I bought a new phone today. After much debate, I decided on a Droid. It's a Samsung Fascinate. I love gadgets and technology and I like to believe that I can pick up new things quickly. And I can. For the most part.
As I've aged my eyes have become worse and even with a fairly recent pair of eyeglasses, I don't always do so well with icons. Usually they are supposed to represent something but most of them appear meaningless to me. I have this same problem with my computer, but with my droid or my blackberry, they are even smaller and more difficult to decipher. But since I've been using a blackberry for a few years for work, I can get by. I usually end up relying on position or color or referring mentally to "that orange box with the squiggles" which is in reality a symbol for a calculator.
The bigger problem I'm having is with the touch screen. This truly gives new meaning to the term "Fat fingering". I'm wondering if girly-girls with long pointy fingernails have an edge here. The typing is a unique experience that has sent me into fits of hysteria. I've finally decided that whatever letter I'm aiming for, I need to touch a little to the left of it, almost on the letter before it. So, if I want to type a "W", I have to hit right at the end of where I see the "Q". It's like bowling with a curve ball.
So there's this really cool app where you can get a daily summary which includes the weather for your city, favorite stock prices, and the news headline. The cities were listed in alphabetical order. First, let me say the scrolling takes some getting used to but I was eventually whipping down that list, started to select Baltimore, then whiz, whirrr, whumphf, my screen took on a life of its own and I ended up with the weather for Fort Wayne Indiana. I've tried changing it but it only seems to let me add another city. I'm sure I'll figure it out. And in a few weeks I'll be laughing at my bungling. I mean I've only had the thing a few hours. In the meantime, please let me know if you'd like to know the weather conditions in Fort Wayne Indiana.
As I've aged my eyes have become worse and even with a fairly recent pair of eyeglasses, I don't always do so well with icons. Usually they are supposed to represent something but most of them appear meaningless to me. I have this same problem with my computer, but with my droid or my blackberry, they are even smaller and more difficult to decipher. But since I've been using a blackberry for a few years for work, I can get by. I usually end up relying on position or color or referring mentally to "that orange box with the squiggles" which is in reality a symbol for a calculator.
The bigger problem I'm having is with the touch screen. This truly gives new meaning to the term "Fat fingering". I'm wondering if girly-girls with long pointy fingernails have an edge here. The typing is a unique experience that has sent me into fits of hysteria. I've finally decided that whatever letter I'm aiming for, I need to touch a little to the left of it, almost on the letter before it. So, if I want to type a "W", I have to hit right at the end of where I see the "Q". It's like bowling with a curve ball.
So there's this really cool app where you can get a daily summary which includes the weather for your city, favorite stock prices, and the news headline. The cities were listed in alphabetical order. First, let me say the scrolling takes some getting used to but I was eventually whipping down that list, started to select Baltimore, then whiz, whirrr, whumphf, my screen took on a life of its own and I ended up with the weather for Fort Wayne Indiana. I've tried changing it but it only seems to let me add another city. I'm sure I'll figure it out. And in a few weeks I'll be laughing at my bungling. I mean I've only had the thing a few hours. In the meantime, please let me know if you'd like to know the weather conditions in Fort Wayne Indiana.