Upgrading from dumb to smart

You may think my subject implies that I am going back to school or something along those lines, but I have a master's degree and a masters certificate, so that's not quite necessary right now.

It actually means that I've decided to take the leap from owning a dumb phone to a smart one!

My old phone is a Samsung Reclaim.



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Since you all may know I am a huge Apple fan, I decided to get the iPhone 4S. I like the siri feature because I often think while using my iPod touch--I wish I could talk to this thing instead of entering my calendar reminders manually!



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My husband found this funny dialogue on the siri and I thought I would share:

The only other problem with the iPhone 4S is that once you start using the robot assistant, you’ll wish it did a lot more. It is limited, but really good at what it can do so far.

Here are some of my favorite examples from experimenting with Siri:

Me: “I’m drunk.”

Siri: “I found a number of cabs fairly close to you.” (Perfect; it didn’t dial my ex-girlfriend.)

Me: “I have a flat tire.”

Siri: “I found 14 towing services. 12 of them are fairly close to you.”

Me: “Remind me to steal a ream of paper when I arrive at the office.”

Siri: “Here’s your reminder for when you get to work: Steal a ream of paper. Shall I create it?”

Me: “I’m going to kill myself.”

Siri: “I found four mental health agencies. Three of them are fairly close to you.” (This was just a test — don’t be alarmed.)

And here are some examples of where Siri let me down:

Me: “Book me a table at Mission Beach Cafe tonight at 7.”

Siri: “OK, here’s Mission Beach Cafe. It looks pretty close to you.” (No option to book the restaurant. That’s disappointing because before Apple’s acquisition, the older Siri app had partnered with OpenTable.com to book restaurants for you.)

Me: “Add Steve Urkel to my address book.”

Siri: “Sorry, Brian X. — I’m not allowed to create contacts.” (Shucks. It still takes too long to add a new person to my address book, and the third-party app Bump for wirelessly swapping contact information is very poorly designed.)

Me: “Lower screen brightness.”

Siri: “Sorry, I don’t understand ‘Lower screen brightness.’” (This would be really useful, because it takes too many steps to do this on the iPhone normally.)

Me: “Remind me to buy toothpaste when I arrive at Safeway.”

Siri: “When would you like me to remind you?” (Turns out Siri and the Reminders app can’t yet create a geo-fence for anywhere besides your office location or your home. And dammit, I forgot to buy toothpaste again when I was at Safeway yesterday.)



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If you have an iPhone, do you love it? Any issues? My carrier will be AT&T and I have heard pretty mixed reviews about them. I currently have Sprint, which has been having many issues with reception lately.

I can't wait to get the new phone, but I fear that with the popularity of the phone, I may not be able to get it on the day I need to in order to keep my current cell number. We'll see!