Can You Hear Me Now? Good, Because I'm Griping About Cellphones

It's Wednesday, which means it's time for another edition of The Gripe Report, the Internet's greatest collection of complaints, not counting the Rotten Tomatoes page for the movie The Bride.

This week, I want to talk about something that impacts all of our lives, whether we like it or not: cell phones.

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There was a time when cellphones were about the size of toasters, weighed as much as a golf cart, and were considered luxuries.

Now, none of that is true.

Have a gripe? Send it in!: matthew.reigle@outkick.com

Sure, some people might consider them a luxury item, but it's becoming increasingly difficult to navigate society without one.

Which means they're on the cusp of being a necessity.

A gripe-worthy necessity.

So, let's get into it, because I've gotten like three spam calls in the last hour and am feeling a little hot under the collar…

Don't cry because it's over… smile because it happened… (Getty Images)

The Death Of Physical Keyboards

One thing that bugs me about modern cellphones is that we’ve decided that buttons, and more specifically keys, are not wanted.

Sure, everything is optimized for full touchscreens, and they have their advantages. 

Still, the days of full keyboards were fleeting, but magical.

I loved clicking away on a full QWERTY (that’s fine to type because you can do it like Little Richard glissando-ing up the piano).

The king of this was obviously the Blackberry, but there were plenty of solid options. 

I had a Sanyo Incognito.

Does anyone remember those? No? Just me?

My mom, my dad, and I may have been the only people on the planet who had those, but they were great.

I hate getting a new phone (more on that in a second), but if Apple had Tim Cook wander out on stage and say "This phone is like all the other phones as per usual, but we crammed a real keyboard into this one," I’d be one of those idiots standing in line at the Apple Store the day it launches.

Maybe it’s because I’m a writer, and it would make doing work on the go a bit easier, but I think I just want to see more tactile tech make a comeback.

Everything is just in the cloud and floating around or controlled with hand movements that make it look like you’re conducting the Boston Pops, when you’re really just trying to punch some dude’s avatar in the face.

Keyboards will come back, and I think we’re moving in this direction.

It’s the same reason vinyl made a comeback. You just can’t beat holding something in your hands.

Or actually punching someone in the face, instead of just their avatar.

Clear your schedules, kids; we're going phone shopping. (David Paul Morris/Bloomberg via Getty Images)

Buying A New Phone

This sounds nuts, but it’s true. Since high school, I’ve had four cell phones: that Sanyo Incognito, an iPhone 4S, an iPhone 7S, and an iPhone 13.

This is partially because I don’t throw my phone around like it's a Frisbee or use it like a caveman hammer, but also because buying a new phone is always a total pain in the ass.

Of course, unless you're a kleptomaniac or can hack 5G networks, buying a phone is part of the phone experience, and even though people do it all the time, I’ve never had it go off without a hitch.

There’s always some problem, or you end up spending like 7 hours there staring at a rack of phone cases.

Also, if you’re my age, in your 20s or 30s, you’ve probably had the wonderful experience of having to get off your parents' cellphone plan. 

Insurance companies boot you from your parents’ plan the second the clock hits midnight on your 26th birthday, but cellphone companies want all kinds of proof to let you open a new account and pay for a new, more expensive line.

I had to hop on a conference call with my dad and a guy named Steve from Bangalore (I have my suspicions that was not his name), and still, it took several more days of phone calls to get my old number transferred to my new phone.

I’ve also found most of the people who work in cellphone stores to be wildly unhelpful. Like, I don’t need some guy from NASA with a crewcut and a pocket protector, but someone a little more competent than my stoner neighbor would be nice.

Forgetting Your Phone

One of the things I hate most about my phone is how I feel when I don’t have it.

Over the year, the phone has cracked into the starting lineup of things you carry with you everywhere. It used to be just keys and a wallet, and then the phone came along and said, "I’m joining, and I can function as keys and a wallet."

It’s straight-up disturbing how helpless you’ll feel if you leave your phone at home. 

Which is strange because I can’t figure out what it is I’m nervous about. Not being able to send some kickass tweets? Not being able to watch videos of people getting hurt on trampolines?

Anything important, like unlocking my house, starting my car, or paying for things, can be handled by my wallet and keys, and I never forget those.

It’s just a weird form of withdrawal that you’re going through, because we’re so addicted to our phones, and that bugs me.

This is why I love it when artists make you put your phone in one of those bags. If you’ve ever been to a show with those, you’ll know how great it is.

But yes, you will grab for your phone a couple of times because you’re reflexively trying to see what's happening over on Instagram.

When it works, it works great. When it doesn't, it winds up in <i>The Gripe Report</i>. (Photo by Christopher Evans/MediaNews Group/Boston Herald via Getty Images)

Connecting Your Phone To Your Car

I always feel like people texting on their phones while driving is one of those things future generations will look back on and wonder, "What the hell were those lunatics doing?"

Sort of like how we look at the time before seat belts or when kids would play with radioactive science kits.

So, things like Apple CarPlay and Android Auto are a great thing, but they’re not without their shortcomings.

The biggest one is getting it hooked up in the first place. This should be incredibly easy, but I’ve found no standardization on this front, and that’s annoying.

If you get a new car, you’ll have to pull into a McDonald’s parking lot after a couple of blocks to get it all sorted out. This was the case for me, like two months ago.

Turns out my new Ford and my old Kia aren’t on the same page about how this is done, so I had to relearn the simple art of connecting my phone so I can see the album art on the infotainment system (I like that).

But once you get your phone set up, protect it with your life, because when you add others into the mix, it becomes an issue.

Then, when anyone else hooks their phone up to your car, it's another ordeal. 

Every time I’ve ever done this, I ended up getting frustrated that my phone isn’t connecting, only to discover that mine isn’t marked as the "priority."

Usually, it’s my wife’s phone that is the culprit, but if there’s an issue, shouldn’t there be a way for it to go, "Hey, do you want your wife’s phone or yours?"Then you just press the one you want?

Nope. You’ve got to dig through multiple menus — sometimes while driving, mind you — to find what you want.

Being Married To An iPhone

I’ve recently become fascinated by the concept of "dumbphones."

That’s simply a cellphone that isn’t a smartphone and is limited in what it can do, handling only simple tasks like calling, texting, answering emails, and maybe playing music or using GPS.

I love this idea because I really would love to get social media out of my life as much as humanly possible, but I’ve got a problem, and that is that my entire personal tech infrastructure is ruled by the folks at Apple.

Every device I’ve got is Apple something or other, and as much as I’d like to get rid of it in favor of something else, so much of my life and workflow is tied to these devices.

They’ve made it too easy for me to transfer something from one device to another, or start working on a project on an iPad and move it to my Mac.

Those bastards.

I know this is how they drew it up from the start, and I took the bait, but it makes it that much harder to digitally declutter your life.

Like, if I ditch my iPhone, that makes my Apple Watch pretty useless, so now I need another watch.

See how it snowballs.

Damn. I drank the Cupertino Kool-Aid.

…

That's it for this week's edition of The Gripe Report! 

See you next time!

In the meantime, be sure to send in all of your best gripes! matthew.reigle@outkick.com