Is my humiliation complete yet?

So as you know, my iPhone met it’s maker after being dropped down the toilet, and I am currently borrowing a brick temporary mobile phone from a friend.

I have been lugging the thing around all week (it won’t fit in my pocket), getting sympathetic looks from people who were thinking that maybe I should have bought a trolley for it.

It’s got my street-cred in tatters. The phone rings, I pick it up to answer it, and people gasp in horror. And their eyes widen. It was when I started receiving texts that I realised how archaic the phone actually was. This was because the date on the texts reflected the date the phone was last used…… February 2005!

Bloody Nora! That’s before Izzy was born and it was a year before the last World Cup. Tony Blair was still Prime Minister. But hey, I have got to remain positive; at least I don’t have to carry the battery around in a suitcase – that would make my humiliation complete.

Anyway, today my mobile phone started playing up. When I answered calls, it seemed to connect ok, but I couldn’t hear the other person. Same when I dialled out – connected, but no sound. It was infuriating.

Following a day of being incommunicado, I decided to contact my Network Provider, O2 to see if they could shed light on the issue. I had to use my landline obviously, because my mobile wouldn’t connect, and after navigating automated bloody menus for 3 minutes (I have a timer on my display), I finally got through to a chap in a foreign call center with a barely understandable accent. Grrrrrrr.

I explained the problem, and after listening to him tap his keyboard for a few minutes, he authoritatively declared that ‘the antenna in the Oxfordshire area was down’.

“Well when is it coming back up?” I asked him in disbelief. My disbelief stemmed from the fact that my TV service has also been down since February because the engineers accidentally set fire to the TV antenna. It was like a comedy sketch ….. a band of hapless, semi-skilled engineers terrorising Oxfordshire inhabitants with their exploits. 

“Probably next week some time,” he replied. Next week?! ………  Probably?! Sacre Bleu!

I hung up and sat at my desk for five minutes with steam coming out my ears, when I heard my front door knocker sound.

It was Steve, coming round to drop some stuff off that I needed. We were chatting when all of a sudden, his mobile phone rung and he answered it……. hang on a minute, I thought the Oxfordshire antenna was ‘down’ – how can he take calls when he uses the same O2 network?

In a flash I was back on the phone to O2, I navigated the 3 minutes of auto-menus and finally got through to another call centre worker.

“What can we help you with today Dr Dickens?” he asked.

“Well, my mobile phone doesn’t work and I was told it was because the Oxfordshire antenna was ‘down’, but I know other people are making and receiving calls with no problem.” I replied.

“Let me have a look,” the chap said, and I heard the keyboard tip-tapping. “No, there is nothing wrong with the Oxfordshire antenna,” he concluded.

“So why was I told there was a problem?” I queried.

“He probably didn’t know what else to say,” replied the call centre worker cheerily. What kind of an answer is that? Are you kidding me? I would have sat there for a week waiting for my phone to work after a non-existent problem was fixed, only to find out that the problem was something else entirely different. Grrrrrrr.

I contained myself…. it wasn’t this poor chap’s fault that I had been fed a load of baloney.

“So,” I asked evenly, “what do you think might be the solution to the fact that my phone doesn’t work?”

Still cheery (don’t be cheery goddamit!), he answered, “I think your handset is knackered. What make is it?”

“A P900 Sony Ericsson,” I replied, ashamedly, my cheeks burning.

Call centre man gasped, “blimey, have you been breaking into museums?” then added, “is it powered by a hamster’s wheel?” before dissolving into laughter at his own joke.

I remained stony-faced, but the impact was lost on call centre man because he couldn’t see me. I reiterated, “so what might be the problem?”

“The hamster has probably died of old age,” he guffawed heartily before realising that I wasn’t laughing with him. The laughter slowed, and then ground to a halt with a small clearing of his throat. “Erm, have you tried turning the handset on and off?” he asked sheepishly.

“Ermmm no, actually I haven’t,” I answered with embarrassment…. it seemed such an obvious thing to do, and I had overlooked it.

“Well, give it a go now and let’s see what happens,” said call centre man.

I turned the brick off. Waited a moment. Then turned it back on.

“Try and ring someone, so I can see if the problem is fixed,” call centre man responded after I told him the phone was now rebooted.

Somewhat tentatively, I dialled my landline….. it rang….. it connected to the voicemail….. it bloody worked!

How stupid did I feel? ….. “it works now,” I whispered with humiliation.

The feeling of humiliation didn’t last long after call centre man said; “Great! so the hamster wasn’t dead, just in a coma,” renewing his hilarity.

“Look. I normally have an iPhone,” I snapped.

“Of course you do,” he said, making me sound like a wannabe. Grrrrrrr.

The call ended, and I concluded that I seriously needed to get a new phone. A new iPhone….. all shiney and lovely, and skinny and light.

Right, that’s my first job next week.

Is it a brick? Is it a fridge? No! it’s my new mobile phone

So, as you already know, I accidentally managed to kill my lovely, shiney iPhone this week by dropping it down the toilet. Total Bummer. I did try to revive it, by drying it out for a couple of days, but when I went to turn it on…… nothing. Not even a glimmer of life. My once gorgeous gadget was destined to spend the rest of its days as a doorstop.

And, as if that wasn’t bad enough, I was rendered incommunicado, for three days. Double Doh.

As I contemplated my pitiful situation, I heard the ‘ping’ of an email arriving in my inbox. It was a chum, and he had written;

“Hi, I read about you killing your iPhone on Facebook u donut. I’ve got a spare mobile phone you can borrow until you get a replacement. I’ll drop if off later once I’ve got the toast out of the DVD player.“

Excellent! I was partially saved. A new phone was on its way.

