My first cell phone was the size of a footlong sub and the only app it came was a small bag of potato chips.
My next phone was a fancy (at the time) flip phone. It was a hand-me-down but I didn’t care. It’s not like anyone ever called me—I had the “emergency plan” and only used my phone if my car broke down or I was late for work. So I pretended to be on a call, acting as though I was engaged in an important conversation. The 90s were a confusing and narcissistic time for me.We also share a mutual runny grocery list so whoever is out and about can check to see what we need. Ha! Running list, not runny list. Thank you Autocorrect — another convenient, but possibly incriminating feature of the iPhone.
iCloud makes all of this possible. It’s the ninth wonder of the world. But convenience comes at a price. Who knows what havoc we’re subjecting ourselves to with all these electronic wireless messages swirling around us? And, if you’re a toxic gossip or god forbid a marital cheater, you could be in trouble…
Recently something went wrong with our family iCloud — we were in a digital iCloud storm. I think it had something to do with iMessages (something else that is a mystery to me). Any replies to texts I sent out were going directly to my husband’s iPhone and his messages were bipassing me completely and going who knows where?
How did we fix it? We simply pressed random buttons and turned a variety settings on and off a few times. Seemed to do the trick.
So if you’re using iCloud, remember that when you send messages out into a wireless world, you never know where they might end up.
Another iTip (for chronic iDevice losers like me)
I lose my phone a lot. Though it’s never usually very far away — it’s often under a blanket or in a coat pocket close by. However, last week I lost my phone for real. I came home from my daughter’s gymnastics class and my phone was nowhere to be seen. Thankfully I had turned on the “Find My iPhone” feature. If you haven’t done so, I suggest you do.
My husband sensed my escalating panic and quickly logged into iCloud.com and located my phone! You can read more about that works and how to lock thieves out of your phone here.
A little dot on a map revealed that my iPhone was at the gym (on the floor under a bench in the changing room). It ended up being only 10 feet away from the dot’s location on the map. That’s pretty darn accurate and boy was I grateful.
Do you have a favourite iFeature that we should know about?
