The physical form of the critic has undergone an evolutionary change. Think of that famous image of an ape slouching along behind a less hairy, more upright figure showing us, homo erectus. A similar picture for critics might feature an image of a civilised, thoughtful figure sitting elegantly upright at a desk, tapping serenely at a laptop. Then, to the right on the timeline, there would be a sweaty, harassed figure, standing hunched outside a cinema, jabbing at his smartphone.

I've just discovered it's entirely possible to write a longish review on your iPhone yellow-pad app, using only a single hyperactive thumb. If there's very little time to complete it – at a festival, for example – doing it this way is the only way. It's actually fine. The yellow-pad auto-corrects, smoothing away fat-thumbed errors; and, unlike a tablet or laptop, a smartphone can be carried around in your jeans pocket.

It wasn't so long ago that if I was far from my computer or the office, and an article or review was needed urgently, I had to look around wildly for an example of that vanishing species: the internet cafe. A piece about Gus van Sant was written in a cafe that was part of a dodgy language school, while the lovelorn German guy on the computer next to me loudly and unselfconsciously Skyped his fiancee in Manila.

I once had to go to a branch of that now defunct and unlamented chain, the easyInternetcafe. I wrote a 1,000-word article as an (unsaveable) email and then, trying to send it, deleted the entire thing. I threw back my head and gave a scream comparable to the one Laurence Olivier was said to have given, climactically, in the role of Oedipus Rex.

So the smartphone evolution is welcome. But there are problems. While you're frantically stressed in some cinema-foyer stairwell, concentrating on your phone and up against an imminent deadline, some friend might bowl up, assuming you are just texting:

"Hi Pete! How are y –"

"Can't talk. Can't talk."

"Are you OK? You look a bit –"

"AAAARRGH!"

The critic's evolutionary descent into animal anxiety and paranoia continues.