Ctrl-Alt-Delete. Repeat.
January 14, 2009 by cynthia
Computer users are a remarkably forgiving lot. Mobile phone users are not, so why is the iPhone 3G, with its lousy phone service, such a success?
Because we’re treating it like a computer, not a phone.
No matter how many times a computer freezes, we simply reboot and move on. Our fingers routinely assume the position: Ctrl-Alt-Del. We wait patiently to see if we still have our data. (And don’t smirk, Mac users. Much as I like Freddie Mac, my MacBook Pro, I’ve a more than nodding acquaintance with her off switch, a far less graceful way to restart a computer.)
System crashes are built into the PC lexicon, allowed for in our business processes, a valid excuse for not getting work done. We don’t tolerate system failures in our phones, our cars or even our coffee makers, but they’re OK in our personal computers. Why is that?
I once watched a computer reviewer cussing out a new software product in our reviews lab. He’d wrestled to install it, rebooted every hour or so when it crashed, and this is how he described the experience:
“Installation went smoothly, so I put XXX through its paces. It performed basic operations well and…”
Huh? “If it ran so well, why were you swearing a blue streak all last week?” I asked, and his eyes went blank. He was so used to reboots that they faded into the background. He literally didn’t remember because for him, system crashes were just part of the process.
And therein lies the problem: If you’re in the computer club, any crash you can walk away from doesn’t count.
This is why, much as I love the iPhone, it’s ultimately a failure. It’s invented by guys who make personal computers. In their world, crashes are fine. Expected. Unfortunately, in the world of mobile phones, as the commercial says, the call must go through.
It clearly doesn’t with iPhones, or at least the flagship iPhone 3Gs like mine; the Web is rife with sighs and groans over dropped calls and crashes. I’ll bet the majority of iPhone users–geeks–don’t see this as a problem. They’re geeks.
Gigi-the-iPhone has failed me seriously on two occasions in the past 30 days. In the first, my car broke down in busy traffic and stranded me in a dangerous spot. Full signal strength on the 3G network, full battery. Gigi dropped call after call, then crashed completely. What should have been a ten-minute call for roadside assistance turned into a 90-minute ordeal that edged perilously close to exhausting her limited and un-replaceable battery.
In the second instance, she garbled a phone message from my mother telling me that my father was in the ER after a nasty spill from a ladder. They were there another five hours before she called again, wondering where I was.
It can’t go on. It’s a measure of my iPhone affection (or addiction) that I’m seriously considering the cheap second phone idea. Or, as my friend Rinee put it after the fourth time Gigi blew our call, “a backup emergency phone for safety.” And this one, adamantly, MUST be manufactured by a company that makes phones, not computers.
–sigh–
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Hey, Cynthia, again I say: BlackBerry forever!
How is your dad doing? Please give my regards to your folks, and come see me sometime at my new place! Remember Gov. Schaefer? He lives near here now.
wait until the major computer company is running the software in your car. oops, that day is already today, as there’s a version of windows running in ford cars called sync.
how do you run a virus check on your car?
Hey, Susan; Dad was doing much better last night when I stopped in, and we’re pleased with his progress. I think he’s got another few weeks in the rehab center, though–he’s mobile only with great difficulty.
Hey, Chani. Having had MAJOR car surgery (the part where they remove your wallet without anesthetizing you first) recently, I can tell you: They actually DO check for viruses on their super-whoopy diagnostics machine. It’s weird.
This is why I gave up a high-tech life and managing technology for others. My philosophy of technology use can be boiled down to this – if it’s not truly making your life easier (the point of any piece of technology whether it’s computer, phone, gps, TV, blah and blah) then give it up. And there is sooooo much to be given up.
I’m a former IT manager turned art teacher. I’ve gone “Amish” (and I can use that word freely, I’m Mennonite by heritage.) I carry the freebie phone that came with my plan, a small notebook for my to-do list and a paper calendar. I write in both the notebook and calendar with my favorite mechanical pencil.
I’d be lost without that pencil.
Hey, Bev. I gotta admit, there are now days when I’m definitely in the tin-can-and-string crowd myself. But back at the turn of the century I stayed with a bunch of artists in a remote part of Haut Provence, doing a glass workshop. True to my calling (tech journalist), I’d brought a suitcase you could stuff two bodies into and filled it with laptop supplies, a small printer, satellite modem/transmitter (which didn’t work), power strips, couple reams of paper, backup disks and install disks for my OS and major apps in case my laptop failed, etc., etc. I only packed a couple changes of clothes–no room for more.
We stayed in a converted limestone cave that used to be a monastery (gorgeous, BTW), and the first thing I did was set up my equipment. “Excuse me, where’s the phone jack?” Blank look.
Turns out that, aside from a wonky kitchen phone that barely made calls, let alone connected to a computer, the nearest phone was in the post office several kilometers away. “But how am I going to get my email?” I wailed.
More blank looks. “Why would you want to?” To these women, Web connections, email, all that stuff–that was what you did for fun. Or business. But not all the time. We were literally living in two very different worlds, and they thought mine was just sad. I thought theirs was nuts.
After a couple of days of withdrawal, though, I learned to enjoy life without gadgets. For awhile. As long as I knew I could get them back.
Interestingly, the more I sculpt, the less often I check email. There’s probably something to that. My mom calls it “growing up.”
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