A Blog a Day No. 11 - My new iPhone

I did not want one, really not. I can make web sites, I can write blogs, I can work with photos, on a computer, but telephones are for calling people, I thought. If you need me I am there. If I need you I can call you. I even know how to send a message, but “i-thingies” are not really my line. Watching those high school kids at the bus stop sliding their fingers over a screen and comparing their discoveries, I used to read a book whilst waiting for a bus, or observe the scenery.

So let’s start at the beginning somewhere in the dark past. My No. 2 son, a business person working for the Swiss government and ex Swiss diplomat, bought himself a Blackberry. Now my blackberries came from the garden, I made tarts with them or served them with ice cream. His Blackberry was a communications object. I suppose you could call it a telephone, but it seemed to do a lot more. It had about 20 different sounds, (you turn the sound off - might be in an important meeting? and let it vibrate). I never knew that you could buy vibrating machines in telephone shops. Anyhow to continue. At this time I had something called a mobile. A nice handy little telephone, you dial a number and it rings at the other end and you can receive telephone calls. You could even take photos with it. I was happy and satisfied with this little machine, but one day it went kaput. No problem, Mr. Swiss gave me his old mobile as he had already bought a new one, and so this continued over the years. I became a “hand me down mobile user”. 

One day my son decided that his Blackberry was not what he wanted, and after two or three months the iPhone arrived on the scene. Around the same time Mr. Swiss also discovered the iPhone and organised one for himself. In the meanwhile my son decided that the iPhone was not really what he wanted, because the keys were not fast enough, so decided to purchase an Android (did he now call people by telepathy?). 

So when my son paid us a visit, he would sit with his father and they would discuss what the best aps were (aps?), what was actually free, what you had to pay for and I would cook a meal or play with my computer, listening with one ear and not understanding  a word.

Then came the dreadful day when my telephone again refused to work, I needed a hammer to hit the keys. There were no more “hand me downs” left, just the first iPhone that Mr. Swiss no longer needed as he had already progressed to the second iPhone. I then had a choice to make, did I want a “hand me down 3GS iPhone” (they have numbers, Mr. Swiss now has a 4 something) or did I have to pay money to organise a new normal mobile telephone. OK, I took the plunge and decided to go the cheaper way.

Today was the day when Mr. Swiss organised my new toy. First of all I had to check if I had iTunes on my computer. Of course I did, everyone has iTunes on their computer, the updates are arriving all the time. I must admit I had never actually used iTunes. Whilst my computer is full of photos and stories, Mr. Swiss has a computer full of music, but no problem. I asked a silly question “Why do I have to have iTunes for a telephone” the answer being, because it is an iPhone. I asked no further questions.

Mr. Swiss put my telephone card into the “hand me down” iPhone and it was alive, almost. All my telephone numbers were there, but a code was missing apparently. A quick journey into town to the Swisscom shop (while I decided to clean the windows) and Mr. Swiss arrived home with a fully functioning “hand me down” iPhone. They even managed to change the basic language from Taiwan Chinese to German (somehow through non usage probably, the telephone got homesick for its homeland).

So now I have an iPhone. I had to have a few small lessons about how to use it. I even have about 30 different tunes when it rings – I settled for guitar (Mr. Swiss has a sort of jazz piano). Mr. Swiss said I can put the numbers I use most of all in a sort of short version, to make things go quicker. I am still thinking about that.

Anyhow now things are sliding all over the place on the screen, just a sideways movement with a finger and you are in a completely different place. Think how the high school kids will look at a grey-haired senior citizen when she sits waiting for the bus and plays with her iPhone. I found out that there is even something called an iCloud which seems to be a place for storage (in the sky?)