I ACCEPT A HIGH FLOW of information into my life, probably as much in a week now as I absorbed in a month three summers ago. That's because Twitter serves me news faster than any other method and the SonyEricsson Xperia X10 delivers that news in the form of little rectangles that land elegantly on the home screen of the phone. Another reason for the higher flow is the X10 needs no computer connectivity. I don't have to connect the phone to my laptop for updates because they come over the air. I don't have to sync my podcasts because an Android app pulls them down. Another app (at right) grabs audio enclosures found on RSS feeds and that's very helpful at filling dead spots of the day, especially when sitting idle near an O2 3G mast. At night, most of the content of the next day's Guardian drops onto the X10. I'm not even using the laptop some nights anymore. When comparing mobile phones, it's important to realise that you can do most everything you need with a smartphone nowadays but a big Android advantage over the iPhone is that you don't need a computer in between you and the raw flow of information, updates and back-up. Knowing this, I feel I'm more in control of the way I extract value from social networks. Posted with thanks to Richard Azia on Google Buzz and with thanks to SonyEricsson for the long-term loan of the X10.
