Tag: technology

Eff You iPhone

Today is a big day! It is November 1th, 2017! Not only is it game 7 of the World Series,  and arguably the beginning of the holidays, it is also my first day of freedom…I have fulfilled my phone contract! Two years without an upgrade, crack or malfunction! THE SAME PHONE FOR TWO YEARS (this is particularly commendable because I have two toddlers and gravity). Now what? Well, since my phone was officially paid off yesterday, naturally I want to get into debt with a new one (God Bless America). Which phone do I get?

I have a very dysfunctional relationship with iPhones, and broke-up with them for good 9 years ago! It has been one hell of a run since then. I have had 5 phones since parting ways with Apple and only ONE cracked screen. You know what else? They all still work! I could fire up any one of those phones right now and look at texts circa 2008 (not that I want to, I’m not proud of my 20’s). One of those five phones was stolen, so someone scored. If I could display a GIF to represent my relationship with the phone manufacturer I am loyal to, it would be me, on a sunny day, frolicking through a meadow of flowers, taking selfies with my HTC (picture it). Yes, HTC. I haven’t figured out how, but I’m sure the “HTC” must somehow be a highly technical acronym for INDESTRUCTIBLE PHONE. I could go on, and on, about the adventures that my phone and I have been on and all the times it should not have survived, but somehow it has prevailed. It is an impressive machine, like all the other HTCs I owned before it.

You’re probably thinking ‘if you love your phone so much, just keep it.’ The market has spoken, and it told me that if I ever want to have a case that both protects my phone and expresses my personal style, that I must succumb to the iPhone (again). Yeah, Otterboxes and Speck cases are practical and do a great job of protecting phones, but I’m a girl and I want a sparkly case or one with a peace sign, or a saying about Champagne (or just the word “champagne”) or all-of-the-above and I can change it depending on my mood or outfit. Also, the convenience of being able to “airdrop” photos to/from the iPhone users in my house is hard to pass up. Another big draw: being able to charge my phone ANYWHERE! Everywhere you go, you know someone has an iPhone charger (they’re lying if they say they don’t).

There is a good chance you have, and love, an iPhone and you have been wondering what my beef with Apple is. Apple and I definitely got off on the wrong foot. Back in high school, our school was equipped with Macs (never trust technology that relies so heavily on paperclips). Like every 90’s kid, my printer would run out of ink every time I printed something at home. No big deal; I could print it at school. WRONG! My floppy disc was formatted for a PC, not a Mac. The struggle was real. If I was able to recover a file from my home computer, the margins were always wonky, the fonts were different and my mandatory 5 page essay was suddenly only 4.5 (so I could probably blame Apple for only having a 2.3 GPA in high school).

Eventually, I got over my Apple resentment enough to be one of those people who got THE first iPhone, the day it came out (June 29, 2007 according to Google). Like originally came out. It was like my 15 minutes of fame! People were in awe of the sleek design, touch screen and appleness of it. I actually had people ask me just to see it because they wanted to see what they were like in real life. “Be careful,” I cautioned as I handed it over reluctantly. The first 8 days were great. It was so intuitive! I had my music on my phone, I was taking great pictures…then the bottom half of the phone mysteriously stopped working. My phone was deemed defective and replaced free-of-charge. Soon after getting my replacement phone, the screen cracked. I replaced that phone with another iPhone that proved to be defective within a couple of weeks. The next iPhone fell off my bed, and straight into a glass of water I had on the floor (that was some bad luck and I still don’t understand how it happened). My cycle of breaking phones and replacing them with defective phones went on for less than two years. In that short period of time, I had 7 iPhones! The last one had a screen that was so shattered, talking on it made my ear bleed (talk about codependency)! I finally parted with it when I dropped it, shattered-screen-down, into a tuna poke salad. Rather than try to pick all of the raw tuna out of my cracks, I finally walked away from iPhones (and bloody ears) for good. and never looked back…until now.

I was all-in with Apple at one point (so was everyone else according to their soaring stock performance)! I bought a giant iMac which I had equally bad luck with and kept having to awkwardly haul it into the mall, to the Apple store, where it would get sent away for weeks at a time. My trusty iPod from 2005 is still going strong though, and I would run into a burning building to save it. Other than my trusty iPod, I have a really toxic relationship with Apple products. Don’t even get me started on iPads.

