Monday, December 17, 2012

A feature I wish they still had on phones

I was heading back to Australia recently, and true to my disorganised form, hadn't actually figured out the address of the place I was going. I could email my friend to find out, but I was getting on the plane in 15 minutes time, and probably wouldn't receive his reply before then. Once I got to Australia, of course, I wouldn't have free internet on my phone to check the reply. I checked through my phone, but didn't have his number written down anywhere. Bother.

Then I thought about it more, and I realised that I still remembered his mobile phone number from the better part of a decade ago. By contrast, I don't think I remember just about any US phone numbers whatsoever. It's not like I'm Rain Man or anything. (The fact that I'd forgotten to ask about the address in the first place kind of confirms this).

The reason I still remembered his number is that I used to call my friend back in the day when mobile phones would display the following when you call someone:

'Calling Michael Mobile
0412 345 678'

And the simple repetition of seeing the person's number in front of you over and over meant that eventually you remembered it.

I'm not saying I'd trade the modern version of syncing and backing up contacts for the previous one. But given you're going to be looking at the screen anyway over and over before you put it up to your ear, it would be incredibly handy to have the option to display the number. That way I could remember my US friends' numbers for the cases when I don't have my phone on me, or when it's dead.

Apparently I'm the only one who cares about this, since it would be trivially easy to implement, but nobody's doing it. Ah well.

Anyway, as this post implies, my holidaying around creates a lower than normal volume of written hilarity. Part time posting to continue for the next few weeks, and full time posting to resume in the New Year.

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