Falling Off the Learning Curve

 It's important to keep your mind active and nimble as you grow older, according to the experts.  Sometimes, I can feel the concrete settling around my mind, especially when I'm trying to learn something new.

Especially if it involves technology.

My last iPhone, a iPhone SE first edition, was purchased in early August, 2016.  With the September, 2022 introduction of the latest operating system, the phone became obsolete.  It doesn't accept the new operating system.  It was time for a new phone.

Ah, planned obsolesce.  Everything still worked, although I suspected the battery was starting to go.

Fast forward to a couple of weeks ago.  Walking in the mall, we passed the Verizon store and it didn't look busy  Now was our chance.

Bottom line, I got a new phone (well, last year's model, but new), an iPhone 13 min.  I also ended up, thanks to an extended Black Friday special, with a new (last year's model) iPad, an Apple Watch SE2, and a pair of Beats bluetooth buds. The ad on TV might lead you to believe these bonus devices are free.  Well, they are not quite free, because free in the technology world is never free.  But I (I think) came out ahead, especially as my eight year old iPad mini was already obsolete.  Some apps would no longer work on it and I was mainly using it as an e-reader.

Good times.  Call these early Happy Holiday gifts.

My happiness ended when it was time to get the new devices set up.  Did I mention that someone at work who had gotten a new phone the week before warned me that the iPhone 13's don't have physical SIM cards, and her eSIM card didn't work? Well, mine didn't work, either.

The Verizon store helped me with the phone problem.  My son helped me with a problem getting cellular service on the Apple Watch which saved me a trip to the mall Verizon store (by then, busy with pre-Christmas shoppers).  

And the Beats buds? I wanted to use with with my laptop so I could listen to music while spouse watched TV.  The only problem was my laptop is 10 years old (do you see a pattern here with me and old devices?) and didn't have Bluetooth.  Nor did it have USB-C ports.  The buds use a case which a USB-C charger plugs into.  If you have the plug (not included), that is.

Fortunately, my son to the rescue, again.  I am up and running - I think.

Watching my son and his ease with this technology gave me a little pang of pride (and a feeling of being a piece of obsolute technology, too).

Now I have to learn to use the features of these updated devices, and I already feel like I've fallen off the learning curve.

I know I can do it.

I'll just have to take it a little slower than I would have at one time.

These past almost thirty years now since I first heard of a new technology called the Internet, have been one (to paraphrase the Grateful Dead) long, strange trip.