More recently, I have taken issue with the size of phones now. I think Apple is to blame for the giant phone trend. I have uncorrected, terrible vision so I would be a great candidate for a giant phone, but I like to keep my phone in my pocket, and my pockets aren’t that big. I recognize the practicality of a fanny-pack, I don’t think one should be necessary for me to keep my phone within reach. Once at a restaurant, I noticed someone whose phone was so big (because they always end up on the table) that there wasn’t enough room in front of him for a plate! If I have to choose between phone or food, it’s going to be food everytime (that probably makes me weird).

Quite possibly my biggest issue with iPhones is that everyone has them (and the screen cracking thing), and I don’t like having the same things as everyone else. I like to feel special and unique (like I did on June 29, 2007). Maybe I can feel special when I can actually get a snazzy phone case.

I don’t know the history on why the company is named Apple, but I can’t help but think of the Garden of Eden, and nothing good happened to Adam and Eve after their apple debacle either.

I’m Basically Your Grandma

I may not look like your Grandma, but put me in front of a computer or smart phone and you won’t be able to tell us apart.

I’m a very tactile person and I like THINGS. Real life things I can see, touch, smell. This is why I don’t trust “the cloud!” I like my things to be in my hand, pocket, purse you get the idea. You know when you have that panicky moment where you think you lost your keys and you frantically start touching yourself like a weirdo, hoping they’re in one of your pockets (they should really re-think where they put pockets on clothes). A pat on the booty reveals they were in your back pocket all along, and you sigh in relief. The cloud gives me a constant “I just lost my keys feeling.” That is a shitty feeling.

Now the cloud may be a lot for people to wrap their heads around. My disconnect with technology is much more that my trust issues with the cloud. I still prefer taking pen to paper over (*insert preferred writing substitute that I don’t even know exists here). ACTUALLY writing things gives me a chance to show off my penmanship; it is a thing of beauty. I like good old fashioned punch cards over putting my number into the IPad being used as a register. My car has way too many buttons and I don’t even get me started on remote controls. I don’t think our TV’s even have buttons anymore. Luckily I never change the channel (HGTV 24/7). If they do have buttons, I can’t find them. I’m definitely sounding like your grandma now. When I’m trying to checkout at the store I never know whether to swipe, tap or insert (now it just sounds like I’m talkin’ dirty). You get the idea…

Technology has removed so much surprise from our lives. How can we stay on our toes when we know who is calling, we can see who is ringing our doorbell, we get an alert about our package deliveries, know without doubt the sex of our babies soon after conception, etc. (this is all coming from a person who claims to not like surprises). I guess I kind of miss the anticipation of checking the mail, answering the phone or opening the door. We have gotten lazy because of this too. I don’t answer my phone or door when I don’t want to, and I go days without checking the mail because I already know what’s in there. I appreciate all these conveniences, don’t get me wrong, but I also miss the days when things weren’t so simple (which are ironically referred to as “simpler times”).

I pride myself on being a part the generation that used rotary phones, type writers, record players then mastered the technology we have today. We didn’t grow up with it; it grew up with us. Somewhere along the way they started making technology “easier” and accessible to everyone, including grandma. Maybe this is where they lost me. Simple has never been my thing. I like to think that I couldn’t just dumb-down my big, giant brain enough to operate a smart phone efficiently (I’m pretty sure they have even trained animals to do it). Put me back on Windows ’98 and I can show you all kinds of “cool tricks.” Now, it takes me 20 seconds to pull up an app on my phone. I like to play it off as being cute and charming #totesadorbs. Not sure if it is working or not. The good news is: I feel less “addicted” to technology than most of my peers. The bad news is: I’m trying to do this blogging thing, and it turns out it requires me to be more technical than I was prepared for. I really want to get this right, and it is not as simple as just being witty and hitting the “publish” button. I won’t bore you with the details (I couldn’t if I tried because it is pretty much a foreign language to me), but this is more of a challenge than I expected. I hope I’m making it look easy! If so, I’m #winning.