We finally took the plunge and got smartphones for ourselves last weekend. We must be almost the last people in the country to invest in this wonderful not-so-new-anymore technology. Why do they call them smartphones? Could it be because the phone is, indeed, smarter than a 5th grader? I doubt it.
It took days forever to get all most of the settings properly set so that it didn’t tell me about a new email or Facebook post every 2.5 seconds and run the battery down so I couldn't even make a call if I wanted to. But the most challenging thing about this phone, so far, is texting. I didn’t get an iPhone because I didn’t have $400 laying around under the mattress and we didn’t want to pay outrageous monthly rates with a Sprint or some other contract carrier. We went with Virgin Mobile. I have an LG Optimus Elite. It has all of the features I wanted and then some. I don’t really believe that the iPhone is any more intelligent than any other phone anyway. And it’s made by Apple, I’m not a huge Apple fanatic. But I digress. Back to the texting challenge.
I received a text from my darling daughter late the other night, asking what I was doing. It was late and I was getting ready to go to bed. Or so I thought. I have sent a few text messages and it was no big deal, but for some reason this phone decided it was time to have a little fun with me. I guess it was bored.
I clicked Reply, the keyboard popped up and I tried to type Getting, as in “Getting ready to go to bed” (I refuse to succumb to texting abbreviations). I got as far as G e t and this smart(ass)phone decided that what I really meant to say was fetch. Ok, I have fat fingers, so maybe it was operator error. I tried it again. Get. Fetch. Seriously? Not one to be easily dissuaded, I gave it another shot, carefully watching which letters lit up when I touched them. G e t. Fetch. WHAT?? Not operator error at all.
Knowing the definition of insanity, I decided to abandon the keyboard, took a deep breath and delved into the settings yet again. Swype settings….all good there. Android keyboard settings…turn off ALL autocorrect functions. Done. Go back and try again. You got it. Fetch. Sigh. Yes, I tried several more times and got the same result. Insanity. I know. I resisted the urge to fling the phone across the room, remembering I had not purchased insurance on it.
This went on for half an hour or longer….typing, checking the settings, typing again. At one point during the madness I just happened to look more closely at the keyboard and noticed that the little button with the world on it said ES. What does that mean?? It is right next to the change-from-letters-to-numbers key and since they are all pretty tiny, maybe I touched it by mistake at some point and it is the cause of all the confusion. I clicked on it/touched it. Nothing happened. It still said ES. Once more into the settings I go and after wandering blindly in there for a while, I found the language settings had been set to Spanish. Who did that? When did that happen? How did I miss it the other 38 times I have looked at the settings? It was getting (fetching?) later and I didn’t care who or when or how, so I changed it back to English and it was all good again – at LAST! But one thing still bothers me. The Spanish word for “get” is not “fetch”. Smartphone? HA!
If you’re still with me, I do have a couple of cards to show you for your trouble. Thank you for hanging in there.
I needed some cards to send to my sister and a few to use for my pen pal letters, something quick and easily reproduced. The butterfly die from Memory Box made short work of it.
A little pretty paper behind the negative space left by the die, pop it up onto the card front, add a sentiment banner…BOOM! Done. I need a little practice with the white gel pen, I think. The line is a little wonky here and there, but hey – it’s handmade. Deal with it, right?
Join me next week for more Tales from the Smartphone. Or maybe just some more pretty cards to look at (at which to look, Leslie?).
