My Phone

I can't say I didn't have plenty of warning.  My phone had been acting up for over a year - locking up, shutting down, and, most puzzling, rebooting every time I tried to bring up the "Memo" app.  I can't say I wasn't warned.

I got it about 4 years ago - my first smart phone.  I decided to get it because I needed a method of opening the electronic lock boxes used by realtors in town.  The lock boxes had an infared port, and to open them, you needed a special "EKey", a Palm Pilot, or the appropriate smart phone.  I had been using a Palm Pilot to open the boxes, but found it unhandy to have to carry that, as well as my phone.  In addition, I had to manually sync the Palm every day in order to open the lock boxes - a process that required me to go to the office and fire up my computer.  The smart phone not only gave me lock box capability, it also allowed me to have mobile access to email, property listing information, the internet, my calendar, and contacts.  I looked around, and chose the "Centro", a handy little phone running the Palm operating system.

My Centro worked great for several years.  I quickly became dependent on the functionality, and I could even watch YouTube or browse the internet on the tiny screen.  Of course, it was no substitute for a laptop, but you could actually get something done in a pinch.  I can't tell you how many times I was able to Google something to get a phone number or directions.

When my phone started to act up, I decided I'd be proactive and go ahead and get a replacement.  Unfortunately, I discovered that the new models didn't have the infared port, requiring the use of a separate small device to open the lock boxes.  That seemed to me to be a step backward, so I decided to hold out as long as I could.  My strategy seemed genius when I found out that the next generation of lock boxes would not require infared, using Bluetooth technology to communicate with the phone.  Of course, the introduction of the new boxes was delayed, so I just kept on limping along with my old Centro.

I continued to delay, even once the new boxes were introduced - reasoning that it would be smart to wait until I was sure all the old ones were gone.  After a couple of months, it was clear it was time - except by then, there was a special demo day scheduled at work, where Sprint would have a bunch of products and people around to explain them.  It seemed like the perfect time to make the move.

Unfortunately, the day before the demo, my phone died completely.  Since I don't have a land line - at home or at the office - I was in a bind.  I also didn't have a PIN number to access my voice mail, so I needed to do something, and quickly.  Since I'd been happy with Sprint, I decided to just stop in and pick one out.

Unfortunately, the first Sprint store I stopped in wasn't helpful.  The young woman I talked to didn't even know as much as I did about which phones were capable of operating the EKey program, and she didn't seem to be too interested in helping me decide on a phone.  In frustration, I left and headed to a different Sprint store.

The second store was a bit better.  The salesperson I had was helpful, although it frustrated me that neither store knew anything about the planned demo at work, and couldn't give me any info about what kinds of discounts I could expect there.  Since I was in a hurry, and desperate, I decided to swallow my frustration and just pick out a phone.

It seems my available options boiled down to three major operating systems - the Android, Blackberry, and the iPhone.  I didn't know too much about any of them, but the phones running the Blackberry system didn't appeal to me - plus, my wife has a Blackberry phone, and I wasn't too impressed with it.

The iPhone is, by all accounts, great, but it needed an extra piece of hardware to communicate with the lock boxes.  In addition, although there are a lot of apps out there for that phone, the Android has more free apps.  I had played around a little with a couple of other Android phones, and was impressed, so I decided to go with that system.

I ended up buying a Samsung Epic phone.  It has a ton of features, and a big, bright screen that's easy to see in all light conditions.  Of course, everything works differently than on my old phone, so I was facing a steep learning curve.  I soon discovered that it was going to take a little time to teach this old dog some new tricks.

I very quickly learned how to turn the phone on (yeah!), but my first problem came when I tried to answer the first call.  The Epic is a touch screen, with virtually no buttons.  All input is accomplished by touching or wiping the screen with a fingertip.  I knew this, but no amount of touching the phone icon would answer when it rang!  Since I knew how to dial, I just waited until the caller hung up, then called them back.  Eventually I learned that, to answer the phone, you had to "wipe" the button across the screen.  Problem solved!

Next, I spent an hour or so on the phone with our tech support guy Brian, installing software and getting the phone synced with my email system, so I could open lock boxes and have access to my email and calendar.  That went well, except of course for my giving Brian a nervous breakdown.  How he can spend all day beating his head against the brick walls that make up Realtors brains is beyond me, but I'm glad he does.

Now that I am up and running, my challenge is to learn to put the phone to work.  I've spent the past couple of days learning the basics - how to move around menus, open and close apps, etc.  Yesterday, I discovered that not all my calendar events were syncing to my desktop - this phone has the capability of syncing with a number of calendars, and I'd been putting appointments in my GMail Calendar, instead of the Outlook Calendar.  Never mind the fact that I've never so much as opened up a calendar in GMail! 

The biggest thing this phone fiasco has taught me is that I am remarkably less flexible and adaptable than I was when I was younger.  I used to love getting new gadgets - playing with them and figuring them out was part (most) of the fun.  Now, I just want everything to work!  My old phone, ancient and cranky as it was, was familiar, and I knew just about every thing there was to know about operating it. 

The moral of this story, if there is one, is that the transition to new technology is far easier if you upgrade before you're forced to.  Trying to learn something new - at any age - is much more difficult when you're under pressure.  Of course, I doubt very much if I actually learned anything from all this.  I'm quite certain that, a few years from now, I'll once again be scrambling as I try to learn the latest, greatest, phone.