[General Topics] gil@spoontools.com:
Here's a thought I had about 10 of the greatest mobile technologies of this decade

GPS:

Even though GPS technology was already successfully tested in 1960, it still feels like it made the biggest breakthrough in the past 10 years or so.

I love location based services and GPS navigators, but when I really need to get somewhere I just call my wife.

It's faster, doesn't require any typing, gives better support for parking issues, and react better to unexpected obstacles on the way...

Phone Camera:

True, it sucks. All of them suck. They are slow, they don't work well at nights, but can you imagine yourself without a handy camera exactly when the right situations are happening?

3G

The first commercial launch of 3G happened in Japan on 1 October 2001, it took some time until we all enjoyed it, but can you imagine our world today without it? (Actually I can: less radiation...)

WiFi

Introduced back in the 80's, WiFi is today a 'must have' in any smartphone, and of course: everywhere. (Think how boring it can be without WiFi:

Waiting for your next flight... sitting in a coffee shop... dating a hot girl... all of those - without a decent wireless network?)

Palm Treo

Regardless to the fact Palm is doing really bad lately - I think the Treo line of products was the first "friendly" smartphones. My favorite of all times was the Treo 750 for stability and speed, great bulky design, good enough keyboard, and more

T9:

It's true that I'm not using it that much anymore, and there are people who get annoyed by it, but you have to admit it's a great invention, and does improve your typing speed most of the times.

BlackBerry

What a great thing is is: The BlackBerry.

Sure, the UI looks more like notepad on steroids, the browser suck and the push email functionality is addictive.

But what a great addiction! (I mean: when it's working...)

That endless online chat, dressed up as business emails is just the greatest thing around. I absolutely love finding out that my red light is blinking! I'm not alone! Someone out there loves me! Or at least needs my help with something!

Give me some of that red light! Give me... I need it now!

Oh, and there's that great Iron-Man style trackball - The Mobile Spoon loves that one!

SMS

The SMS was invented back in the 80's (notice how all the great stuff was invented during the 80's: WiFi, SMS, Boy George...).

One of the best ways to communicate, whether you are in meetings, toilets, riding a horse, whatever...

iPhone

Well well well, here's one item that is going to put me in troubles.

Say what you want: no multi threading, no keyboard, irreplaceable battery, I don't care.

When the iPhone just arrived it looked like it came from another world. It was not just great, it started a revolution.

No more stylus, so long D-Pad, tons of innovative ideas, best design in town.

This is the real thing. No matter how big are the limitations.

End/Send buttons

And speaking of iPhone's limitations, how about adding 2 hardware buttons?

I recently noticed that every wireless phone at my parents house (and for some reason they have a lot) has a different layout and location for the 'Send', 'Open', 'OK' and 'Cancel' buttons.

And I'm asking: why?

I'm not a phone manufacturer and even I know the secret: You put the 'End' on the right side, the 'Send' on the left side and that's it!

Still, we have to appreciate the fact that at least with the cellular phones and smartphones this is now a standard.

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And now for my 5 overrated mobile technologies of this decade:

Bluetooth

Bluetooth is a great technology. Too bad relying on it usually makes you very frustrated;

You've got Bluetooth car kits that are great if you want to really piss off your friends when you call them from your car and they can barely understand what you are saying...

You've got Bluetooth headsets that will cook your brains, and there's always the same old test of trying to send files between devices - something that never really works...

Widgets:

I'm not against having a nice widgets bar somewhere in the right side of your window, but wasting an entire smartphone shell on widgets? I rather have some UI experts optimizing my screen and creating a professional consistent user interface.

Propriety cradles:

Do I even need to explain? It's 2010 now, let's hope Samsung and all the others finally replace their proprietary cradles with the miniUSB cable... Dha...

iTunes

Strong, efficient, works like hell, but what about the user experience? Does anyone know how to really work with that thing?

Is that Apple's great usability?

(I don't like the iTunes, Am I allowed to say that? Will apple ban me? Will I be banned by Apple's freaks of nature? Will they take away my iPhone?)

Twitter

Come on... Twitter? Is that for real???

It's a feature in facebook! One feature out of hundreds!

Still, I must give credit to the Twitter folks, they already earn money while facebook is only gaining popularity...

The main reason I've included Twitter in this side of the list (the bad guys) is that it's too simple, too small, too basic, too boring to get so much attention by the smartphones manufacturers who embed it inside their main screens.

What's wrong with a simple twitter client?

(is that the time to invite you all to follow me on twitter?)

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OK, so that's it for this one.

Hope you enjoyed our little technologies parade - I know I did!

Would love to know what are your best mobile technologies for 2000-2009!