Vote with Your Apps Dollars – Roger Ingalls

Last year 1.6 million cell phones were stolen nationally and 50% of all theft crimes in San Francisco are now related to cell phones. The proliferation of crime related to these smart gadgets is going through the roof and it’s a big headache for local law enforcement.

There is a way to thwart these techno-hooligans but the big smart phone manufacturers refuse to side with legal paying customers. Apple, Samsung and the others generate a good portion of their revenue from replacing stolen phones. Essentially, in the minds of these companies, crime pays.

San Francisco District Attorney George Gascon recently met with some of the cell phone manufacturers and asked them to voluntarily put permanent kill features into the phone so when reported stolen they are rendered useless forever. The stolen phone market would fade away because who’s going to buy a dead useless phone. However, the manufacturers ignored the request effectively endorsing the illegal market.

Garcon has now partnered with New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman and they are scheduled to meet with the smart phone companies again in mid-June. With mounting pressure, maybe this time the smart phone manufacturers will act responsibly and side with legal paying customers and not the criminals. If not, it’s time for us non-criminal smart phone users to take action.

If Apple, Samsung and others don’t act responsibly, we should boycott them by not purchasing smart phone APPS. So far in 2013, four to five billion APPS are downloaded monthly; now that could be a powerful vote!

Let’s help Garcon and Schneiderman significantly reduce smart phone crime. If the phone makers don’t want to play then we shouldn’t pay. Using our phones to text, tweet and run other social media tools, we could organize a “don’t buy APPS day” to send a message. After losing a few hundred million, they may get a clue.

Vote with your APPS dollars!

A Place for Tree Books

My latest novel, Unwanted Heroes, was released in ebook format over Thanksgiving. I was stoked. Readers of this blog know that I am a big fan of the electronic book revolution and my Facebook status lists me in a steady relationship with my kindle. I would, I admit, consider an open relationship but no iPad came down my chimney last month – I really should ask the landlord for a chimney.

When the ebook was released and I alerted the usual suspects, I was surprised at the number of people who responded with: “Let me know when the paperback comes out.” My surprise was because many were people who enthusiastically embrace the tech revolution and could probably download and read a book simultaneously on their phone, tablet, laptop, computer, TV, and by just staring up at the cloud.

But they choose to hold a ‘real’ book in their hands. They want the feel, the crackle of pages turning (there must be an app for that), the smell of a book (how about an ink-addiction app?). One person told me that, when buying a book by an author that she knows, it doesn’t feel right if she is not holding ‘a real copy’. For authors she doesn’t know personally, she buys ebooks.

Two months ago my family moved house and for a long time there was a great wall of boxes in every room. I realize that the point when I began to feel at home was when I was able to unpack and shelve my books. This was my identity, my stamp on the territory.

On Wednesday, Three Clover Press announced the release of Unwanted Heroes in paperback. So, all you tree book lovers, I would be honored for a place on your bookshelf.

I have also set myself a goal to garner five reviews on Amazon for Unwanted Heroes. If you have read the novel, please consider leaving a review. It is very important to me. Thank you. 

And just for the record:

Unwanted Heroes brings together an elderly, battle weary Chinese American war vet and an idealistic and somewhat pretentious young Englishmen, who share a love for San Francisco, coffee and wine. They soon discover they share even more when repressed abruptly surface, cementing an unlikely relationship that just might release each from the tragic pasts that bind them.

Set in beautiful San Francisco, this novel is a tribute to the city, its people and those who sacrificed so much to keep it and America free, as seen through the eyes of a young struggling writer from across the Atlantic, who brings more baggage than just his shiny laptop and romantic ideals.

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Alon Shalev is the author of three social justice-themed novels: Unwanted Heroes, The Accidental Activist and A Gardener’s Tale. He is the Executive Director of the San Francisco Hillel Jewish Student Center, a non-profit that provides spiritual and social justice opportunities to Jewish students in the Bay Area. More on Alon Shalev at http://www.alonshalev.com and on Twitter (@alonshalevsf).