I just removed from my syllabus template a digitally altered PR image of our school’s namesake St. Elizabeth Ann Seton holding an iPad, because iPads have not been part of the tuition package for a couple years now.

I’ve been an Apple user for about 10 years, since Seton Hill instituted its MacBook plan, and I had an iPod Touch during the era when I also carried a retro flip phone in my fanny pack (along with a digital voice recorder, an SLR camera, and probably a package of crackers and a random toy to distract a cranky child)… but I’ve never had an iPhone.

While in Pittsburgh last weekend I dropped my Android phone in a crosswalk, and a car ran over it before I could retrieve it. 

At about $85 it was a really good budget model, with a high quality camera (with multiple lenses) and a generous screen, but it fell out of my shirt pocket regularly, and even with a case-mounted ring the screen was too big for me to use with one hand.

I ordered a budget iPhone SE 3rd edition. The big bezel on the screen looks positively retro, but it feels good in my hand.

When I followed the instructions for porting my Andriod phone to iOS, all the text messages I sent ended up on my new phone (but not all of the messages I received… I’ve backed them all up for sentimental / archival purposes but I can no longer search my text message archives for the address someone texted me years ago).

All the apps I had on my Android phone ended up on the home screen of my iPhone — whenever there was an iOS equivalent. I had to download them again and re-enter all my credentials, but that was forgivable.

I’m still working on copying over all my contacts, but the new phone is functional.

I was blown away when I command-C copied something to my digital clipboard on my Mac, and found it appeared automatically when I hit the paste icon on my iPhone.

I’m annoyed that all my re-installed apps are interrupting me every few minutes with suggestions and requests and notifications, but it’s making me reconsider my relationship with technology. It’s annoying that the default response is always “Yes, make me as engaged as possible with this app,” so that if my base desire is to have the apps be less intrusive, I have to devote more time to each intrusive request.