You might feel differently about that if you are the one having to deal with every minutia of their smart phone life. I have had to do this in my office for years. I tend to be the only one interested in learning about new tech (it is who I am, can't help it) and everyone knows it. I have had to set up and teach the uses of almost every smart phone out there and it is not pretty.
There are many people that should NEVER come in contact with a smart phone.
I fully believe that people urging the undeniably stupid to get smart phones belong in the seventh ring of hell.[/quote]
Pretty funny... maybe we should start calling you Dante?
Seriously, unless your job is the technician, I feel your pain. As an engineer surrounded by a bunch of medical professionals (I work as the lead on a development team for govt. pricing of pharmaceuticals, so I'm surrounded by physician, nurses, and pharmacists + 1 lawyer and 1 epidemiologist... one pharmacist also has a degree in engineering, so he's O.K.) and they always come to me with their computer problems because I can fix it by the time the help desk sets calls them back to set up an appointment to come see them. Yes, it can be annoying.
But as a previous poster said, if it can help grandma, then it's worth it. I have kids, and the grandparents like to be in the loop. Frankly, a PC is not as easy to use as a Mac for them, and they aren't as vulnerable to bugs.
Also, like I said, as a software engineer I like the graphics capabilities of Mac over PC (think AutoCAD), but I also work/live in an environment where, frankly, cheaper people will buy a PC instead of a Mac, so compatibility is more on the PC side for virtually everything.
And that's actually a reverse-frustration I have with the Eris (or just the Droid market as a whole). All the apps aren't here yet (you've even posted about Urban Spoon) and the device can't sync with a Mac (which I own), and therefore my iTunes isn't there (yes, I know you can pull in the music files separately, but again, that's a workaround that has to be figured out - with the iPhone, it just works - and on both a Mac and a PC!). So if Mac can figure it out and make it work, how come Google/HTC didn't? Just a small beef with me, but it goes back to a poster's statement of who I'd give the phone to if it wasn't for me.
I would not give one to my parents, but I would give them an iPhone. It's just simpler. Not better, but simpler.
I helped set up their very first computer and they both laughed about how easy it was and have never asked for help again. My mom was actually emailing me info about the Nexus One before I even heard about it.
