Technology is a godsend. There is no denying that. Without technology, college research would be a mass of books and would consist of thumbing through the Dewey Decimal System and trying to find just the right book or set of books to make that paper in History or insert class here pop. To be honest, it would be a mess.
A few of us at the Arka Tech remember learning the Dewey Decimal System in elementary school and thank goodness, none of us had to actually use it. With the advent of the internet and the mass production of computers for personal use, technological advances have single-handedly made life infinitely easier and, as a result, college is a much easier animal to tackle as well.
However, there is something about technology and its advances that really chaps our hides. Cell phones and the advances that companies claim will make our lives easier. We’ve let the advertisers from cell companies like Samsung and Apple tell us that the newer our phone is the better but let us just say: that is not the case.
Case in point: recently, Apple released a look at the new iPhone 11 and 11 Pro, both of which are a trypophobic’s worst nightmare. According to Wikipedia, trypophobia is a fear of holes which is exactly what the cameras on the new iPhone 11 are reminiscent of. Seriously. Google the phobia and the iPhone and see how they compare.
Supposedly, these new and improved cameras are good for photographers. The iPhone 11 boasts a wide-angle lens and the iPhone 11 Pro does both wide-angle shots and telephoto shots. This is great for the amateur photographer. But where does that leave professional photographers?
What advertisers and companies fail to tell their consumers is that all of the iPhone and Samsung advances in camera quality are leaving camera manufacturers like Nikon and Canon in the dust. According to a May 2019 article on statista.com, digital camera sales have dropped a whopping 84 percent since 2010. Now, there is nothing wrong with taking pictures with your smartphone camera, but nothing beats the way an actual camera feels in our hands when we’re providing our photos for the paper. Not only that, physical cameras still take better quality photos.
“Camera phones are fine for photographing static subjects in good light but dedicated cameras are still superior with moving subjects and in low or difficult lighting,” Nigel Atherton, on bt.com, said.
Ian Savage, on the same site, echoed that sentiment, saying that “Compact cameras still have their place for the keen photographer who requires excellent quality and creative control.”
Plus, let’s be honest, Apple, in a lot of aspects, is still trying to play catch up with the more superior Samsung phones, but that’s a different story.
Now, this isn’t just an opportunity to rag on the iPhone. We’re ragging on Samsung too. Why? Curved screens, that’s why. The curved screen came into existence with the introduction of the Samsung Galaxy S8 back in 2017. Since then, both the S9 and S10 have featured curved screens.
There is a fundamental problem with these curved screens and it’s a frustrating one. The cases, including the Otterboxes, obviously, don’t cover these curved screens and protect them in the way that they should. This is mostly because the edge of these screens allows the user quick access to an assigned number of apps with a flick of their finger. It’s handy and it’s useful.
Until the phone is dropped and the screen cracks.
Here at the Arka Tech, we are no stranger to cracked screens. In fact, a cracked screen is simply a fact of life for many phone owners. What people don’t know is that for the Samsung phones (and possibly for all touch phones, we aren’t certain), the information for the touch screen technology is held in the curve of the screen. So, if the curve cracks, which it is prone to do because of the lack of protection, the phone in question becomes almost unusable. Since we live in a world where phones rule our lives, this makes things infinitely frustrating and difficult.
Basically, technology is great until it stops working, is broken, or it starts to encroach on better, more reliable technology that has been around for years. Will the curved screens continue to be manufactured? Yes. Will the iPhone continue to play catch up and trigger the poor trypophobes out there until the downfall of capitalism erases Apple as a company? Let’s hope not.
Either way, the Arka Tech wishes that smartphones were a bit more reliable and less prone to dying a slow death via cracked screens. Because it would make our lives a whole heck of a lot easier, but beggars can’t be choosers. Technology will continue until that fabled fall of capitalism and the advances we’ll see will probably continue to be frustrating and silly.
