I recently had a couple of bad bouts of luck when it comes to my iPhone and it has forced me to realized how far I have come in terms of revolving my productive life around my smartphone. I found it really hard to go back to basics!
After returning an iPhone that would completely drain of its battery within an hour, I ended up getting an iPhone that apparently had some unknown hardware issues that would cause it to restart 3-4 times an hour randomly. Luckily I had Apple Care, who advised me to restore when I called. However, when I tried to restore, it would go in a restore loop for about 3 times because it kept thinking it was in recovery mode… until it could restore no more and was completely dead on a Saturday morning. I had no choice but to schedule an appointment to the Apple Genius Bar, but the only appointment at the Apple Store closest to me was on Thursday at 4:40pm, which would absolutely not work for me. So I ended up making an appointment at the Apple Store in San Francisco for Monday. A few days before the phone died , I had gotten a basic prepaid phone for myself for emergencies just in time for the phone to die. I was able to get around on my calendar print out and just letting a few friends who I had plans with know to contact my burner phone or my husband’s phone should they need to get in touch.
During the 3 days that I did not have my iPhone working I realized how much of my daily life depended on having a smartphone. The weekend was relatively OK because I have access my computer a bit more often and I don’t have much other than the usual kids activities and social plans to deal with, but Monday it was altogether another story.
Among the things I use multiple times on a daily basis are:
- GPS with traffic conditions
- Calendar
- Contact
- Yelp (what’s good to eat around some place?)
- Email without having to fire up a computer
- Read my Kndle ebooks
- Take photos
- Check weather
- Make lists (shopping list, to do list)
- Music
- Read news
- Track food and exercise
On the day of my appointment, without my iPhone, I was no longer keenly aware of traffic conditions, when BART train would arrive so that I might get to San Francisco on time for my appointment. I didn’t know what new places to eat around the Apple Store other than the tried and true establishments that I already knew about. I even had to ask for directions. Luckily, in spite of it all I made it to the Apple Store only 6 minutes late for my appointment.
Once at the Apple store I quickly checked in but waited a while because my appointment was accidentally cancelled by one of the associates there… but an hour later I finally got out of there with a replacement phone, when the restore failed and the iPhone restarted again right afterwards.
Now I am a little worried about the new 8.10 iOS update… I will be eligible for the upgrade to iPhone 6 after Christmas.
Meanwhile my little Verizon prepaid basic phone has been off the charger for over a week and still have full battery indicator bars!