Sunday, December 28, 2014

Rocky Transitions

Well, I still love my iPhone, but Mike bought me an android for Christmas and I'm mostly converted after spending a day and a half fiddling with it. What a pain in the a$$! The conversion wasn't easy, I'd imagine, because Apple and Samsung don't want to talk to each other. There should be laws about this kind of thing.

Here's a little of what I learned:

1) Even I can learn almost any answer to technical questions by typing my question on Google and picking one of the top three answers. So far, I've looked up how to put photos back onto my phone, how to sync contacts, how to attach photos to people calling. You know, if my mother's picture is flashing on my phone screen, I might learn not to answer it right this minute unless I have three hours to talk. I can also attach strange pictures for people I don't particularly like since they will never know. And I learned how to download apps by asking my questions on Google. You should have seen me laughing in the kitchen. Google doesn't understand you very well when you're snorting and can't catch your breath.

2) I had to go out of my way to set fingerprints up to unlock my phone, but it seems to be worth it. Who wants to enter an eight-digit password absolutely every time you use your phone? Then, I had to get onto Google and ask it why my phone didn't ask for that fingerprint every time. It turns out that it was set to wait for a while before it relocked. Hmmm. I'm not entirely sure how a bad guy could use that against me, so I left it set to five minutes.

3) There are a couple of ways I can look at my own phone number but I can only add my photo to my own name in the contacts section. I didn't learn that by using Google, but it was close. I didn't want my face to be blank when I was sending text messages back and forth with Mike and yet it still is blank. Go figure.

4) I'll either have to mess with something called 'root' or get a startup app to turn off the sound on the thing when I turn it back on. What the heck? Doesn't Samsung know that there are times when your kid is sick on the couch and you really need to reboot to see if the fingerprint thing will finally work and you do not want to wake him up with the <cheerful> melody of your phone coming back on. The sounds should allow you to do that, like you can reset your car computer not to honk every time you click the lock button or not to beep-beep-beep at you when you have the car in reverse. If I can do it for my car, I should be able to do it for my phone.

5) Teddy won't care that I wanted to figure out how to ask my phone to send a text by talking to it. He wanted a walk instead. I want to be able to send a text while I'm driving and not be headed into a guardrail. Do you know what I mean? It turns out that you still have to look at your phone to find the little microphone and you can't get that icon mixed up with the voice reminder icon which is nearly identical, so I'm not sure I have a good solution for my urge to text someone while I'm driving. 'Just say nothing' might be my best response to that urge. See, the sucky thing about being my age and having text messages pop up on my phone while I'm driving is that I actually thought I learned when it was safe to do it before the whole thing became illegal. Some part of my brain still argues that I can type without looking at my phone in a straightaway and it's safe. It probably isn't, but my brain still believes it can. This talking to my phone thing could be a nice solution to my stupid brain, but not if I can't press the right button without looking. And poor Teddy is lying on Nick's coat next to my seat, as if to say he's given up on me, but maybe Nick will magically get over his cold, get a driver's license, and take him out for a long walk.

6) No matter what I've done so far, I can't text my husband who is still an iUser. Well, $hit! I can text my other friends, but not my husband. That's just great. It's like being a child of divorce. One parent won't speak to the other, so the kid can never get things like transportation and packing just right. Samsung, Apple, are you listening?

But I'll keep trying. In the meantime, did you know that Renee Zellweger doesn't look like herself any more? Her eyes are different. Could she even play in a Bridget Jones sequel? Well, if she did feel she had to have surgery in order to appease the machine, then once again, our culture has destroyed identity in an attempt at achieving some version of perfection. Renee, if you're listening to all of this hubbub, pay no attention. I'd watch you in any movie no matter what you look like. I just hope you are happy. Perfection is overrated anyway.

You want perfection? You should get a load of my face. Ha!

Nick is making little goat or robot noises in his sleep. I'm not sure if he's dreaming or if his sinuses are just that clogged. Either way, he's a sicky and Mike and I have been sitting in a quiet and dimly lit living room for the past two hours ... still... trying... to... text... each... other. Ugh.

On the bright side - I've taken some pictures with my new Galaxy. I love these new pictures. The resolution is great, but I still suck at taking pictures. No camera can help that. I can tell my phone to do phone stuff. I can ask what time it is, what day it is, and look stuff up on Google without even touching my phone. I even asked the meaning of life. My phone doesn't know either. That's cool.

So the transitions might be a bit rocky, but I'm convinced that everything will work out. That goes for my new android and Ms. Zellweger.

Thank you for listening, jb

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