call waiting

It’s taken over 4.5 years, but I’ve finally upgraded my phone (switched over on Friday, actually). Yes, this is going to be that sort of a post. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

I got given my previous phone, an iPhone 3, by one of my aunties, who had used it for some time (I really don’t know how long) before deciding to move on, and give Android phones a go. That iPhone 3 was my first smart phone and, if you know how sentimental I am (or you read that post I did about my old laptop), it will be no surprise to you that I am quite sentimentally attached to it, and I think that is part of the reason it took me so long to move on.

Another reason why I think it took me so long to get a new phone was that it was so darned durable. I’d dropped that phone (always by accident or sheer clumsiness) many, many times – at least once onto concrete – but it never broke. Sometimes it would just restart, or I’d have to put in the SIM card pin again, but the most visible damage it ever sustained was a small crack along the back of the phone, running up from where the charger plugs in. The screen got plenty of tiny scratches, but never cracked.

(For the majority of the time that I had this phone, I had a screen protector, but no case. The case saved it from the concrete, but I eventually got rid of it because it started getting gross. Also, maybe the screen protector was just that good.)

I’m not someone who will usually replace something that’s not broken. I mean, if I can still use it, and it does its job satisfactorily, why would I waste time and money buying a new one? Plus, I’m not that keen on shopping…

Ok, sure, there was probably more internal damage than external, but, for the most part, it worked fine. The thing that really bothered me was that it was getting slow, and the reception (particularly for internet) was getting a little unreliable. When I first started noticing this, it made me sad: I knew the end was near, and I would have to let go eventually.

But, I will admit, there was some part of me that was happy. I’d held off for so long – I’d spent all of last year telling people, “Yes, that is an iPhone 3. Yes, it still works, but I might get a new one this year.” But I couldn’t do it because I couldn’t justify it. I used that phone mostly for messaging, phone calls, checking emails and setting alarms. Occasionally I’d use it to listen to music, or for general internet browsing, but that was about it. And it still performed all of those functions fine – well, until this year, anyway.

This might seem like such a petty thing – to be writing what feels like a eulogy for a piece of plastic and metal (or whatever people make phones out of (technology is not my forte or special interest, as you may be able to tell by my slow/disinterested uptake of new gadgets)) – but I didn’t intend for this post to be that serious. Sometimes I make things sound worse than they are. In a few weeks (maybe even days?), I’ll probably barely even think of my old iPhone 3 (but then I might rediscover it several weeks or months from now, and feel bad for never thinking of it).

Something else that really pushed me to get a new phone was the unfortunate fact that my old phone lost the ability to download new apps or update existing ones. Now that I have a newer phone, I almost feel a kind of pressure to install all of the apps, and use my phone for as many things as I can.

But, really, I’ve just put all the usual ones on there: email, Facebook, Twitter, etc. I probably won’t even use them that much (except email). The one addition that I see myself using a lot more is a running app that a friend told me to use (because she’s using the same one, and it lets you check out how much your friends run, so you motivate each other or compete or something). I’ve used it once (just tonight, actually), and I’m already thinking that this is the start of a beautiful, yet potentially dangerous, relationship.

I’m going to do my best not to become obsessed: I’m intent on having no more than two “pages” of apps, and I’m intent on not having to charge my phone too frequently. Most of all, I really just want to preserve my new phone as much as possible so that I don’t have to replace it anytime in the next few years.

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