Tag: iPhone 5s

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The (Honorary) Cats of University Heights: Sammy

Sammy is so spectacular she gets second treatment as special guest to our neighborhood series. Should you ever visit The Hub plaza in Hillcrest, which is adjacent to University Heights, stop by DC Computers. If you’re lucky, a slanky tuxedo furball will be relaxed along a wall—or perhaps she will be in the side room, door ajar, where is her cat tree.

Call her mascot or store mouser. Sammy came to the Mac and PC sales/service shop as a six-week old kitten more than five years ago. Yesterday, one of the clerks pointed to an iMac keyboard, where the little thing lay her first day as a resident. She stays inside even when the outside doors are wide open during the summer heat. 

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iOS 9 Upgrade Gone Wrong

Friday night I texted my wife: “It’s like dying and going to Hell”. That’s where I was two hours into the ordeal of recovering my nearly 94 year-old father-in-law’s iPhone 5s. There’s a 30-minute comedy show script in the experience somewhere. Not that I laughed living through it.

The drama—eh, comedy of errors—started innocently enough. Anne returned from taking her dad to Fish Friday lunch at McDonald’s. He loves the sale price filet sandwich, with two apple pies and decaf. (I wouldn’t eat the desserts, which here in San DIego are now deep fried rather than baked. Change happened a couple months back.) She reported he couldn’t use the phone: Password problem. Around 5:30 p.m., I set off to fix him up.

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iPhone is flawed by design

Do you remember the old Nokia bricks—even the Finnish manufacturer’s early smartphones? They were tanks. They were the Arnold Schwarzeneggers of mobiles—handsome and rugged. Then along came iPhone, and beauty bested brawn. Eight years after Apple cofounder Steve Jobs showed off the first prototype during January Macworld, design ethics applied to the original curse millions of iPhone owners today. The mobile is too destructible.

In July 2014, I wrote about my 20 year-old daughter’s breakage streak: Three shattered iPhone 5s screens in about three months. The photo you see, taken on Christmas Day, is what her newest replacement looks like today. What’s wrong with this picture? Need I even ask? The mobile’s delicate design features are lost in protective gear that shouldn’t be necessary. iPhone is flawed by design. 

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My Daughter’s iPhone is Too Destructible

Sshould I blame daughter or device? Last night, she texted: “My screen cracked again. I’m so sorry”. That’s the third shattered iPhone 5s since May; two 5ers busted before that. Clearly, she’s fumble fingers, but something just doesn’t seem right. The college student sticks the damn device in a protective case. Did Apple put pretty design before damage durability?

I spent several hours searching for smartphone breakage data today—on the web and contacting several sources compiling stats. Strangely, the most compelling comparisons are years old. For example, in late 2010, SquareTrade reported that iPhone 4 accidents exceeded the 3GS and devices from competing smartphone manufacturers. In a 2012 survey of 2,000 iPhone users, 30 percent had damaged their device in the previous 12 months.