Skip to main content

Just One More Thing (Again)

iPhone Xs
“The new iPhone is revolutionary,” for those who virtually attended any of the late Steve Jobs (1955-2011) Apple Event products launch via the web there was always an air of exhilaration and anticipation speculating what new gadget could possibly be next! Personally – I never missed one; I would eagerly jump out of bed early the next morning to discover what innovative products Apple was to release. What better ways to stay abreast of technology innovations than watching Steve Jobs perform, the Edison of our time.

I’ll admit, I was a skeptical late adopter of the iPhone. My iPod Touch did everything and more that a gadget could provide (I thought). It was during my visit to South Africa in February 2011 that I pre-ordered my first iPhone 4, via Apples Online Store, from my hotel, with the anticipation of the Verizon release. Everyone had said, “Wait until the iPhone 5, it will do so much more.” I couldn’t wait to get home and open the box, it was like Christmas all over again at six years old – so exciting! Wow, that was over eight-years ago. We were so smitten with all the features, this Christmas, 2018 we upgraded to iPhone Xs. Happy New Year!

Indeed, version ten will be better. Extended battery life, a dual-camera system, edge-to-edge OLED Retina display, Face-ID, but the iPhone for me is much more than a phone. It is my personal assistant, GPS navigator, music player, my on demand movie viewer, my portable university, my text messaging tool, my digital library, my e-mail correspondence tool, my portable internet radio, any major league baseball game on demand. In full, it’s my entertainment, learning, and communication center.

The launch of the iPhone Xs did not disappoint me, why because what everyone seems to forget is when a new version is launched Apple provides a free software upgrade to the operating system for your current phone. So, it’s like getting a new phone!

. . . And what can I say about Siri, except thank you! Have you ever received a message at the most inconvenient time? In my experience, It happens daily. No need to text message just ask Siri to do it for you. Want to convert kilometers to miles, how about the current humidity level, or time, or your current location. I’ve asked Siri what seems rather vague, “Are the Cubs playing today?” With the response, “The Cubs are not playing today. Their next preseason game is against the Brewers on February 23, 2019 at 12:05 pm.” Well, today is January 1, 2019 after all.

It’s rather frightening really, what this device can do. Siri uses information from the computational knowledge engine, WolframAlpha, your contacts, music library, calendars, and reminders to better understand what you say. So it responds more accurately when you ask to make a phone call, play music, or create an appointment or reminder.  If you have Siri and haven't taken the time to use it simply ask, “What can you do?” An extensive list of options will appear with suggested ways to ask. Remember, Siri learns your natural speech, and it asks you questions if it needs more information to complete a task. Yes, I’m a fan, can you tell?

“Oh, just one more thing,” as Steve Jobs would have said had he presented the latest release of Apple’s product innovations. “Now your iPhone comes with a smarter personal digital assistant – it is the most powerful iPhone yet!”
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Most Popular of All Time

Boy on a Beam

In this special bonus episode, Boy on a Beam. In a world long ago, when the days moved quite slow, Before buzzes and beeps and the fast things we know, A boy sat quite still on a very fine day, Just staring at nothing . . . and thinking away. No tablets! No gadgets! No screens shining bright! No earbuds stuck in from morning till night. No lists, no charts, and no chores to be done. He just sat there thinking—that's quiet-time fun! His name was Young Albert. He sat in his chair, Thinking of things that weren’t really there. “Suppose,” said Young Albert, with eyes open wide, “I ran super fast with my arms by my side! Suppose I ran faster than anyone knew, And caught up to sunshine that zoomed past me—too! If I hopped on its back for a light-speedy ride, What secrets would I find tucked away deep inside?” “Would stars look like sprinkles, all shiny and small? Would UP feel like sideways? Would BIG feel like Tall?” He giggled and wondered and thought, and he dreamed, Till his head fel...
Post a Comment
Read more

When Fear Becomes the Default

In this special episode, When Fear Becomes the Default. Early Sunday morning, I was cycling past a small veterans’ pocket park in San Marcos. The air was still, the streets nearly empty. On one corner stood a young woman, alone, holding a hand-painted sign that read: “Be ANGRY. ICE agents are murdering people.” I pedaled past, but the words stayed with me. I knew the context—the footage and headlines from Minneapolis the day before, already ricocheting through the country and hardening opinions. Even in the quiet of the ride, the noise followed. Two miles later, I stopped at a red light. A black car with dark windows pulled up inches from my bike. My heart jumped. My first instinct wasn’t neighbor —it was threat . I found myself bracing, scanning, and wondering if the person inside was angry, armed, or looking for trouble. Then the door opened. A well-dressed young woman stepped out, walked to the trunk, and pulled out a sign that read “Open House.” She turned, smiled brightly, and sa...
2 comments
Read more

Sweden Called . . . They Said No.

Have you ever wondered about  the Nobel Prize? Let's look at Where Genius Meets “Wait—Where’s My Medal?” Every October, the Nobel Prizes are announced, and humanity pauses to celebrate the "greatest benefit to mankind." And every year, like clockwork, a specific type of person appears online to complain—at length—that they were robbed. (Well, maybe this year more than most.) The Origin: A Legacy of Guilt The prize exists because Alfred Nobel, a Swedish inventor, had a crisis of conscience. Nobel held 355 patents, but he was most famous for inventing dynamite. When a French newspaper mistakenly published his obituary, calling him the " Merchant of Death, " he decided to buy a better legacy. In his 1895 will, he left the bulk of his massive fortune to establish five prizes (Physics, Chemistry, Medicine, Literature, and Peace). Because he was Swedish, he entrusted the selection to Swedish institutions, such as the Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences. The only outlier...
1 comment
Read more

The Thought Experiment–Revisited

In this episode. The Thought Experiment–Revisited The Boy on a Light Beam In 1895, a sixteen-year-old boy did something we rarely allow ourselves to do anymore. He stared into space and let his mind wander. No phone. No notes. No “Optimization Hacks” for his morning routine. Just a question: What would happen if I chased a beam of light—and actually caught it? That boy was Albert Einstein . And that single act of curiosity—a Gedankenexperiment , a thought experiment—eventually cracked open Newton’s tidy universe and rearranged our understanding of time itself. Not bad for an afternoon of daydreaming. Imagine if Einstein had been “productive” instead. He would have logged the light-beam idea into a Notion database, tagged it #CareerGrowth, and then promptly ignored it to attend a forty-five-minute “Sync” about the color of the departmental logo. He’d have a high Efficiency Score—and we’d still be stuck in a Newtonian universe , wondering why the Wi-Fi is slow. In a post I wrote back in...
2 comments
Read more