Learning my new iPhone

Selfie. What can I say?

I will admit that we've been slow adopters of phone technology.  Two years ago we had flip phones.  Until last week we both had "smart phones" that we didn't allow to be smart, i.e. we didn't enable the Internet.  And then Mike got me an iPhone for Valentine's Day, and I suddenly jumped into the 21st century.

And I absolutely love it!  For a person who doesn't like to read manuals, I've been reading the online manual on my iPad while holding my new phone and checking out the features.  I know, go ahead and say it.  TOTAL GEEK!

Here's what I love, and where I've been struggling...

Love these new features...
1. The camera is awesome!  I'm not sure I've got the hang of it yet, but I'll get there.  Ok, it may have taken us several hours to figure out how to get pictures moved to my computer.  But after waiting forever on hold with Verizon, we found it embarrassingly easy once we did a Google search.  As Mike tells his students "Google is your friend".

2. SIRI is an interesting feature that usually has me laughing as she interprets my questions.  But I love that I can ask her about a location, and her answer includes a map.  However she can't tell us who was a lead singer in a band.  I know, get your priorities straight.

3. You can see who called your voicemail if they are in your contacts, and you don't need to enter a password to retrieve the voicemail. Saves a lot of time even though most people don't leave voicemail these days.

4. The display of texts back and forth with another person is awesome.  I love that the dialogue appears on a single screen.

5. We currently use the CalenGoo (Google calendar) app on our iPads, and after downloading it to the phone, I could easily view all of our appointments.

6. I love that I can easily check email on the phone.  It was easy to set up my email, and after a bit of fumbling I also set up Mike's email so we can check them both if we're out and about.

7.  We are very familiar with the App Store from our iPads, and so it is second nature to download apps.  Ok, Scrabble was the first thing I downloaded.  It's a bit of a challenge to play a game on such a small device, but I'll get there.

Not so sure about these features...
1. It's hard to type text messages since I'm used to the pull out keyboard on my old phone.  Once I turned off the auto correct feature it was much easier.

2. It's challenging to read news articles on such a small screen, but I think I'll get used to this over time.  I did make the text size larger which really helps.

3. I have to charge the phone more frequently than I ever did on my previous phone.  I read about this before getting the phone so I wasn't surprised.  If this is a problem, I may consider one of the cases that can power the phone.

4. There are so many features, that it may take me a long time to learn everything the phone can do.  Not a bad problem to have I guess.


Here is a photo montage of Indy taken with my new phone:

Canal in Broad Ripple

Cemetery

Downtown Indy at dusk

Lucas Oil Stadium

White River

Eagle Creek Reservoir

The Pyramids

Of course there's more to life than a new phone...

We enjoyed a great dinner with friends Chuck and Melanie at Napolese in downtown Indy.  Very delicious salads and unusual pizza (we tried a pizza with roast beef), not to mention strange drinks. Mike tried one called "10 bullets".   Not sure why that name, but he loved the drink which included bourbon and a type of Italian bitters that his grandpa used to drink. And  he really had "20 bullets" by the end of dinner.

Chuck and Melanie

And I've been busy with a few crafts during these last (hopefully) days of winter...

Coin pouch

And we enjoyed a brief trip to mom's so Mike could finish some plumbing work he started a couple of weeks ago. And the most famous line of the trip was from Mike:  "Doesn't everyone have a propane torch?" And maybe the answer from my brother Gary sums it up for most people: "If it involves fire, I call in the professionals".

Hope you are enjoying a great week.
Diane