Category Archives: Computers

My iPhone is back!

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This is a follow-up to my post last week after my iPhone 15 Pro began constantly rebooting. This happened after it had done an automatic update to the system software.

I surrendered the phone to the folks at the Apple Store’s “Genius Bar” around 6 pm on Thursday, December 28. Even with the long New Year’s weekend, the phone was ready for pick-up at the Kahala Apple Store on Friday…yesterday. I was able to pick it up this afternoon. The repair was covered under warranty, since the phone was less than three months old. It was returned with a new serial number, which I suppose means it’s internals have all been replaced.

I launched the process of restoring it from an iCloud backup, which so far is going smoothly. But it’s not fully automatic, since many log-in credentials have to be reentered or verified.

Apple had provided a loaner, and transferred by cell phone service to the loaner, and then shifted it back to my phone when I picked it up at the store. At least that went very smoothly. Back when phones were, well, just phones, that would have been the whole story. Now, not so much.

You don’t know what you’ve got ’til it’s gone!

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Thursday was not a good day, and it exposed how dependent I am on a few little bits of high technology.

First, there was my iPhone. I notice it was resetting, displaying the white Apple logo on the screen, then soon getting back to the “start” screen. I checked in settings, and saw that it had done an automatic update to IOS 17.2.1, and was now considered “up to date.”

Good deal, I thought to myself.

Then the screen went black and it reset again. That was weird.

But, a while later, I realized that it was now resetting every few minutes. I could use it in between reset, and all seemed fine. But then the it would repeat the reset cycle, again and again.

Of course, I went online and found a lot of complaints about similar issues, but most related to difficulty in installing the upgrade. This phone thought it had finished the upgrade. But there were a number of step-by-step suggestions for a fix. I tried several. Forced restart. Made no difference. Update network settings. It still continued the reset cycle. Clear all settings. Nothing.

Time to escalate. The phone is new. I ordered it from Apple on September 19, and it was delivered almost a month later, around October 15. This means it is still under warranty.

So I started an online “chat” with an apple tech somewhere in the Apple corporate world. She was very good, whether she was an actual person or an AI persona.

She guided me through the process to “recovery mode,” which involved connecting the iPhone to my Macbook Pro via a cable, then going through a slightly different reset routine. After a minute or so, the phone displayed a computer and a cable stretching out towards it.

Now, she said in the chat, go into finder.

That was easy.

Click on “iPhone” in the finder.

I didn’t see it. “Where is it?”

“It should be in the left hand panel, listed along with the Macintosh hard drive in ‘Locations’.”

I told her it wasn’t there. She asked for a screenshot. I grabbed one, sent it over to her.

Pause. “Let’s get you an appointment with a technician,” was her reply.

So at 6:40 p.m., I reported to the Apple Store in Kahala Mall and made my way to the Genius Bar in the back of the store. There was only a very short wait, a minute or two, before one of the resident geniuses came over to offer his assistance.

It didn’t take long. We did some preliminaries, he watched it reset a couple of times, hooked it up to his computer and looked grimly at whatever was reported.

Long story short–It has to be repaired, and the parts are not available on island. So the easiest approach was to let them ship it to their repair center, which allowed then to give me a “loaner.” So I have a nice, Coral-pink iPhone XR from back in about 2018, and after transferring my identity and cell phone service to it, it seems to work. I’ll be able to do the basics–make and receive calls, texts, and mail–until my phone is returned.

This is a “second level” repair, if I heard it right. That means they’ll use the existing case and screen, but the rest of the guts of the phone will simply be replaced, and the phone returned. At that point it will be like getting a new phone, restoring it from yesterday’s iCloud backup. It’s not fun, and takes most of a day to transfer the data, reload the apps, and so on, discovering things that need to be done along the way.

The estimate for the cost of this repair is $649. That’s exactly half of the original cost of the phone three months ago. It is a very good thing that it is under warranty and so cost to me is $0.00. Whew.

But that’s not the end of the story.

When I got home, my Apple watch was in the process of resetting. I guess the process of wiping out the phone resulted in “unpairing” the watch and my phone.

But pairing the watch has been simple, so I wasn’t worried.

After a few minutes, the watch gave instructions. Place your watch close to your phone. Okay. Done.

But then it all went off the rails again.

Came the message: Your phone is too old and cannot be paired to this watch.

Ohhh-kay. So both my iPhone and Apple Watch are temporarily out of order.

I’m still feeling a little anxious in their absence.

Now I hope this doesn’t somehow infect my laptop or iPad. So far, so good.

Remember those black Apple II computers?

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I doubt many do.

So here’s a bit of history.

Our first home computer was a black Apple II+ sold under the Bell & Howell brand. I believe we brought it home somewhere around 1979 or 1980.

