Lost and phoned: Why I love my replacement Apple
As I look at my new tiny personal computer that I can hold in my hand, I think about all the things it can do:
It can find me movie times, tell me the weather and check my bank account for its current negative balance.
It helps me waste time reading about hotels in places I’ll never go or watching YouTube videos about places I’ll never go.
It lets me order an endless array of unnecessary stuff that will arrive in two days.
It allows me to keep track of whether I’m losing or gaining weight (this is a disadvantage).
It enables me to order a car to pick me up and take me anywhere.
It will tell me the market value of my house — which is currently
I can also use my phone to order the tofu eggplant from Panda Express for delivery, check my Facebook account
(see time-wasting above), send an email to one of my 17 doctors and then talk to her on video, choose a wine based on its score on Vivino, shoot video of the street tree that just fell on my neighbor’s car, buy a plane ticket to Cambodia, read newspapers and magazines and — oh yeah — make and receive phone calls.
I had to think about this recently when I spent — gulp — $1,500 at the Apple store buying a new iPhone 13 Pro Max.
Some of you are thinking, “Yeah, so what? That’s not so bad.”
And others are gasping and already emailing me about how I’m stupid because I could have gotten an Android phone for $29.99 that comes with a free toaster.
But that’s a lot of money to me, and it’s all because I lost my last phone that’s probably still in my house somewhere. Probably when my kids move me out of this house into assisted living (I don’t intend to move again until then), they’ll find it wedged behind a piece of furniture, by which time it will be an unusual artifact of a more primitive time.
The moral to that story is to never buy a black phone case. A black phone disappears even when it’s right in front of you.
But the nice thing about replacing your iPhone is that — if you’ve been smart enough to keep all your data backed up on the iCloud — you can just hit a button and download it all onto your new phone. It’s like magic. I didn’t lose a single precious photo from my daughter’s wedding, nor from our safari to Africa.
Since I spent the extra money to get the fanciest iPhone in existence, I now have a set of three cameras that are so complex, I doubt I will ever understand how to use them. Although Enrique told me that Apple offers a free photography class that maybe I’ll take someday. Right after I sweep all the cobwebs off the ceiling.
I was so proud of my fancy schmancy new phone that I couldn’t help showing it off to my 23-year-old daughter, Curly Girl, and her friend. It’s shiny gold and looks impressive. I also got extra memory because I have way too many apps.
After I pulled out my phone and bragged about it, the girls pulled out their phones. And they had the exact same phones as I do, except for the color. I guess there’s no point in trying to outtech youngsters. They’ll always be one step ahead of me.
But that’s OK. I know how to sew a button on my shirt. And write in cursive, although I suppose that is becoming a lost art form.
Speaking of obsolete technologies, I can operate a fax machine and address an envelope. I can drive a stick shift car.
And read a paper map. I always feel smug when I watch my favorite show — “The Amazing Race” — and see the young travel contestants struggling to get from France to Germany trying to drive a stick and using a paper map. “Why can’t we use GPS?”
When I first got a smartphone, I hated it. I kept accidentally hanging up on people. I wanted to throw it against the wall and watch it smash into a million pieces. Then, someone explained to me: It’s not a telephone. It’s a miniature computer with a phone built into it. After that, I was OK. And I learned to love it.
Nowadays, just look up your map on your phone. It will tell you exactly where you are, and how to get to where you want to be. Unless you have a black case. In which case, you’ve probably already lost it.