It is now the future. While I was looking elsewhere, exactly will not be disclosed herein, the future snuck up behind me, and, like some misguided algorithm, bit me on the butt. Not being one to fight the inevitable, I decided to embrace the newly arrived future and find out what it truly has in store for us.

Well, unless you’re willing to throw your lot in with major multi-national companies, all of whom are currently being sued up the ying-yang by their competitors and governments around the world for violating the trust they want us to place in them, the answer is: “not much.”

To refresh your memories a bit without forcing you to dawdle around on your search provider of choice, it was ten years ago when I first jumped into the pool that is Mobile Technology; using nothing but my cell phone for accessing the internet, supporting my, then, clients, and in general, keeping in touch with my friends and family everywhere. Fortunately, at the time, the pool was only ankle deep, so I didn’t end up getting too hurt. While it worked, the mere effort of connection often turned into an exercise in futility, followed by abjectly poor performance, and, in the end, utter disappointment.

It was, in short, almost exactly like what I imagine it would be like to go out on a date with me.

Not easily discouraged – about the technology not the dating – I persevered; going through more cell phones, SIM cards, SAT phones, and whatnot until such time that I just gave up and realized that the best use for mobile technology was as fishing sinkers. I ended up accessing the internet by poaching Wi-Fi from nearby establishments and houses, or ponying up the five-bucks at an internet cafe.

But things are different now, I figured, and so last Thursday found me packed, checked in, and snuggled aboard a big silver bird bound for the almost-tropical climate of the Florida Keys with everything I usually travel with except one thing: my laptop computer.

In its stead, I was packing my Samsung Galaxy 3S mobile phone – the one with about ten times the computing power of an Apollo spacecraft – and a Motorola Bluetooth keyboard. This is the combination I am writing on this week, and, I must admit, for that purpose, it’s not half bad.

I am using Google Drive to write in and save the document. I can quickly move around and check my multifarious email accounts, look at the kitten pictures on Facebook, or watch videos on YouTube of people making homemade zip-lines with the terminal end affixed to a vehicle, the driver of which is unaware of said zip-line. All the important stuff.

I thought it would be difficult to write given the diminutive screen on the the 3S but it’s really not bad. The problem comes from logging into something which normally works one way and you find out that it works completely differently or, more frequently, not at all.

I have no doubt that the, how do I put this nicely, crap they put out as mobile software is really the issue and, by-and-large, the hardware is mostly an innocent bystander.

This can be easily discerned just inside of Facebook. Normally, when I announce my blog, I put in a link to the blog, a brief, clever tag to get you to read it, and the first paragraph or two to close the deal. When I attempted this last Friday, my first day on the road, I was able to put in the teaser and a link, but the link didn’t work like the real version of Facebook that runs on my laptop and I couldn’t add the opening paragraphs.

But, the mobile version of Facebook, lets me see my older posts exactly as I entered them. In other words, somebody on Facebook’s software staff has decided that I want to be able to see what I did in the past, but that I wouldn’t ever want to do that from my phone.

On the other hand; Facebook mobile allows me to do several things I wish I could do on the grown-up version. Why is that? Don’t these Facebook people ever actually talk or is corporate communication managed entirely via status updates? “Hot links to Pages added. Off to the Latte Lounge.” And then, like everything else on Facebook, the details are quickly forgotten.

The other issue I found was that the stuff – cameras, readers, printers, etc. – I can plug into my laptop willy-nilly and they all just work, for the most part won’t plug into my phone at all. For example, I got a little video camera. It’s very cool: full HD, built-in WiFi, waterproof to a depth fully 200 meters deeper than the depth at which I would implode, it’ll record ten hours on a single charge, and – Bonus – I can control the thing from my phone! Very cool. The “quick start” guide instructs me that the very first thing to do is to go online and update the software on the camera. Which requires a real computer, i.e. a PC or a Mac. It just doesn’t work on a phone. Maybe someday.

Then there’s the typing and editing itself. Actually, I was kind of surprised that is didn’t work more differently from a real application than it doesn’t. Or something. Typing and editing flow smotyhly and the only real problem occers because there isn’t a vald spel-checker embedded in the mobil vershun of Google Drive. It is also here that I run into what most users would call a bug but which the development engineers call a “feature”. Even though I’m using an external keyboard for typing, if I try to edit some text, the phone’s virtual keyboard pops up and blocks out the vast majority of screen real estate. It’s not a big deal but with all this text jumping around I tend to lose my train of thought, sometimes for days.

Then there’s the word count problem. Normally, I can tell whether you’re about to get bored soon by the ever-increasing number at the bottom of the screen as my pithy and spell-checked wit pours forth. With this rig, however, I don’t have a freaking clue whether I’m halfway done or a thousand words over the limit.

You may keep your editorial comments to yourselves.

But really, I don’t know why this should be. After all, my sort-of state-of-the-art versions of Microsoft Office still supports the user interface standards first set back in caveman days by programs such as Word Star and Lotus 1-2-3. Why don’t all those things work on my phone? Why is it “Press for 2.5 seconds and make selection from menu?”

Which is my gripe with all of this stuff. There is much to be said for the rapid advance of technology but the fondly-named chair-keyboard-interface, me in this case, hasn’t changed much since I bought my first legal drink. As a class the “users”, as they are known in the biz, haven’t changed too much in the past sixty-thousand years. So why does my technology interaction have to change with every update downloaded while I sleep. And why isn’t everything I store on my laptop immediately and instantly available on my phone?

It could be. Say the technophiles among you. Yeah, maybe but then I have to set that all up, decide which of the service providers to trust to be in business two years hence, and then manage an extra layer of complexity that my life didn’t have before. Even if I did want to do that, why can’t I be me wherever I am and on whatever piece of equipment I find myself working on at the time? Why can’t I pick up somebody’s phone, type in some identifying information, and – Poof! – all my contacts, my billing, my number, everything along with all the stuff that is the digital definition of me; there for me to use. Then when I log out, it just goes away and waits until I mug somebody else and take their phone. Or tablet or laptop or whatever.

I think the potential is there. But its realization will take a major shift in the thinking at the corporate level. The companies, despite all the evidence, still don’t realize that they make the most money opening things up for us, the ones with the money, than they do by keeping everybody tied to a single supplier. It will take more than just a commitment to stop suing each other over obscure patentable do-dads. It will take the realization that if they really want to make any real money at this game, they, and the technology they hawk, will have to basically become invisible.

Consider for a second what goes on in your kitchen. You’ve got a half dozen or more appliances each of which shares certain features with all other appliances of that type. It doesn’t matter where you go, if you rent a condo in a strange vacation destination, you can work everything in the kitchen. No manuals needed. If you rent a car to get to your destination you don’t worry that you got a Dodge when you’ve got a BMW sitting at home in the garage. (Well, you might. All those Facebook check-ins from exotic locales have given a heads-up to the guys who make a living stealing cars from vacationing social media junkies.) I digress. No matter, Dodge, Chevy, or 1932 Packard; you get in, turn the key and drive away. All because the user interface on an automobile hasn’t changed since the steering tiller gave way to the wheel.

Any other makers of technology more advanced than a coffee pot haven’t had that epiphany yet. I think it’s in the works, and maybe, just maybe, the day where your Mac, PC, iPad, and Samsung phone are basically one virtual device is not that far off.

That however is not my big concern right now. I’m going to sign off, the word count feels about right even though I don’t have any independent confirmation. Plus, I’ve got to figure out how to get all these words from my Google Drive where they started to GoDaddy where my blog comes from. I’m pretty sure I can do it, but, if not, I’ll just have to wait a little while. The Future, after all, is just around the corner.