TV, Apps and Waving Your Hands: Give Me Everything

Let me ask you a question. Can you remember the last time your phone was just a phone? A device that just made phone calls and there were no games, no apps, no OnLive streaming, no catch up TV, no instant messaging and the only Angry Birds were Janice and Susan fighting over the last pot of Activia yoghurt in Tesco.

When I purchased my first ever mobile phone in 1995 it came with texting witchcraft in the form of ‘SMS’ and a game, ‘Snake’. Soon I, like the rest of the world, was texting and billions of words were flying across the globe. Snake had a place too, amusing me for a minute or two on long train journeys.

[drop]We should erect a statute for SMS and Snake, two unsung heroes of the past without whom the iPhone and HTC Sensations of the current day would not exist. They paved they way for multi-tasking multi-app phones.

In 1995 the mobile phone was just a phone; in 2012 you can talk to your phone and ask it to remind you when Eastenders is on. You can use your phone to start up your Sky+ box or if you missed the program, watch it on demand on the bus.

Let us consider the state of my bedroom in 1995. It’s a lovely shade of royal blue and I have a desk which houses my PC connected to a chunky CRT monitor on which many hours are spent talking to people across the globe on the fledgling internet. Beside it I have my PlayStation which is connected to a small colour portable TV and alongside that my video recorder. Sitting next to that pile of technology is my hi-fi with tape deck, record player, radio and one of those new fangled CD decks and on the shelves above literally thousands of CDs, records, tapes and video tapes.

Behind the desk there enough wires and cables to entangle Houdini for weeks and racks upon racks of plug sockets.

Today I have a PlayStation 3. It does games, it does videos, it does music, and it does television. It cures cancer in its spare time and can play my entire music library which is now held on a small portable hard drive rather than twenty shelves of CDs. My video library has grown in volume yet shrunk in size thanks to the dinky Blu-ray boxes, and the tangle of cables and wires is non existent.

The PlayStation video store may be pricey but it’s nice to know it’s there for that one rainy Sunday when I really cant be bothered to get out bed and go to Blockbuster.

I don’t want to have to change channels to swap between games and TV. I don’t want to have to wait for MTV to play my favourite video, Vidzone can give it to me instantly. Why on earth would I want to plan my evening so I can watch The Great British Bake Off as it is broadcast when I can view it any time I like?

I’m looking forward to the day when I can say ‘PlayStation, get that tosspot Jeremy Kyle off my screen and play the new Sam Worthington movie instead’ or ‘PlayStation, book me a table at Nobu for 6.30pm’.

That’s not to say I won’t be playing lots of games as well but to use the old slogan, why take two bottles in to the shower when you can take one?

It only does everything and I would not have it any other way.