Pocket Computers

Part of being a technologist means developing technology, but it's easy to forget that we should be using the tools we create. For a while, I've avoided the new fancy cell phones because partly I wanted to save some money, and partly I wanted to see where things were going. The money isn't an issue anymore, and after RailsConf's problem I had with communicating, navigating, and just all-around having my act together, I decided that it was time for a fancy cell phone. I was set on the sexy allure of an iPhone. I didn't want one of those ugly, clunky Android phones.

It occurred to me that I'm a software developer. I can write tools that fit my silly needs perfectly. I've done so with apps like Snippet, Twittest, and TinyTodo. These are all apps that have more than returned my initial investment of development in terms of personal productivity. Do I want to write iPhone apps using Objective-C? No. Ah, well there's an interesting condition. JRuby (and Ruby), are fun languages that allow me to express my ideas quickly. Why jump on something like Objective-C while I'm still doing interesting things over here in Ruby-land? To match this observation, an Android phone can run JRuby apps.

I still have a lot of research to do, but I'm aware that you can't run background apps on the iPhone. It's DOS on a phone, and really pretty. I'm not so sure about the Android phones, but there's not a definite no.

So I'm off to dream up all sorts of neat applications that will go on a phone I don't have yet. One such application I've dreamed up is something that will prevent me from standing outside in the parking lot talking to our Scrum Master about nerd stuff and productivity for an hour and a half.