I like to get the newest latest thing, and so of course I got the iPhone when it first came out (not the iPhone 4—I’m talking about the iPhone 3. I’ve been burned, so I’m not exactly dying for the upgrade). In addition to the numerous dropped calls and the dubious reception, this phone has another strange characteristic that I’ve noticed over the time I’ve had it:
My iPhone is judgmental, you guys. It’s judging me right now.
Go with me on this. You know how smartphone software is supposed to “learn” your typing habits and patterns, thereby making you more efficient by suggesting words? I’ve noticed it doing this successfully, but I’ve also noticed a weird glitch, which is this: after awhile, it’s like the phone has given up on me. It’s now saved and has started to suggest back some of my most frequent typos, as if it’s a parent who is sighing and sitting back, arms folded, going “Well, I tried, but clearly you’re always going to spell it this way—so here. Here you go. Here’s qwerhy when you meant to say quickly. You’re never going to get it right.” <sigh>
Here are some more weird things it does—these are either misspellings or just really quirky pieces of programming that I notice because I am me:
–Why does my phone always want to turn “the little things” (as in “it’s the little things”) to “the little thugs”? Am I to assume that the phrase “the little thugs” is used often enough to make it so popular enough to actually be a suggested replacement term? This seems unlikely. Just to be sure, I asked a couple of teenagers if they’d ever heard of “the little thugs,” and they said they had not.
–This is disturbing: occasionally (not always), my phone wants to turn the word “like” into an anti-Semitic slur that I don’t even want to write on this blog. This trend was confirmed by a Jewish friend who also noticed it. Why is this even a thing, and why would Apple want to change the word “like” to this word? This also makes me worried that one of these days I’m going to accidently write “like” to someone and it’s going to change it, and then boom! I’m a racist.
–Here’s another good one: why does my iPhone want to change the word “building” to the word “Bildungsroman”? Listen, I know what the word “Bildungsroman” means, and if I want to use it, I will feel free to go ahead and do just that. But, I’m going to go out on a limb here—99.9 % of the time I’m actually trying to say “building.” I’m not sure which weird misspelled letter combo leads them to think I’m talking about a James Joyce novel or some shit (see, you didn’t think I actually knew what that was, did you?), and I appreciate the iPhone thinking I’m so brainy and stuff, but really this is usually not the case.
Also, if you have an iPhone, I think you should immediately download the "Mark the Spot" app and every single time your phone drops out, you should TOTALLY MARK THE SPOT. I know I do.