as a phone the basic functions of the iPhone are actually not so great. It doesn't have prescheduled text messaging (예약문자), difficult to rearrange numbers into groups after storage, doesn't allow for functional-based privacy options, poorly regionalized for Korea, has a mid-send cancellation mechanism that often works slower than the operation being run, and basically pales in comparison to most domestic phones in Korea.

But as I look at my iPhone and it's seeming listlessness, I realize that there's one thing that I could never do without: application run-ability. So if your gripe is with the phone itself, then I support you. Go out and buy a Galaxy or something more attuned to Korea. But I will not support a meaningless argument based on brand-snickering.

People still toting around a 1990s flip phone (or it's 2004 successor) with their heads hung high truly are lost in the world of their own and preparing to get trampled in true Friedman-herd fashion.

The new thing about phones (especially smart ones) is that they're not simply phones anymore. I realized that on average I spend about 4 or so hours a day just going to and from places. With the phone I can do all the emails, research, reading, music listening, language study, and even report editing I want with ease with the bloody thing, despite the functional problems mentioned above. I read the China, Korea, Japan, US, NPR, & several others in that time, while re-listening to lectures/ speeches, or pretty much anything in those usually focused 4 hours. So, though I expect many to be virtually (keke) A.D.D./ A.D.H.D. (hmmm on the latter) in the future, we sure as hell will be a great deal more adept at multi-tasking.

[Caffeinated]

Like others, I use mine not so much for the phone but for everything else.

- music player

- access to information on the internet such as weather, currency rates, maps

- diary and archiving info on the net or with a camera

- recording my workouts

- dictionary, thesaurus, translator, phrasebook

- study guide

- e-book reader

- social networking

- various gadgets: camera, videocamera, alarm, compass, calculator, flashlight, voice memo recorder

- games and entertainment

I was ok with my flip phone and iPod Touch but after losing the latter I really missed being able to do most of the above. I guess I could've replaced it with the new iPod Touch but the iPhone means one less gadget to carry. It's well worth the cost to me.

[methdxman]

For the record I have a Galaxy, so I'm not an iPhone owner.

The question is not really about usefulness but what you actually end up using. Many people don't really appreciate the usefulness of a product, but twenty years later, that product changed everything.

The iPhone has changed the entire computing industry. It's not just about mobile phones, a space that it has clearly changed.

The iPhone has changed computing as a whole. It has made way for the iPad, which has started a tablet revolution. Just see what happens in 2011 with computing.

But what Apple has done most successfully is create an entire ecosystem that ties in their customers for a long time. Music, movies, podcasts, apps through the iTunes/App Store straight to your device. This is the part that makes the iPad/iPod/iPhone successful. You can argue that another device may be technically greater but no company has this kind of vertical dominance.

Going back to the poster's question... as much as we think we have a choice as a consumer, you will have no choice. Sooner or later you will own a touchscreen phone or a tablet computer or both. Manufacturers can't just continue to produce everything so they almost always choose to go one way.

Applications, web pages, etc. similarly will be optimized to be used with tablets. Many professions will require the use of tablet PCs. Substitute products will become too expensive. There's really no point in asking...

eBooks in five years will complete dominate book sales so much that regular paper books will be too expensive to buy. What kind of publisher wants to spend all that money on the actual printing of books?

You can't stop certain things and in certain things we almost have 0 choice.