New iPhone now a must as old one goes extinct

I remember a friend of mine once remarking that her “life” was in her purse — a statement doubtless echoed by many of us women.

Today it ain’t so much our purses in which we transport our lives as it is our phones … and that goes for women AND men.

Definitely goes for Yours Truly. Forget actually talking on my iPhone: I use it for an ever-increasing amount of wheeling, dealing and transaction-making, big and small.

Heck, it’s just so much more quick and convenient for all of us to pay bills, place online orders, read various materials, navigate social media, take pictures and show those pictures off to captive audiences with our smartphones than it is to do so on desk computers and laptops that find too many excuses to run about the speed of petrified molasses.

But here’s the thing. My reluctance to upgrade to a new iPhone has traditionally matched my reluctance to upgrade to a newer car. Because the newer phones cost at least half as much as a car (how many of us have a “phone note”?) and if you’re my age or thereabouts, you’re worried that trying to figure out how to navigate a state-of-theart version of either will require a rocket-scientist brain transplant.

The last time I upgraded my phone was in 2018 … a mere six years ago but an eternity in the world according to the late Steve Jobs. The “new” phone at the time was an 8 Plus, which opened a whole new world to me once I figured the thing out. According to Google the 8 Plus was released Sept. 22, 2017, so I felt in step with the tech world for the first time. (Previous upgrades had been to slightly obsolete models offered by our then-cellphone company free or for a buck in exchange for signing a 2-year service contract. The company ended those offers.)

Fast forward to this year. I knew my 8 Plus needed a new battery, which I’d been dragging my feet on buying after replacing the one in hubby’s 7 Plus last year. But then I realized I had another problem

that had been gradually developing and appeared to be about to come to a head: The phone’s charging port wanted less and less to do with any charger I tried to fire it up with. I had to figuratively “jiggle the handle” and position the phone all kinds of ways to get it to charge. Cleaning the port, restarting the phone, changing chargers, updating the operating system and all other online suggestions brought about no change.

So, the other Saturday, I found myself back at the Apple Store.

Turns out Apple can dang near put a man on the moon, but if an iPhone charging port peters out, that’s irreparable. That’s what the earnest young man at the Genius Bar told me. I could get a new battery but that would be a short postponement of the inevitable: I needed a phone upgrade. What’s more, the iOS system to which I’d just upgraded on the 8 Plus was the last upgrade Old Girl would be able to take … and a new system upgrade was slated for the near future. If I kept limping along with Old Girl, despite the charging port problem, I’d eventually not be able to access new or upgraded apps.

The Earnest Young Man was kind enough to tell me that although I could buy a replacement phone at the store and get a decent trade-in offer, they didn’t offer financing … and that rather than putting the purchase on my credit card, I could probably obtain 0-percent financing through my cellphone service carrier. Sure enough, my carrier offers such a deal, though their estimated trade-in offer is equivalent to maybe a couple of Venti-size lattes at Starbucks.

I came home and, trying to beat any mind changes/ chicken-outs, I ordered the phone that’s roughly twice the sequence of the old: a 15 Plus. As this column went to press, it had just arrived and we were staring at each other.

My hopes are many: that I figure it out fairly quickly (The iPhone people love to assume we buyers have some sense); that it won’t turn up its nose at pairing with my 9-year-old car’s Bluetooth and playing the phone’s audio through the car speakers; and, especially, that Hubby’s 7 Plus will hold on, as he’s consistently flat-out lost his religion with every cellphone upgrade he’s ever had to endure.

★★★

The same day we hit the Apple Store, we’d gone to a morning car show at Little Rock’s River Market. Although the show was dominated by late-model Corvettes, there were quite a few vintage cars that dated to the mid-20th century. We spotted a couple of guys in what looked not much younger than a Ford Model T.

These vintage car owners have transcended the whole “you won’t be able to find parts for that” thing. If they can manage to keep their cars going, why can’t we keep our vintage iPhones going?

And hey, where are the Vintage iPhone Shows? With iPhone 1s, 2s and 3s sitting in mint-condition display with their little “hoods” up, shiny little guts showing, while owners sit back in their lawn chairs, surreptitiously watching for “touchers” and other dissers? And/or telling rapt attendees how they lovingly restored the phones, how often they show them, the good times they’ve had with them? After all, as I stated earlier, these phones are expensive enough that phone notes are as needful as car notes.

Having freshly taken on the former, I can only hope I won’t have to take on the latter anytime soon. Please, Gas-Only Talkmobile, don’t develop a faulty charging port.