A couple of hours later, the door knocker sounded and I opened it to find aforementioned chum standing there with a mobile phone and charger.

“What the bloody hell is that?” I asked, pointing at the phone.

“It’s my old Sony Ericsson P900,” he said.

“It’s similar in shape and size to a cornerstone!” I wailed, “you’re gonna kill my street-cred.”

“Better than not having a phone,” he replied, adding, “you don’t have to take it.”

I quickly assessed the situation, and concluded that he was right. At least I would be able to receive calls. And hey, I could always jump onto Ebay and buy a trolley to transport it.

I slotted my SIM card in, and asked my chum to give me a quick call from his mobile to make sure it was working, and it did! I decided to look on the bright side…… at least I wasn’t cut off from the world like a bearded hermit chanting ‘hommmmmmm’ in a cave somewhere.

The fact that I am using technology from three years ago, has gradually made me aware of how much has changed in a relatively short period of time.The P900 was revolutionary in its time – I mean, for Gods sake, it had an integrated 250KB camera!

It got me thinking. It’s funny how technology seeps stealthily into your life without you really noticing. Even though my iPhone was dead, I found myself time and time again, subconsciously reaching for my phone to either take a photo, check emails, listen to music, play games whilst Izzy playing in the park, or read other people’s blogs whilst in bed. I couldn’t do any of them, and it felt like something was missing.

God help me if I ever lose my laptop!

It was manslaughter M’Lud

Oh no! disaster has struck in deepest, darkest, rural Oxfordshire. And I don’t mean a little, piddly disaster like the BP oil spill, I mean a proper stomach-churning, gut wrenching disaster. A disaster that made me want to shout, “EVERYBODY PANIC!” and run around in random directions.

“What the bloody hell has happened?” I hear you cry.

Well it’s like this. My…. ahem… friend …..errrm Janice, accidentally dropped her iPhone down the toilet today. Yep, the toilet. Oh no! Oh yes! The circumstances were as follows: There was a small splash (apparently) and then it was spotted lying there, half-submerged in water, with a madly blinking screen.

The iPhone was quickly retrieved much to the disgust of the hand that was delegated the task, and phone revival started in the form of vigorous shaking to get rid of the excess water. Nothing worked.

Alas, my my friend’s iPhone remained steadfastly dead. No emails, no texts, no phonecalls, no music…… I am gutted.

So my question is: Can anything be done to try bring iPhone back to life?

Graffiti

Playing with my new retro hipstamatic app for the iphone.

Auto

Found this dilapidated beauty on a recent trip to a country pub.

Some alternative views of the iPad

Just a quick post. The entire tech sector is ga-ga over the iPad; I’m pretty excited by it myself. But I thought I’d try and throw some realism on the fire by linking to a couple of interesting alternative posts on the topic.

Quinn Norton has some very smart comments about the blinkered vision of the wealthy middle class people who typically assess the impact of devices like this:

I live a really rich intellectual life and get to do lots of things most poor people don’t, and I appreciate that it’s because almost none of my social group are poor. But sometimes my social group kind of goes crazy and forgets that while they have a lot of power, my class is a whole lot bigger than theirs. And none of them will be buying iPads.

Dave Winer has been testing his for a day, and thinks the revolution is yet to come:

Keep dreaming if you want, but if you give the iPad to your mother expect the light to go on for you. At that exact moment you will realize how poorly prepared it is for that. [...] With the caveat that it’s after one day and I reserve the right to change it at any time: Today’s iPad, the one that I just bought, is just a demo of something that could be very nice and useful at some point in the future. Today it’s something to play with, not something to use. That’s the kind way to say it. The direct way: It’s a toy.

I think Dave’s comment – “a demo of something that could be very nice and useful at some point in the future” – is probably prescient. I am excited about the device, and I do want one, but I’m more interested in where this takes the computer industry as a whole in the future. Apple’s devices are famously locked-down (“The iPad is a LEGO set that can only be assembled into what’s drawn on the box,” as Jarek Piórkowski puts it), but the devices that follow it won’t be, although they will learn from iPad’s design decisions.. Specifically, it will bring about three things:

1. A new kind of smarter, easier, more intuitive portable computer interface
2. The death of Flash and third party plugins for multimedia content on the web (this is a big deal)
3. Tacit approval for the industry to innovate away from the traditional PC model we’ve been working with for decades, and create new information appliances that more easily fit into peoples’ lives and can be used in a more human way

Actually, my last point was kickstarted by the iPhone, but the iPad makes it legit: whereas the former was a “mobile device”, the latter is being marketed and sold as a computer in its own right. Many more will follow.

All these devices with different form factors, designs and operating systems will have two things in common: you can take them with you, and they will run HTML 5+ web applications. The future is going to be very interesting indeed.

Related entries

• Devices and desires: why the portable device wars are a red herring (2)
• iBooks is a killer app for ebooks (1)
• Danger in the cloud: a proposal (8)

iPhone Users to Face TV License Fee

iPhone: App is the newest licensing stream for the BBC.

Let it snow

(iphone + camerabag ap)

Sunset at Tyne Cot

I’m on the Western Front again with work. I’ve been to Tyne Cot Cemetery a few times now, but this time, on a cold November day, I saw the sunset bathe the rows headstones in a golden light. It was truly beautiful.

Photos taken with my iphone and camerabag.

On the road