iFoul

I didn't know what I was going to write about today and then I read my sister-in-law's post and I knew exactly what I was going to write about.  This post will be about some really old text messages and a good/bad/sad phone experience I had yesterday.

Years ago I bought an iPhone.  I got the second iPhone version, the 3GS, that came after the initial 3G version.  Ever since that time, I've purchased the next version of the iPhone whenever it's come out.   I've always been pleased with my phone, although that time I killed it in the rain in the park does make me sad, but still, the iPhone is a good phone.

For the most part, I know what to do when something goes wrong to correct the situation as best I can with the tools I have at my disposal as an end-user consumer.  But this time I wasn't sure if it was a hardware or a software problem I was experiencing.

A few days ago my phone started acting tired.  It would get up early with me, but by mid-day it was mostly drained and it wasn't going to make it to dinner without being charged.  This was unlike my iPhone who, just days before, had blared music out the speaker for two-and-a-half hours while GPS tracking my fifteen mile run.  Did it catch a bug?  Was it ill?  Did the batter have issues?

I made an appointment with the Genius Bar at our closest Apple store after some diagnostics of my own.  There was a new app I had installed someone had gifted me that was about the time things started going hinky.  I removed it, terminated all apps, rebooted the phone.  I cleared out lots of data on the hard drive, I backed it up on the computer and I even installed the brand new, only out for a few hours, operating system version before going to the store to prepare.

Just before I went in for the appointment, I did some benchmarks.  The phone was dropping ten percent battery in an hour, and I wasn't doing anything with it like playing music.  It was dropping ten percent from sitting off and being checked for a few seconds every ten minutes.  Something was definitely wrong still.

When I got to the store the technician ran his own, more comprehensive "see all, know all" diagnostics and yes, there was something software-wise draining the battery.  He showed me that since I'd had it at 100% charge this morning, some seven hours before, that things had been "running" actively for that same amount of time.

He said he would like to tell me more, and if I could resolve it but as I had just updated the operating system with the shiny new point release, all the logs had been wiped.  The only thing that would fix it would be to completely restore the phone.  And not a regular restore.  Not a restore from the nice backup I had just made at home because that backup had the same issue and that wouldn't help.

I would have to restore the phone and set it up as a new phone.  Then I would have to install and re-configure every app I had on it.  Now I was the one feeling ill.  Most of the apps and settings and configurations I could do, although it's an annoyance and a hassle.  But some of that data had been there since the very first iPhone I'd ever had, that slow little white 3GS.

And that's because Apple makes it easy to migrate to a new phone.  It brings over all your old configuration to the new phone.  This means I had text message chains from 2009.  I had people wishing us congratulations on getting married.  I have two children now.  That's a lot of text messages and while no, I don't go back and read them, it was something I had to mentally let go of.

I restored to an older backup first from September of last year and while that would have most likely worked okay, I decided to do the full delete, kill, wipe and start over option after the children went to bed.  I felt silly mourning over some silly text messages.  But then I talked to my neighbor this morning and she said she had a similar thing happen to her.  She had an audio sound clip of her first child cooing on her phone.  She was on a business trip way back then and that cooing sound helped her through that first mother/child separation.  She moved to a new phone years later and she tried to get the sound off the phone but there were complications and she had lost the file.  Her daughter is seven now.  And she felt silly about it too, and yet it still meant something to her.

Back to the phone.  It's shiny and reset and reconfigured now and the battery is working well.  Now if I can just find time for another long run soon to really put it through its paces.

The Big Boy Update:  "I need a haircut."  Yes, he needed a haircut quite badly.  We went yesterday afternoon to get it cut while daddy and his sister went to deliver a meal daddy had made to a family with a new baby in my son's class.  I explained how we were going to a place my son liked (because making something sound fun often makes it so.)  I told him how we were going to see Nana and Papa soon and that we needed to get his hair cut so he would look handsome.  When we got there he walked over and stood watching two other children getting their hair cut.  Then he turned to me and said, "I need a haircut."  He wanted to get his hair cut.  He wanted to look handsome.  He kept repeating it and talking about Nana and Papa and then it was his turn to get his hair cut.  And yes, he looks handsome.

The Tiny Girl Chronicles:  Poo and Hangee.  I picked my daughter up from her classroom today.  Her assistant teacher told me she had learned to say both teacher's names.  She said she called her, "poo" which is her best attempt at Pearl and that she says, "Hangee" how she says the other teacher's name, Angie.  On the way home I asked her to say both names and she repeated each several times, smiling with a big grin because she could say their names.  Speaking of new words, on the way to school today my son kept talking about truck this and truck that and he and I were counting trucks while she was quiet.  I think she's had enough because suddenly she started saying, "Uck" over and over as she tried to say truck along with us.

Fitness Update:  Five miles this morning in the dark.  We're having to start about 5:45 to get back in time for "babies and breakfasts" as I've been calling it and the time change earlier this month means we're running in dark the whole time.  But...there are hints of the day breaking just about when I get home.  Soon we'll be in warmer weather and brighter mornings.

Someone Once Said:  Too many facts hamper a diplomat, especially an honest one.