I hate that smart phones are a thing.
Yes, they are useful. Yes, they are convenient. Yes, I use mine daily and it occasionally makes life easier.
But you know what? A smart phone just does the jobs of 12 other things that we already had. And now none of those things is working when I need them to work.
A list of the problems I've been having more and more often over the past month:
- Calls not going through. For example, the other evening I tried to call my stepmother. You know, place a phone call. THE PURPOSE OF A CELL PHONE. It just kind of sat there and wouldn't DO anything. So I closed out all of the "apps" running (phone "app included- since when does the call function count as an app? THAT SHOULD BE THE DEFAULT STAT OF A PHONE!) and went a step further, did a Task Killer thing to make sure nothing was running. Called again, it went through. So then the next day when I tried to place a call to Dear Boyfriend, my phone instead decided, "Oh, this is the time I should make that call you tried to make last night!" Imagine my surprise when stepmother answered. This happens on a regular basis and causes quite a lot of confusion.
- Accelerometer (I assume) issues. Over the pat few days, I've noticed that when I rotate my phone, pictures/pages I want to view in landscape do not follow me. At first, I thought this was intended with the "updated" apps. But no, nothing is turning. Except for my stupid Google Maps, which brings us to...
- STUPID GOOGLE MAPS. I don't know wtf they did, but it worked FINE until their last update a few months ago. Now my directions freeze constantly. I start to exit a highway and freak out because I have no idea which way to turn without prompts. I'm about to bust out my Garmin again, this ish is getting ridiculous. BUT AT LEAST IT GOES INTO LANDSCAPE WHEN I DON'T EVEN WANT IT TO.
- My keyboard. Every so often, I wouldn't get words prompted by Swype, which is annoying, but hey at least I can still spell on my own. Now it occasionally just doesn't let me type anything. I just... I don't even. It's a cell phone. Making phone calls and sending texts should be what it excels at. I don't even.
- Texting. I've covered my gimp keyboard issues. But frequently, I get notified that my sent text was not actually sent, would I like to send it again? This can happen 3 or more times in a row. And I'm like, "I don't want this not to have actually sent, even though I have my doubts!" (I've had issues with that in the past) And then it turns out that the text DID go through and the poor person on the other end of the line just got the same sentence from me 5 times. That gets annoying for both parties.
- And this has been an ongoing issue with the handset itself- Want to turn on wifi? GOOD LUCK, unless you've closed out everything, run task Killer, and even then on occasion it goes, NOPE. At least when it's done restarting wifi in enabled, but seriously, that gets annoying.
And there you have it. You know, before this (my first) smart phone, I only had "dumb" phones. But you know what? They reliably called and texted people. And everything worked and didn't have to load. It just did what you told it to do.
I get that technology is advancing and is great, but can we get things working reliably before moving on to the Next Big Thing? I get that half the problem is just that apps and programming gets too complex for older handsets to handle. But my phone is a year old and I bought it right when it was released. And it frigging turns off when it feels like it. Now I'm faced with the dilemma of purchasing a new one- do I go the route of hoping that more money will equal a better phone experience? Maybe a fancier handset will be technically relevant for more than a year.
I just wish we could all go back to when we loved our Nokias and thought T9 was the best thing ever.
Also, we should get rid of cars and ride horses everywhere except for long trips, when we will all use trains and planes.
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