Travels with my iPhone

I admit it, I am in danger of becoming an iPhone bore. I’m told it happens to us all.

After about 3 days of wanting to chuck it at the wall, as I could neither download or text, and the most useful thing I’d discovered was how to find out what the weather was in Luxor, I started to get the hang of it. Setting up an iTunes account helped*.

I’m thinking it’s going to be most useful when I’m out and about. I’m not interested in the many games Apps, but there are some wonderfully geeky mapping Apps, and I’m nothing if not a map geek.

I got to test it out on Thursday when I had to go to Manchester with our Finance Director for a meeting. He had a paper map, but it wasn’t that good, so I tapped the post code of the place we were going into the iPhone. It didn’t just show us the route, but also show us walking along it as a little blue dot. We were like a couple of children, giddy with excitement (I know, it doesn’t take much)! Coming home, I was able to find the times of the next trains to York (ok, I missed the first of them, but that was because I don’t do running).

Then yesterday we were having a shopping day in Liverpool, and wanted coffee. I was standing in Debenhams and searched for coffee shops. The nearest one was actually one I’d been to last summer, Rococo, and wanted to visit again. It's a bit like a tart's boudoir, and a welcome change to Starbucks or Costa

Mind, I also discovered that this same App shows you where the nearest places of interest are to where you’re standing, and gives you the history of them. I find this fascinating. My colleagues just rolled their eyes and groaned.

I am going to enjoy this!

*Yes, I know this is the basic thing, but I didn't have one, and hadn't set it up right at first.

In which I finally get my iPhone

When I went into town the other day I got my iPhone. After my strop with Vodafone I hadn't had time to get it till now. As with many things which bring with them huge expectations, so far it is proving to be a bit of mixed blessing.

You see, I can’t actually work it very well. What I hadn’t appreciated, even from seeing others use them, is how very different it is to a ‘normal’ mobile. As someone who has struggled to get to grips with my work BlackBerry, it’s proving to be something of a challenge. Couple that with the fact that I so far have not been able to log on to download any ‘Apps’, and I’m getting to the point where I’m about ready to chuck it against the wall (only I won’t, cos of the cost).

I’m sure I will get there, it will just take me longer. I’m finding the keyboard particularly difficult as it’s so sensitive, and I’m used to bashing at the keypad on a phone. I therefore tend to end up with gobbledegook. At the moment, everything is taking me three times as long as it did before.

And all those wonderful Apps, well, they’re still a mystery to me. Even browsing them, apart from obvious things like Facebook and Twitter I have no idea where to start, (though Cat has offered to advise me). It’s proving quite stressful at the moment, when I foolishly thought it would be a breeze. But then it’s me, and technology. And that rarely ends well.

Angry

You remember I was going to get an iPhone? Well, I’d decided to go and sort this today, as it would have been just too distracting to get it midweek when I was supposed to be working. I was looking forward to having the weekend to play with it.

I went into town specially. In the Vodaphone shop, I spoke to an assistant who looked and sounded like she’d rather be somewhere else. I explained I wanted to upgrade, and had been told I could do so from the end of January.

She tapped in my number. ‘When did you enquire about an upgrade?’
‘About 2 weeks ago, I was told I could upgrade 90 days before the end of my contract’.
‘Yes, you could. Only this Monday, it was changed to 50 days’.

I must have looked a bit dumbfounded. ‘What?’ (What she doesn’t realise is that this is my ‘dangerous’/scary tone)
‘You won’t be able to upgrade until the end of Feb’. By way of explanation ‘they sometimes do this without telling us’.
'So if I'd have come in last weekend, I could have got one?'
'Probably'

I’m seriously not impressed, and actually quite angry at being denied my new ‘toy’. ‘I’m not at all happy about this’. I think if she could have got away with shrugging her shoulders, she would.

But what do you do. No point ranting any more in the shop – though I was quite loud in my displeasure.

I bought chocolate (see, even my diet has suffered). And came home and sent a strongly worded email to Vodaphone.

And blogged about it.

Where I may become even more anti-social

I’ve been pondering getting an iPhone. My poor old mobile is distinctly worse for wear, and has had a cracked screen since I dropped it on the car, so I’ve been waiting until I qualified for an upgrade.

I called into the shop last week to see what my options were. It seems I’m eligible from the end of this month.

‘What do you recommend?’
‘Get an iPhone’

Last weekend, I was looking at all the Apps* on Cat’s. For a map geek like me, it was fabulous (yes, I know there are lots of other Apps, but it was the ones that could direct you to places, and recommend a nearby restaurant** which fascinated me). I want one, even though it may mean I spend even more time not talking to people.

So when I saw someone’s iPhone on the table at work, I asked what she thought of it. She looked at me, and it was almost like I could read her mind. What could someone like me (in her eyes, a total non-techy) want with an iPhone?

‘Yeah, it’s good, but you’d probably find it complicated’
(pause)
‘Mind, I do have a lot of Applications, and things like Facebook on mine, which you wouldn’t want’

I smiled. ‘Oh, you’d be surprised’

They really don’t know me. And that suits me just fine.

*See, iPhone jargon
** if you ever need an Indian Restaurant in Grantham, we can recommend one. Not that we visited, we were on the train at the time.