Just got a new smartphone: the brand new Samsung Galaxy S3.

It’s my third Samsung smartphone in the past six years, each progressively more sophisticated and functional.  And while my hand hasn’t gotten used to the fact that it’s larger than my last phone, I like it. Android phones are damn good.

To the shock of some of my friends I did NOT choose an Iphone, despite that fact that I own (and love) this:

Macbook Air

and this:

Big ole Imac

and this:

My old Macbook Pro

and this:

Ipod for music

 which tells you how good a smartphone I think Samsung makes.

It also tells you something else: that I’m annoyed and concerned about how companies try to trap you into their exclusive little silo. There are examples of this everywhere.

You may have specified an email address on your Facebook page, but a few months back, Facebook assigned you its own email address (exclusively for Facebook users) and made it your default email address. If you want your usual email address displayed, you need to go in and change it. They don’t make it easy.

Pure search is now a thing of the past, at least for Google. It’s contextual and social media oriented. Google now gives you search results based on what you blog about on their Blogger platform and also what your friends on Google+ like.  Hello? Like I think that’s relevant?

I’m just not sure I want everything I do to be integrated into one company’s format, although I can see the advantages. If only competing formats didn’t exist.

Here’s where were heading: a totally homogenous society. Just like we consume only the news with the slant that matches our own, we’ll only shop where our friends do…no need to expose yourself to any different ideas, not any more.

Dangerous.  Oh, and one more thing. I also have one of these:

Kindle 2

It looks antiquated, doesn’t it? And it’s time for me to upgrade. Right now, the Ipad is still very much a toy for me, so I might have to just get an e-reader. Because even though my new phone has a larger screen than my old one, I simply do not want to read books on it.