What iThink About My New iPhone

We've all had it happen - we've been SO anxious about getting that shiny new toy. It may have started back in the "Ronco" days. Apparently Ronco is still around (after some sales and bankruptcies), sometimes better known now by the name Popeil or blah-blah-O-matic. It was presented to us as the greatest thing since sliced bread. Now THERE'S something to be excited about!

Nowadays it's our tech gadgets. We see them (here Rick would say "Ooh! Shiny thing!") come out on a daily basis. GPS, laptops, smartphones, notebooks, tablets, DSLR cameras, hands-free can openers, and the list goes on... (go ahead, add to the list!)

A few months back Rick and I decided that we'd like to combine our cell phone and iPod that we carry around everywhere and just get iPhones.  Easier said than done, though, because they aren't made to work on our phone carrier, T-mobile.  So we'd either have to buy them and hack them ourselves or buy them already hacked.  The terms are "jailbroke"- free to accept different software and "unlocked"- free to accept various phone carriers (using software that the phone doesn't accept, hence the need to "jailbreak" first).  After a month of research and finally buying a beat-up iPhone dubbed "iBrokit" to experiment on we determined that our best bet is just to buy them already hacked.  Rick found a pretty sweet deal on a pair of 3GS, one white, one black on Craigslist for sale in Tacoma.

We were pretty excited.  The shiny new toy.  Chelsea came over and said "Can I touch it?" then gingerly touched Rick's that was sitting delicately cradled in it's box.  Ooh, shiny thing indeed!

The camera takes beautiful pictures and videos.  The phones work perfectly.  The iPod aspect was exactly as we knew it to be.  Bluetooth, wifi, voice controls, all the bells and whistles.

As I set mine up I looked for some things offered in my 5 year old Nokia phone with lousy camera but still a camera, voice, video, wifi (actually, I don't think mine offered wifi but Rick's did, a couple years newer), games, radio.  Pretty nice phone but not the whiz-bang gadget that Apple makes.  One of the features that my old phone, and pretty much every other phone out there, offers is "Profiles".  These are the settings that are designed for use in different circumstances.  I only used normal at home and nearly everywhere, silent at meetings and one I created strictly for sleeping (it works well at work also, when I need my phone to be discreet but not necessarily silent) since my Utah-displaced brother started sending me angry texts in the middle of the night so I needed to make text alarms quiet enough so to not disturb my sleep but still leave the ringer loud enough that it would wake me in case of someone's emergency.

Hmm, I can't find it.  So I google it.  I guess they don't come with Profiles.  There's a program out there that's supposed to help create them, not very stable it sounds.

Last night Rick realizes there's no capability to take and then send a picture.  Google it.  Gotta go into the settings and make it ready to send MMS (multimedia (voice, pictures, video] messaging service).  That takes about an hour to figure out and get the phone to recognize.  These pictures seem so big, they aren't sending completely, or correctly, where can I change the camera settings?  Google it.  I can't change camera settings...

So, as of right now, there are a number of things that we're having to get used to, actual shortcomings in our shiny (Ooh!) new iPhones.  I'm sure, in time, we'll figure it all out and we'll love them.  Like when I sold my Camry and got my toaster (xB).  I LOVED my Camry.  It took a while but now I LOVE my toaster as well.

0 cats hacked up hairballs:

About Me

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After 2 unsuccessful marriages I spent 12 years as a divorcee, only to fall prey to another man's wiles. We had a fun 5 years together and then he decided he wanted more freedom so once again I'm single.

So I'm freshly divorced at 57 and have 5 great kids and now 7 grandkids. My kids are still a major part of my life but I'm busy helping my aging parents on Kauai.

I've lived in California, Hawaii and Oklahoma before finally settling here in Washington. I love Washington and come back to visit family, friends and take care of my garden often but will be temporarily a resident of Kauai.

I've moved 30 times in my life (no, my parents weren't in the service, at least not since I was about 2) and finally planted roots when I got my little house that I've owned since '91.

My family are Jehovah's Witnesses, I've been one since '72.