iOS 9

I just updated my iPhone, and I'm enjoying it so far (although the keyboard looks a little different and it's messing with my eyes).

My first order of business was to test out the new drawing feature on the Notes app.

For a mobile app that lets you draw with your finger, it's surprisingly sophisticated. Look, it even has a ruler so you can draw straight lines.

I don't think I'll ever be bored again.

A Trip Back In Time

I had a pretty neat thought just now. What if I could go back in time and visit myself when I was eight years old? I would do some major showing off to impress my younger self.

I would definitely have to show eight-year-old Rebecca my iPhone. For all intents and purposes, let's just assume that, if I have technology that can send me back in time, I also have technology that allows me to connect to the phone service and WiFi of the future.

Because how impressed would someone from 2001 be with an iPhone 4S? The first version of the iPhone didn't even come out until 2007 (thank you, Wikipedia). I think the eight-year-old version of myself would freak out over the sheer awesomeness. In 2001, the cell phone was still a relatively new gadget in my house. I think my mom was still using her Nokia brick. If not, then my parents had upgraded to the not-much-more-impressive proto-flip phones. Only half of the phone flipped; it was the part that covered the number pad, and it was also the part you talked into.

But I really do think Mom was using the Nokia phone at that point. It was a box with some number keys and a sort of black-and-white screen (we didn't get cell phones with a color display until 2006). I think it had a game or two. That was the only part I would have been interested in, anyway.

It was a while ago, but I don't really remember being too excited about Mom's Nokia. I think that was mostly because cell phones were pretty much just portable telephones back in the day, and I didn't like talking to people on the phone (I still don't). I guess it was an improvement over the pager she had for work, though.

The main technology in my life was the PC that sat on a computer desk in our family's library/living room. If memory serves me right, we had three computers then: the desktop computer in the library, the desktop computer in my parents' bedroom, and the laptop in my dad's den. It would be another year or two (or three?) until the "community" computer got moved into the bedroom I shared with my sister.

Since my parents had their own computers to do their parent-y things on, the one in the living room/library was designated mostly for the computer games that my sister and I played. We played all kinds of computer games, although I don't remember ever actually using the Internet on that computer. The Internet was slowly growing on me (at some point between the ages of 5 and 9, my dad taught me how to use a search engine), but I think at that point I was still mostly concerned with playing computer games.

So imagine if eight-year-old Rebecca was just hanging around the house one day, deciding whether to play with Barbies or to go outside and play in the backyard, when all of a sudden almost-twenty-one-year-old Rebecca walks in and whips out an entire computer that is roughly the size of a chocolate bar.

I would be like a character from Star Trek or something! Compared to the desktop computer I was familiar with at the time, my iPhone would definitely seem like something out of a sci-fi movie. At that point in my life, I had seen a computer with a touch screen apparatus before, although I don't know how I managed that, because touch screens were not common AT ALL. The closest thing I would have seen to an iPhone would have been my mom's Palm Pilot or my dad's Jornada (totally forgot about those until this very second), and I didn't even care about those because they were boring.

So I guess that raises the question... If I wasn't interested in cell phones or personal data assistants when I was eight, would I care at all about an iPhone 4S?

My prediction: Yes.

Why?

The games.

Because cell phones today are more than just phones. They're, like, everything. And I think my younger self would be astounded by the fun things my iPhone has to offer. I think she would also consider my iPhone way cooler than my best friend's brother's Game Boy Color, because even an eight-year-old would be able to tell there's a huge difference between the graphics on a GBC and the graphics on my iPhone 4S.

Also, I think she'd find it super awesome that I can talk to my phone and it'll talk back.

So basically, I would be the coolest person she'd ever met.

Although she would probably wonder why the heck I haven't published a book and become a millionaire yet and what the heck I'm doing with my life.

The App, The Blog, And The Internet

At this very moment, I'm on a charter bus. I have been on this charter bus for a total of twelve-ish hours today, and I'm still far from my destination. There are some really fun people on this bus. There are some really quiet people on this bus. Some of the people on this bus play the baritone, and if you've played in a marching band for a few years, that information ought to give you an idea of how this bus ride is going.
I finished my book. It was very entertaining, but now I have nothing to read. I'm up to date on Facebook and Twitter. I'm not feeling especially talkative. I'm not currently feeling sleepy. To entertain myself, I thought I'd write a blog post.
I have an iPhone with beautiful, lovely, gorgeous Internet capabilities. I'm on a charter bus that has WiFi. You'd think this would be a match made in heaven, but in fact, I have never been able to get my iPhone to connect to the bus Internet. Therefore, I've been rockin' the 3G for a while.
It was over 3G that I pulled up Safari on my phone and went to the Blogger website. A little orange box at the top of the page complained that it didn't like my browser. I ignored the little orange box and opened up a new post. The website promptly quit working.
Not one to be defeated by technology, I decided to go to the App Store and download the Chrome app to see if that browser would find more favor in Blogger's eyes. It did. Kind of. But it was pretty irritating to type in the normal document-thingy. The screen on my phone is a bit small for that, and it got intolerable once I started trying to make some words bold. So I gave up on that.
I went back to the App Store and downloaded the actual Blogger app. I would have downloaded the app a while ago, but I had seen a few negative reviews and decided I could live without it. But desperation drove me to it, and I winced while installing yet another app over 3G.
So far the app seems okay. Not perfect, I guess, but it's much easier to use than the website. I appreciate it.
So, yeah. That's my story about the app, the blog, and the Internet. I've still got a few hours to go on this trip, so who knows? Perhaps I'll tell another story before the night's done. Or maybe I won't. Maybe I'll go to sleep. Maybe I'll just listen to the baritones who got a hold of the bus microphone. Or maybe I'll write a novel. Or maybe I'll go to sleep.