Here’s an excerpt from an online history of old computer models, which reports the common assumption that it was not available to retail purchasers.

Founded in the early 1900’s, Bell & Howell has always been associated with audio-video equipment – cameras, projectors, and the like. In 1979, they had a computer system which they sold mainly to educational institutions – you couldn’t buy one, it wasn’t available in your local computer store.

The “Bell & Howell computer” is actually an Apple II Plus computer in disguise. The normally beige case is now black, and a Bell & Howell label was attached. But as you can see above, Apple is still given full credit.

But that was wrong in one respect.

We went shopping for a home computer to see for ourselves what all the excitment in magazines was about, and found an early store in Honolulu. I don’t recall much about the store and the owner, who we just referred to as “Computer Bill.” As I recall, it was a small store that may have competed with Computerland, the first large chain of computer stores, although my memory of this is rather hazy.

One day there was a stack of boxes in the store containing these black Apples, which had somehow been diverted from educational sales to this retail store. We asked no questions, and took one home.

The computer’s memory was limited to 48k, as in kilobytes, later expandable with an additional memory card that brought it up to 64k. Compare that to today’s entry level computers that are often delivered with 128 gigabytes of internal memory.

Start doing the math. A single megabyte is about 20 times larger than that original 48k, and a single gigabyte is 1,000 times more than a megabyte, so 128 gigabytes is…immense by comparison.

At first, there was no disk drive available. Software came on casettes, and you plugged a tape recorder into the computer and downloaded the software. Apple Writer was the first software we bought, and it immediately suggested to us that this technology was going to become extremely useful. I think we may have purchased a dot matrix printer at the same time, or very soon afterwards, and started writing. It was like magic.

It wasn’t too long before Apple’s first floppy disk drives became available. It could store over 100kb on a single 5” floppy disk. Huge. Later, when the first hard drive became available for the Apple II, it held a monstrous 5 megabytes. Compare that to today’s drives that can pack terabytes into a tiny package (terabye=1,000 gigabytes; gigabyte=1,000 megabytes). Whew.

Anyway, we were hooked. We later bought several Apple II Plus computers as their capabilities increased and prices dropped. Graduated to a Mac Plus when they arrived at the beginning of 1986, and rode the Mac wave through until today.

Along the way, we bought an early Powerbook in the early 1990s, later supplanted by one of the colorful iBook laptops when they were introduced at the end of the decade. And the laptops were parallel to our continued upgrades through many generations of Mac desktops. Today Meda and I each rely on a 16” Mac laptop powered by Apple’s M1 chips, accompanied by iPads (I’m writing now on a 9.7” iPad Pro, while Meda uses the latest generation iPad Mini). And, of course, the little computer we carry with us everywhere (packaged as an iPhone).

Having lived through the early years of this computer age, we fully appreciate how far we have come!

What ChatGPT had to say about this blog

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I’ll be bogged down today and probably tomorrow as well. It’s tax time, so TurboTax and I will be trying to complete our federal and state tax returns. Hopefully I won’t run into any real problems.

I happened to notice another news story this morning about useful things to do with ChatGPT, and decided to ask a couple of questions and see what this AI system would come up with. The results were interesting.

IL: describe the blog ilind.net

Ilind.net is a blog that covers a wide range of political and social issues, primarily focused on the United States. The blog is authored by Ian Lind, a journalist and commentator with a background in investigative reporting and political analysis.

The topics covered on ilind.net range from local politics and community issues in Hawaii, where Lind is based, to national and international news and events. The blog often delves into the inner workings of government and politics, analyzing policy decisions and the actions of elected officials.

In addition to political analysis, ilind.net also features commentary on a variety of social issues, including civil rights, environmentalism, and social justice. Lind’s writing is characterized by a deep knowledge of history and politics, as well as a critical and often humorous tone.

Overall, ilind.net is a thought-provoking and insightful blog that offers a unique perspective on the world of politics and social issues.

IL: how could ilind.net be improved?

As an AI language model, I do not have an opinion, but here are some general suggestions that could potentially improve ilind.net:

Increase interactivity: ilind.net could benefit from more interactive features, such as comment sections or social media integration, to encourage greater engagement and discussion among readers.

Incorporate multimedia: While ilind.net includes written articles and images, incorporating multimedia such as videos, podcasts, or infographics could make the content more engaging and accessible.

Diversify perspectives: While Ian Lind offers a unique perspective on politics and social issues, ilind.net could benefit from featuring guest writers or diverse perspectives to offer a wider range of voices and viewpoints.

Improve website design: ilind.net could improve its website design to make it more visually appealing and user-friendly, which could encourage readers to spend more time on the site.

Expand coverage: While ilind.net covers a wide range of political and social issues, expanding coverage to include more topics or regions could attract a wider audience and increase the relevance and impact of the blog.