iPhflake

There are times when I wish Gigi had a neck. That way I’d have something to wring.

The only two things Gigi-the-iPhone DOESN’T do well are the two things that any other bloody mobile phone in the world does as a matter of course: call and text. Gigi, probably not wishing to join the peasants, chooses to make both difficult.

So far her record for number of times dropping the signal during a single phone call is nine, and I have high hopes that she’ll break that record before the week’s out. After one or two episodes of dueling busy signals, my callers have learned to stand by patiently while I talk Gigi out of her snit and restablish the connection.

“Maybe,” my mother suggested wistfully, “You could get a second phone for calls, and use this one for everything else?”

Then there’s my ongoing battle with the screenboard–I refuse to call this thing a keyboard. Actually, I’m getting the hang of the typing part, but what’s bugging the heck out of me are Gigi’s unwavering attempts to correct my English.

Yup. MY English. I wouldn’t mind so much except that she’s putting words in my mouth.

Gigi helpfully decides what I mean when I type something, and pops it up in a little balloon over the word. That’s fine; given the size of the keys and the high probability that I just hit the wrong one, it can be a real help.

The problem, though, is that even when I get the word right, she still corrects it.  Hitting the spacebar or any punctuation accepts her “correction,” so that I spend a lot of time backspacing and retyping her fixes. In the photo above, I’m typing an acronym, DAZ. If I hit the spacebar to move to the next word, Gigi will change it to “fax.” (Usability hint, Apple: the “accept” signal should be different from what I’d do anyway if the word is correct.)

It’s especially painful during SMS texting, when things are moving fast and I don’t always catch Gigi’s fixes before I send (and sometimes she fixes them when I hit the send button). I texted my cousin Robyn tonight and my side of the conversation looked like this:

Pill
Poops dam don
Poops meant by
OK call of u be to talk need jell etc.
I hate this goatherd don
shot don
PHONE!!!!!!!

Goatherd Don?

YOU tell me what I just said. Since Gigi’s arrival, Robyn has begun inquiring about my drinking habits. I’ve told her it’s Gigi’s fault; I’m not sure she believes me.

Share on Facebook

Related posts:

1. iPhone: Where seldom is heard… ...a discouraging word, or any other word, for that matter. Much as...
2. My cheatin’ heart I snuck into a Verizon store yesterday and toyed with an HTC...