Tag Cell Phone

Apology Accepted

Michael Leave a comment

It’s the first of the month and for us that means cell phone payment time.  In the past we’ve been known to complain about the lack of customer service we almost always get from banks, insurance companies, the cable company, and assorted utilities. Well we’ve discovered one service that we find quite customer-friendly.

Both of We have the same cell phone carrier.  We’re not ones to drop names but someone will ask and we’re quite happy with it so why not share.  Our service is the one that comedians seem to relish poking fun at for their customer service and we don’t understand why because we’ve received stellar service from ours.  Ours is Sprint.

Both of us arrived at Sprint separately, after horrendous customer service disasters at the hands of our previous carriers, the two biggest and fastest and bestest carriers of them all.   At least that’s what they say.  They don’t say that they are the worst customer oriented companies in the phone service marketplace.  So bad are those two, or perhaps just so big are those two, that when Each of We told our former carrier that we were leaving them, we were actually told to go right ahead and leave.

So why do we think Sprint is so good.  Both of We have had issues that required warranty service or contract questions and all of those issues were handled quite conscientiously and quite handily by human beings.  One minor point is that we did once tried to pay a bill to a human being and the idea of money seemed a little confusing to her so we stopped doing that.  What we do is pay on line, at a kiosk in the store, or most often by phone.  That’s not surprising.  Probably close to 99% of all phone users do the same.  What we notice every month when we pay is that we get a happy recorded voice who guides us through their menu of do you want to pay your bill, this is how much you owe and do you want to pay that amount, and finally do you want to use the same payment method as last time?  That’s all.  No enter your 12 digit account number, your 10 digit phone number, your 5 digit ZIP Code.  No user names.  No passwords.  Just 3 questions, a couple of quick pushes on the number 1, and then the pleasant voice says, “Your payment has been accepted.  Please be aware that it may take up to 15 minutes to be recorded throughout our system.”  Other companies say that it will take up to 3, 7, or even 10 business days to credit your account so please write down this very long confirmation number and plan on someone calling you later to ask for more money.

Anybody who has ever checked out his or her bank account on line minutes after making a phone or computer payment knows that within those same minutes that payment has already been syphoned out of the bank.  Why aren’t all of those payments just as immediately posted as paid at the company that is doing the syphoning?  Yet the one company that almost immediately posts the payment apologizes because it’s not as immediate as they would like it.  Maybe that’s something the other companies can figure out how to do just as fast while they are figuring out who’s the fastest of them all.

Can you hear us now?

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

Buttons, Buttons, Self-Controlling Buttons

Michael Leave a comment

In our last post we riled for a bit about buttons.  Buttons on the remote controls that we’re certain on there just to frustrate us when we’re trying to change channels in a dark room. We’ve discovered another set of buttons that are out to rule the world.  Unlike the irritating but basically innocent buttons of remote controls, household appliances, even car radio and climate controls, these buttons pose threats and real danger.  They are the buttons on your hand held electronic devices.

Phones, readers, and tablets all have those cunning buttons along their edges, built into the seams separating the front and back pieces, hiding where nobdoy with fat fingers or long nails can reach but are pushovers for a little pressure from a nearby pen in a briefcase.  Yes, they are…turned on remotely.

Consider these real life examples.  On a recent trip, He of We dutifully turned off his phone before boarding and slipped it into his carry-on soon to be stowed under the seat in front of him.  When arriving at his destination, he took it out to text his progress to She of We and discovered it was already on.  It was on without him having to have held the power button in until his finger went numb. Not long ago at a food court a young lady a couple tables away shrieked (yes, shrieked) in horror and dismay that her tablet not only turned itself on in the depths of her classic messenger bag, but had also drank up the last of the juice in its battery.

Power switches work both ways.  Both of We have had readers and phones turn themselves off.  Usually He of We’s phone magically turns itself off sometime before She of We calls, thus prompting wonderings of why he bothers to carry a phone that he never answers.

Turning electronics on or off isn’t all these device controllers do for themselves.  No, these pieces of silicon and solder switch modes, take pictures, open files, and call friends or relatives with no human assistance.  Remember that the next time your phone rings and you’re standing in the middle of an intersection yelling “Hello, hello.  You pocket dialed me again!” into it.

Buttons, buttons.  If they aren’t frustrating you when you can’t figure out what they do, they’re frustrating you by doing things on their own.  Maybe when the day of everything being voice activated comes along it wil all be better.  Yeah, right.

Now, that’s what we think. Really. How ‘bout you?

 

 

Can you hear me…

Michael Leave a comment

The greatest invention of the nineteenth century might well have been the telephone.  From nothing when the first commercial line was strung in 1877 to 48,000 subscribers some ten years later, the telephone may have had the greatest initial impact on American households alongside the regular provision of electricity. 

