Smart Phone, Dumb User

Yes, I finally joined the ranks of "those who have smart phones."  It was getting too awkward putting my ipad up to my head to answer phone calls.  And I'm pretty sure that wasn't 100% safe when I was driving and calling on the ipad.  Though I'm sure it's still legal in Texas.  I saw a guy the other day smoking, talking into his cellphone, AND holding a drink while driving.  To be fair, it was a non-alcoholic drink.  And to be even more fair, I'm guessing he's dead now.

But I got an iphone.  And I think I've actually made three calls in four weeks.  I've grown from grudging annoyance to indifferent annoyance at the thing.  Coupled with the steep mid-life decline in my reading eyesight, the damn thing is hard to read.

You kids and your dadgum contraptions!

I have found a few useful applications.  I believe people call them "apps."

It can track my cycling.  And while I'm riding, the nearby electronic billboards suspiciously are advertising things that I would in fact be interested in.  Like a new ipad.

It can scan the barcodes of books I have read and put them in a database so that I will know all of the books that I have read.  And then transmit this information to marketing companies that can determine what I might want.  Like a new ipad.

It can play games on a tiny little screen.  And I have transferred my musical electronic singles from my Walkman to my phone.  If I could read the tiny print, I could play them on my phone.  I want to get an application that uses my electronic musical singles as hold music for the phone part of the iphone,  Which I rarely use.  And wouldn't know how to put someone on hold.  But it would be cool.

My main gripe so far?  Butt-downloading.  More accurately, thigh downloading.  I keep my phone in my pocket, and about twice a day it buzzes at me as if to say "why aren't you paying attention to me?"  I pull it out and realize one of two things have happened (they seem to alternate).  The phone has deleted an app I had downloaded, OR it has downloaded an app for me.  My old phone (which was a phone by trade), would occasionally try to text "Dhhaswd wer d crwercvrqw" to people.  Or sometimes "wwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww   ffffffffffffsdf".

But when I pulled out my fancy new phone from my pocket today, it was on the "Click Here to Agree to the Terms and Conditions" for Pinterest.  Which is like, nine steps into the Pinterest process:
1) figure out what Pinterest is
2) wonder who uses Pinterest
3) laugh
4) feel bad for laughing
5) realize that it's actually a cool idea
6) read more about it
7) download the app
8) open it
9) agree to the terms and conditions of Pinterest

My phone did the first eight steps for me.  [it's possible it's Siri revenge.  I know she's in there somewhere, but I have yet to summon the demon].

My photos also have random pictures of consumer products.  Not the inside of my pocket.  Which, I've always kinda wondered what it looked like.  From the inside. 

Then the phone deleted Strava, the cycling app I actually use. 

I fear there is some weird power struggle going on right now between me and my new electronic device.  And I've read enough science fiction to know how that might end.  Badly.  And always for the human. 

I'm just hoping that a sentient phone that likes Pinterest is less intent on destroying the human race, then, say, one that tries to force Candy Crush on you.