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♫Old McDonald Had a Phone, AI-AI-Ohhhh!♫
Sep. 15th, 2021 09:32 pmAfter yesterday's encounters with horse and chicken trucks, today's thoughts turn to the artificial life form that doesn't yet run, fly or poop. Our mobile phones have become virtually sentient over the quarter century since I first acquired one- that first Nokia, a brick of a box with a keypad, a long telescoping antenna and nothing of the computing power now in a playing card size body. Almost all the photos you see here come from my most recent iTeration of Apple genius, and ours are both way out of date- a reconditioned iPhone 7, smaller on the outside but bigger on the inside than Eleanor's 6. We've been learning how to use their speech recognition functions to help with her wrist issues. For me, at least, it's largely replaced any other form of record collection, as I just stream from the playlists on the phone to the cars' sound systems, to bluetooth headsets, or to a little wired speaker on my desks at home and local office.
Oh, and the other night, Siri tried to push me off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Somehow, this started when I accidentally swiped to the Siri Search screen on my phone. I can't even duplicate how I got to it, but once there, I must have entered a stray letter "I." That got autocompleted to "I'm," and next thing I knew my phone was channeling Clippy from the old meme in the icon for this entry, trying to talk me into offing myself:
Twice, actually, because that one about Long Island isn't really cheery, either.
----
I awoke this morning to news that Apple had just pushed through a Veddy Important Update. It was so important, they didn't even tick a red 1 on the settings icon like they usually do. Apparently it was a "security hole" somebody had found and that hackers were already trying to exploit. So I ran manual updates on both of our phones. If yours is an Apple product, you probably should, too. Hit that thar Settings icon, then General, then Software Update. The one labeled iOS 14.8 (or higher, if you're not reading this on 15 September) is the one you want.
----
And coincidental or not, the newest, latest and greatest iPhone 13 debuts on Friday for preordering, with shipments coming a week later. They're also starting to preview the latest phone operating system, iOS 15, which officially will work with our older models but "work" is a relative concept if speed, battery life and storage are slowed to a crawl by all the fancy new iBells and iWhistles.
I suppose if that does happen, I can threaten to go straight to Siri's major data banks with a very large axe and give her a reprogramming you will never forget. Capisco?
Oh, and the other night, Siri tried to push me off the Golden Gate Bridge.
Somehow, this started when I accidentally swiped to the Siri Search screen on my phone. I can't even duplicate how I got to it, but once there, I must have entered a stray letter "I." That got autocompleted to "I'm," and next thing I knew my phone was channeling Clippy from the old meme in the icon for this entry, trying to talk me into offing myself:
Twice, actually, because that one about Long Island isn't really cheery, either.
----
I awoke this morning to news that Apple had just pushed through a Veddy Important Update. It was so important, they didn't even tick a red 1 on the settings icon like they usually do. Apparently it was a "security hole" somebody had found and that hackers were already trying to exploit. So I ran manual updates on both of our phones. If yours is an Apple product, you probably should, too. Hit that thar Settings icon, then General, then Software Update. The one labeled iOS 14.8 (or higher, if you're not reading this on 15 September) is the one you want.
----
And coincidental or not, the newest, latest and greatest iPhone 13 debuts on Friday for preordering, with shipments coming a week later. They're also starting to preview the latest phone operating system, iOS 15, which officially will work with our older models but "work" is a relative concept if speed, battery life and storage are slowed to a crawl by all the fancy new iBells and iWhistles.
I suppose if that does happen, I can threaten to go straight to Siri's major data banks with a very large axe and give her a reprogramming you will never forget. Capisco?