The iPhone botnet, coming soon to an over-priced phone near you

Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

The word used was "pointless", not "useless". There's a use there, sure, but why would you do it when you could just pick up the phone and call? Sprout's example is valid, but as far as I know, the vast majority of texting works out to be the same as an IM conversation, except you're paying for each message. In the US at least, you have to pay extra for the privilege of texting (20 cents per message for me since I have no plan, but at least $5 a month for the minimum plan). Why pay extra to communicate in a more cumbersome way than the one that's already included in your cell phone plan?

If you're texting on a standard non-data phone, then you have to type out words via the numeric keypad, which has to be freaking annoying unless you're a wiz. If you have a phone with a keyboard, then you've already got a data/internet plan, so you might as well send an email.

For quick things, text messages are excellent. If I go to a club and want to meet up with some friends, a call would be impossible, so texting is just an easy way to find someone. I personally am much more annoyed by people who keep jabbering loudly on the phone, and I hardly see a problem with people texting in the cinema or a comedy club,which seems to be a big issue for Angel for some weird reason, would you rather have phones ringing with the most annoying tunes followed by moronic conversation?

Texting in Europe is dirt cheap, I mainly work with prepaid cards and a text costs me something like 2-3 eurocents, so even at 20 texts a day I'm still cheaper off than calling everytime. But most of the time you get free texts when you put some new money on your cellphone (something like 1000 texts here), so you'd be a fool not to use them. The issue of a numeric keypad is actually not a problem, as it has been only fairly recent that input methods that actually work nicely have been introduced. The crappy phones that seemed to be popular in the US before smartphones looked like hideous bricks, and just plain sucked. I have been texting with a numeric pad for ten years, as have most people around Europe, so it's just a silly US thing I guess.

Edit: Shin beat me to it.

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Originally Posted by nuttyturnip

Texting/checking email in the movies bothers people because the screen lights up in a dark room, and is a distraction. It doesn't bother me, but a columnist in the Washington Post wrote about it last month, and Tritoch has told me it bugs him. Not as distracting as talking on the phone during a movie, but if you've paid money to see a film, can't you just switch off your phone for a few hours?

It would be a problem if you have dozens of screens lighting up, but most of the time you just see a square cm of a light, and if you are distracted and annoyed by something as tiny as that, it's probably your limited attention span that is to blame. I don't know about the US, but here seats are high enough so that you can't even see the person in front of you, let alone their phone. I'm much more annoyed by people commenting the movie while watching it, or clapping when something happens (no idea where it comes from but it is an awful habit that has been showing up here over the past years).

There's nowhere I can't reach.