Quite often I think a lot about tech from my childhood. How those devices paved the way for the tech that I enjoy today. By extension, this creates a fondness for certain brands and hoping to see future success by those brands. One of the devices from my childhood that I have incredibly fond memories of is the Super Nintendo game console. Hours of playing Super Mario World made me a fan of the console and a fan of Nintendo as a company on the whole.
As someone that often thinks a lot about the future of tech and companies…
The Xperia experiment
I grew up in New York City, but I have lived in the midwest for almost a few decades. When I tell people this in Detroit, they often ask me what the city is like. My default answer is usually the same: If you want to visit New York City, you should go twice. The first time to do all the tourist stuff: Go to Times Square, see the Statue of Liberty, etc. The second time you’ll experience the real magic of New York, as I call it. The vibrant food and art scenes and visiting the other boroughs outside…
A staple of the America of my childhood was Oprah Winfrey. Her show, Oprah, was a national phenomenon for anyone that grew up in the 1990s. What always fascinated me about Oprah was the level of influence that she wielded over consumer opinion on countless products. One of the great examples of this is the Oprah Book Club. The book club highlighted a novel that Oprah was reading that took an obscure author into the limelight and was a boon for the book industry. …
People have been using smartphones now for over a decade. Think about what we use our phones for now versus how we used them in 2011. How much has changed? For the most part, most people use their phones to browse the web, communicate with family and friends, use social media apps, take photos, and play an occasional game. This was the case in 2011 and is still the case today. Yet while our habits have largely remained the same, technology is ever advancing and does not rest on its laurels.
As the smartphone has become an everyday item for…
If I asked you to open up Netflix on your TV, how would you go about doing it? Broadly speaking, there are two ways to go about doing this currently. The first is to use a streaming device such as a Roku or Apple TV. The second is to use the built-in Smart TV OS in your TV. Two ways to do the same thing. It is a complexity that has come to be commonplace in modern tech lifestyles, where companies are lobbying for your attention so much that there becomes some overlap between solutions.
When you think of cell phones and history, one of the first companies that come to mind has to be Motorola. The name is an institution in the industry from the original flip phones in the 90s, to the dominance of the Razr, to the early days of Android with the Moto Droid lineup. The bat-winged logo has become iconic to people outside of the tech enthusiast bubble, mostly on the back of the success of the Razr. But in recent years, the company has experienced turmoil with multiple changes of ownership.
There has always been something about an underdog to me. The scrappy contender who challenges the leaders of the market. This tendency has shaped the stores that I shop at, the sports teams that I root for, and the types of tech that I buy. When it comes to smartphones, I have always been enamored with companies that aren’t the de facto buying decision of most people.
This is why I was a huge supporter of Windows Phone when it was first coming into the market. It is also the same reason why I was a fierce HTC fan for…
The newest OnePlus phones are here. An annual release that gets some fanfare but not quite as much as a Galaxy Unpacked or an iPhone reveal event. Despite that, a new OnePlus being announced is always an important release in the smartphone calendar. As it has done for the last couple of years, the Chinese smartphone manufacturer is continuing with a two phone strategy with the OnePlus 9 and 9 Pro.
And as has become the norm for the company in recent years, the focus has been camera performance. The reason that they have been doing this is the company’s…
Ever since 2002, the realities of racism in the United States is something that is always on my mind. As an Arab-American in a post-9/11 world, the idea of a racist America has been a reality that I have grown to expect. As an adult, I have witnessed commentary towards Arab-Americans like myself, the Latinx community, and African Americans that indicates a level of toxicity and exclusionary culture that is sickening to me as the son of an immigrant. …
I turned 34 years old this week. And whenever I have a birthday that is coming up, I often think about my past self and how much I have changed as a human being over the years. I often look at old social media posts or pictures from when I was in my early 20’s and think to myself “what were you thinking”? You see, I have grown and developed mentally in so many ways since then that what I used to be doesn’t even seem remotely close to what I have become. …
Omar Zahran
Freelance technology and lifestyle writer. Lover of all things with a screen. Newsletter: ozoneletter.substack.com
