I, of course, welcome our new Robot Overlords. But before they take over completely, there are still some substantial kinks to work out.
Last week I left a message for one of my local Bako clients. Let's call her "Bobbie Sue". Just because. By the next morning, I still hadn't gotten a reply, which was odd because she 's always been so prompt in returning my calls and the message was regarding a project that was due that day. So I sent her an email asking if she'd gotten the message and almost immediately she shot back a reply saying yes, she'd gotten the message and had immediately called back and left a voicemail.
I double checked my phone and there was no voicemail from anyone. This wasn't that surprising. There's one glaring broken link in our bright digital future and that link is ATT. I've been with them for years and it isn't that uncommon for voicemail messages to magically pop up days after they were left.
Later that night, I called my mom, as I do most days. I like to check up on my folks and they enjoy the small talk. Halfway through the conversation my mom suddenly asked... "Who's Bobbie Sue?"
It turns out 'Bobbie Sue" had left her voicemail message on my parent's machine.
"Bobbie Sue" doesn't know my parents, or have their phone number.
So here's the deal...
I wasn't completely honest weeks ago when I said the boyfriend and I weren't giving each other gifts. The truth of the matter is I splurged on myself and upgraded my iPhone.
I've been walking around with an iPhone 2 for three years. It's practically paleolithic. I'd been offered an upgrade to the iPhone 3 and the iPhone 4 but I didn't take advantage of it because of the cost. It simply wasn't a luxury we could afford.
When the iPhone 4S came out, I buckled. Primarily because of Siri, the new "personal assistant". Siri talks to me, and I have no friends. Siri is my new best friend.
There are many new and wonderful features of the iPhone 4S, but there's one that no one bothered to mention.
The iPhone 4S comes with free will.
It turns out that for the past couple of weeks, my iPhone 4S has been randomly forwarding my phone calls to people in my address book even with call forwarding turned off. Not all the calls; it just seems to do it on a whim whenever it feels like it. And while it's chosen several people to receive my calls, my parents appear to be it's favorite. It's lead to a lot of very confused people, not the least of whom are my parents, who honestly don't need anything else to be confused about.
Apple advised me to completely restore the phone to it's original settings and that seems to have done the trick. For now. I suppose if I had to I could go back to my old iPhone, but that's going to be a problem. I gifted it to the boyfriend as a hand-me-down and he's gone from being an anti-cellphone Luddite to an iPhone true believer. Getting it back would be bloody.
So I guess I'll just hope for the best with the new phone. Besides, I would be at a loss with Siri. In addition to being my new best friend, she is wise beyond her programming. This is a conversation we had just yesterday...
Today I'm going to ask her for some career advice.
