My iPhone

I love iPhone, as my daughter has predicted. Not so much that it's a phone to chat, but more of it being a multi-function device. Together with WiFi, "WOW", its "power" is far far beyond a senior citizen's imagination.

After seeing me using the iPhone day and night for the past three months, my husband teased me, "Remember somebody said she didn't want a handphone earlier...? Hahaha..."

"Come on, you know I am not after a "mobile"phone. This is different: smartphone is not just a mobile phone; it's also a multi-function device which I am willing to pay for even if our children didn't buy it for me..." I defended myself, but couldn't deny the fact that I was hooked like any youngster!

Recently we (four old folks, my husband and I together with his sister and brother-in-law) travelled to Kuantan. My iphone for once worked to it's fullest in this trip. It's used to google for places of interest to visit, where to eat good food and shop for local specialities. No more headache to look for new places as  GPS led us all the way to every location. We could even check for weather and identify places with most negative ions (one of the main concern of my sister-in-law in this trip). By the way, high concentrations are found in beaches, mountains and waterfalls  .....

Beautiful scenery, delicious seafood, even moments that we met the Menteri Besar of Trengganu, Datuk Seri Ahmad Said at Hai Peng Kopitiam, Kemaman where we were lucky to get a free treat from him, were all captured with this "camera". Pictures taken were sent to our children there and then. Local or abroad, they could see instantly how we were enjoying ourselves in this getaway bliss.

Another wonderful part of this "digital camera" I realised was that it's not limited to 24 or 36 shots like the Kodak films; I could just simply snap, delete, re-snap... ANYHOW I wished! Not gonna worry anymore that some ugly shots(of me) would remain for life in the albums!

On our way home to Kuala Lumpur, we decided to stop by Bukit Tinggi* (for negative ions?) on the spur of the moment. Fortunately there were still rooms available and at the hotel counter, we were trying our luck requesting for some discount. The receptionist who wasn't very helpful replied,"No, no discount unless you book online. Online rate is much cheaper than walk-in rate. But I don't think there's any way you can do it now."

"Why not?" This old lady took out her "secret weapon" to rescue. It was easily done with a smartphone at hand. My dear iPhone saved the day again! (You don't believe? Oh... evidence? No problem, see my screen shot here....hehehe...).

Not just some cheap thrill, my friend, we saved enough for the four of us to have a simple dinner at the golf course that night!

I don't think I can live without a smartphone anymore, really. Again I must thank my children for it. And I think this time I should thank all the brains behind the technology too!



PS. *Bukit Tinggi is about 2700 feet above sea level.

Smart phone and I

All the while I didn't have a handphone. Even before retirement when I was still working, I didn't have one either.

I felt I could be reached easily either in office or home via the land line (or email). So there's no necessity to add extra burden to myself (charging, checking messages or miss calls...) and I was happy to keep my handbag lighter without this gadget.

I wasn't missing anything without a handphone really and I thought I would never, never need to get one.

I don't mind to be the odd one out in this era when even kids are chatting away on handphones.

If it's my decision, you know the same truth (that I don't need a handphone) still prevails! But when my eldest son ordered his dad an iPad, his younger brother gave him the bright idea of also getting their dear mum an iPhone. ( I would have stopped him if I had known earlier). That's how the story of smartphone and I began.

Whilst the father rejoiced in receiving the present he had long dreamed of, I was grumbling behind that the iPhone would be a white elephant for me. Partly also I felt a bit heart-ache to have spent so much of my son's hard-earned money.

For quite some time my "white elephant" was left in it's packing (no one was home to set it up and I was not interested to find out) until my youngest daughter returned from Australia. She subscribed immediately a data line for me and introduced me to the world of smartphone. She had worked before with a cellphone company in Australia and according to her, amongst other smartphones, iPhone was the first love of the senior citizens there. Based on this fact, she assured me that I would soon learn to love it too!

Her statement couldn't be more true as I had since then got hooked to using Whatspp, Skype, iMessage, facetime, gmail, google, GPS, bloomberg, camera, youtube ....

All on that iPhone!

Yes, it's every senior citizen's first love. I would gladly endorse this fact! And I must also not forget to thank my children for this wonderful gift!