Some one hundred years later the telephone really hadn’t changed much.  Commercial wireless handsets were becoming more popular in the home and telephone calls no longer meant being tied to the boxes with the dials or buttons where it hung on walls or perched on tables.  Freedom to walk around the house came with only the restriction not to wander too far from the base unit.  It could have be then that telephones started taking on a more positive role among our families.

The phone had always been more positive than negative.  It allowed us to speak with relatives who lived across town, state, and country.  It allowed us to check on our homework answers.  It allowed us to check on friends not feeling well and family who just added another member to the family.  But there were still specific reasons to use the telephone. 

Although relatively economical to maintain local service, local usually meant very local.  Long distance and metropolitan services could be quite expensive.  And phone calls were still often an intrusion into our lives.  They usually came while we were eating, watching TV, playing a board game with our parents and siblings, or out back tossing baseballs, footballs, falling off sleds or pulling weeds depending on the season.  Other than when we were pulling weeds, most of the time the calls came when we really didn’t want to be interrupted. 

Although it might have been more intrusion than necessity, the advances made in the telephone were remarkable.  The twentieth century saw direct dialing, multiple extensions at a single number rather than multiple households on a single line, picture phone, push buttons, memory dialing, built in answering machines, and the first truly portable communication devices – the mobile phone.  Yes, the greatest invention of the twentieth century might well have been the telephone.

Now another thirty years have gone by and we all have a phone attached to our hips or in special pockets in our purses.  We no longer look at the phone as a service or a utility as much as we look at it as an essential that we’d not leave the house without.  We’ve both done it.  Before we leave the house we do our ritual check – wallet, keys, watch, and phone.

We don’t just talk on our phones, we send messages by voice, text, e-mail, Twitter, and Facebook.  We play games on them and with them.  We watch short clip videos on YouTube and streaming videos of live sporting events.  We flip a switch and some satellite finds us and we get turn by turn directions from them.  We maintain our contacts so seamlessly that if someone asks for a phone number for someone we call or text many times a day, we have to look it up.  We don’t know it because we never “dial” it.  We speak the person’s name into the microphone or tap the person’s picture on the screen to be connected.  We no longer have to clip coupons or write shopping lists.  It’s literally at our fingertips.  We aren’t sure but it seems very much like Star Trek.  But if we aren’t sure it’s ok because we can search for and watch episodes of vintage television on our anything by vintage telephones.

Quite an accomplishment for an instrument that at the turn of the century was still fairly impressive to see and use.  When even as portable a phone as it was, it was really just a portable phone.  And in less than a decade it has become as ubiquitous as flies at a picnic.  And as diverse as being able to be the instrument used to look up insect repellant for back yards.  Even though we’re only a little more than a tenth of the way through, the greatest invention of the twenty-first century might well will be the telephone.

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?

 

Picture This

Michael Leave a comment

Are you old enough to remember when the only thing you could do with a phone was talk to someone?  How did we ever do with such a single focused object? 

Everybody who is anybody has a cell phone today.  We’re not certain exactly why they are still called phones.  They can surf the web, they can text back and forth, they house shopping lists and calculators, they are your appointment books and coupon organizers.  And they are cameras!

This is the time of year when shopping heads into the nitty gritty.  Years ago if One of Two needed help with finding the right sweater for the hard to buy for aunt all One could do was find a pay phone, call Two and try to describe the color, shape, and adornments.  Back then if you weren’t certain if the colors in that candy dish would clash with the table runner, you had to buy it and hope you didn’t lose the sales slip.  If you got it home and it didn’t work you were heading back to the store to return it and buy the plain red one instead.

But today, when shopping falls between nitty and gritty we have a helper.  We have our phones.  These little pocket helpers aren’t restricted to Christmas shopping.  She of We reminded He or We while We were preparing this post that when he was looking for a new coffee table he would snap every one he came across in every store he wandered through.  That way he could hold up the 4 inch, 2 dimensional replicas in the space in front of the sofa to see if or how it would work there.  He thought it was a great idea.  And she did also – at the time.  Now you have to understand that was two years ago and there are still 34 coffee table pictures on the SD card but that’s a different blog.

Back to Christmas shopping.  It is still a handy little helper that phone with the camera that takes better pictures than most cameras.  No more will you have an excuse to not get that hard to buy for aunt something in time to put under the tree.  Pull those sweaters out to the end of the rack. Line up the candy dish choices.  Put the tree topper on a clear spot on the shelf.  Put the wreaths side by side.  Snap away and text them to the other half.  But remember, the other half could be out shopping with her phone too!

Nope, they certainly don’t make phones like they used to and isn’t that a terrific thing?

Now, that’s what we think.  Really.  How ‘bout you?