As were many consumer electronics, radios, walkmans, calculators, landline phones, etc.
Get your own shower thought, dude.
Jk
I will add, of all the things, alarm clocks seem like they deserved it the least. They did one thing and they were fine at it.
They did one thing and they were fine at it.
so were radios, calculators, landline phones etc
You right. I don’t need to argue. I will elaborate, if that’s OK.
So radios:
I love the old am/fms super neat. Come in all shapes and sizes. By the time I was oldenough, though, they had “boom boxes”. Boom box wanted to give you speakers that you could blast through the house, CD tray, cassette player, cassette recorder, microphone jack. I’m more then happy to trade in the boom box for a phone and set of Bluetooth headphones.
Calculators:
The times you need a calculator you don’t have one. If you did, it was garbage. No one’s packing a ti-87 all day everyday. Not to say there wasn’t really nice pocket calculators, just i never got much use out of them.
Landline:
Miss them. Have memories of using my grandparents rotary phone. Just, by the time I was old enough, no point in having two phones. At least for me.
I’m not looking to argue either, I’m just trying to share how I see things, so this feels more like a discussion to me.
I mean yeah, I don’t think anyone can argue against the convenience of modern technology. I just think we’d be fine without smartphones.
Instead of a boom box or a radio (which weren’t really meant to be portable anyways) you could use an mp3 player, by now they’d probably have Bluetooth as well.
I know some people who carry around dedicated calculators despite having a smartphone, so I think if you need it somewhat regularly, you’d just have it with you. And if you don’t have it with you, your calculations are probably not that important and urgent, so you could do them at home if necessary.
Regarding landlines, there’s barely any situation where I feel the need to contact someone right in that moment, so a landline with a voicemail would be fine most of the time.
Long story short, all I’m trying to say is that smartphones have replaced a lot of things that were fine, not just alarm clocks, and I don’t see why they ‘deserved it the least’. I do understand that I can’t expect a shower thought to go that deep though.
No, like I said to start. You’re right. Thanks for sharing your perspective with me.
Thank you for doing the same :)
About a year ago I got one of those alarm clocks that slowly light up to simulate the sun rise, and that’s been a game changer. I wake up so much easier and feel less groggy when I do.
Highly recommend
Also highly recommend gradual nature sound alarm sounds like birds and stuff. Wake up way less grumpy.
The Smartphone Wars, when Nokia bombardments were a daily reality! Rough times…
That’s also how the alarm clocks were wiped out! It was a massacre…
I’m just thankful we were able to negotiate peace. Though, we could have done better the data plan.
We got really lucky the RAZRs were personable and took pity on us, the data plan was a reasonable compromise at the time… It was either that, or those barely functional Sony nav nubs for everyone, and that would’ve been assured extinction!
Motorola will rise again!!!
OMG that ringtone is stuck in my head now.
Yes, that was their incoming shriek, you’d hear a Doppler of the Nokia ringtone, then it started raining bricks!
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The analog one with 2 bells that never keeps accurate time? Or the horizontal one with the radio and the flappy, rolodex-shaped parts that display the time?
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Got the truncated version without the radio, just the clock half, faux wood grain, all that. Took me awhile to land the perfect one at a thrift store, but it should last until Ragnarök.
For the alarm part, “Hey Google, set alarm to $x.” (I mounted minis in all my ceilings for convenience and music.)
I have a Sony Dream Machine CD clock radio. I can wake up to CD’s. It’s pretty cool. I hope it lasts forever.
Narriator: It broke the next day.
I would actually cry
I have an alarm clock / noise machine combo and I love it. I prefer a phone-free bedroom to reduce distraction opportunities. I also completely agree that phone wake-up sounds are just far too aggressive. All it takes for me to wake up is having it change from “brown noise” to “ocean waves” and I’m awake immediately.
You know what I miss? Answering Machines.
I’m tired of voice mail. I want my “voice mail” to live ON the phone and be provided by an app.
I don’t see why this couldn’t be done with an app… though I’m not an app developer… So what do I know.
Modern voicemail isn’t done on device like it was with an answering machine. Instead of your machine picking up, your telecom provider does, so you’re no longer actually receiving a call, they are. Theoretically you could have it pick up a ring before your telecom does, but then you’d have 2 mailboxes and if you’re offline the call would go to your provider’s box.
This is even the case for landlines nowadays. I had to setup a new phone for a lady and Comcast was snagging the call before her machine would. Had to change it to pickup before they did.
You can disable the carrier provided voicemail on some phones
There’s also security sandboxes and stuff in Android which don’t allow interaction with the phone components. You ever notice that there are no apps at all which can record the call you’re on? That’s why. They’ve locked it down so that you don’t have the tools to create such an app in the first place.
Thats not true at all. On a previous android phone I had a voice recorder app. It could also record the screen.
Voice recorder. Not phone call recorder. When I said phone components I’m not talking about the smartphone’s sensors and components. I’m saying the “phone” components which make the smartphone able to receive and make calls. That’s actually a sandboxed environment.
I have that clock that projects the time onto the ceiling. It’s the best!
Me too. Just got it recently. I thought it would be a gimmick and maybe it is. But I love it.
It’s so nice to wake up in the night, barely open one eye, and know what time it is. Once you get used to it, you’ll miss it when you travel. My FIL had a small folding travel one.
I just got a new alarm clock and haven’t used my phone since. It’s a bit unreliable, doesnt have a snooze function, and the sound is a shrill cry, but I love her anyway.
This is true. Looking more broadly there’s a bunch of industries that have been affected by smart phones.
Here’s just some of the devices you no longer need thanks to I-phone / Androids:
Strictly speaking the replacement for the gameboy is not iPhone / Android.
It’s the Switch / PSP / other similar handheld consoles.
I would love to have that red phone with the number dial though, for decorative purposes :)
Phones are powerful enough to emulate those devices via software
Hard to get a game of bones going with just a smart phone.
I’m sure there’s a dice app that adds the “clickity clack” effects. After that it’s practically the same lol.
All I want is a reliable alarm clock that isnt a fucking app or sony’s bizarre “dream machine” that can’t fucking keep time.
I had a pay-as-you-go Nokia from an overseas trip that was perfect as a nonfunctional phone/alarm clock when I got home because it announced the time. Hit snooze at 8am and next alarm it’d say “the time is 8:10” and then do the noise.
I wish I would have kept my Garfield alarm clock. “Nahhhhh, don’t get up, sleep longer”. Hated getting up, but loved that thing.
I never stopped having an alarm clock. It stopped being the alarm but remained the bedroom clock.
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