This has to be a question on many of my readers’ lips. Well, to answer that, most of my long-form posts have been written on my iPhone.
This is not so crazy as you might imagine, London author Fiona Mozley, shortlisted for the Man Booker Prize for Fiction in 2017, secretly wrote her debut novel on her phone while commuting on the Tube, that in addition to studying for a PhD at York University about late-medieval towns and ecopolitics.
So coming back to the less academic CabbieBlog and my long-form posts written using Apple’s Notes app on my old iPhone 5S.
Apple in their wisdom updated their operating system which excluded my trusty old phone, this resulted in some of my apps not working correctly, and in addition, my phone had only 16Gb of Rom so it was feeling pretty well stuffed.
In a heady fit of profligate spending, largely predicated upon the fee received from a piece I wrote for This England Annual (more of which later), in May I bought a shiny new iPhone SE with a heady 128Gb of storage from that icon of middle class retailing – John Lewis.
Safe in the knowledge that I was backing up everything to Apple’s excellent iCloud what could possibly go wrong? Well as Bill Gates memorably argued, there are two types of computers: those which have crashed, and those that will crash.
Compared to nearly 7 years of faultless service from my old phone, my all-singing all-dancing new phone barely lasted 7 weeks before it took into its head to scramble the image on the screen.
The helpful customer service person at John Lewis reassuringly told me that I was the second person that day with the same fault on their iPhone SE and briskly re-directed me to Apple’s technical support.
A word of warning here, it’s easier to get an audience with the Pope, than talking to an actual living human being at Apple.
Once eventually being connected, the highly competent service assistant could have been instructing me in ancient Sumerian.
One of the solutions tried was to re-install the operating system, but before starting I had to reassure them that I had backed up my device. No problem iCloud has everything. Wrong!
Some apps back up, others don’t, including my Day One journal that I’ve maintained for a decade.
Ultimately all the experiments proved was the device needed the intervention of an engineer.
The procedures necessary to send a phone to Apple are many and varied: turn off find my phone app; disconnect the phone from Apple device ID list; remove SIM card; fully charge phone; turn off device; enclose in a special bag and tape shut; place in the reinforced cardboard box provided; write addressee’s name on an outer bag, seal and take to the post office; oh yes, back up!
You cannot fault Apple’s service. I dropped my phone off at my local post office (at least they call a desk at the back of a value for money general store the Post Office), on late Friday afternoon. Monday morning I had confirmation of delivery and at 8.32 in the evening was informed it had been repaired and dispatched. Before lunch next day, my repaired phone arrived and was up and running by the evening.
Our mobile phones have become the most important gadget in our lives, the window through which we see and interact with the world; camera, newspaper, retail outlet, record player, diary, and for my typewriter. They allow us to share everything we’re up to, and to receive instant feedback from people we’ve never, or are unlikely to meet. They nudge us relentlessly to that magic rectangle which grabs our attention throughout our waking hours – increasingly the master rather than the servant.
That is when they work.
On 22 August 1854 magistrates spent three hours dealing with cases arising from the fair at Camberwell, including numerous children, as young as nine or ten, who were charged with pickpocketing
Robert Peel’s new Metropolitan Police Force nicknamed ‘Blue Devils’ wore blue to avoid confusion with the red coats of the army
St Bartholomew’s Hospital is the oldest hospital in London having been founded in 1123 by a monk named Rahere
Covent Garden is believed to be haunted by the ghost of William Terris who met an untimely death near the station in 1897
In 1966 Russian spy George Blake escaped Wormwood Scrubs and a 42 year stretch by making use of a ladder made of knitting needles
During World War II a branch of the Piccadilly line Holborn/Aldwych was closed and British Museum treasures were stored in the empty spaces
18th century Shepherd Market Mayfair was home to courtesan Kitty Fisher who, insulted by a low value note given for services given, ate it!
West Ham’s I’m forever blowing bubbles was inspired by trialist schoolboy Billy Murray who resembled the boy used to advertise Pears soap
When Paddington Underground Station, as the western terminus of London’s first underground, opened in January 1863 it was called Bishop’s Road
Marc Isambard Brunel came up with his idea on how to dig the Thames’ Tunnel whilst in debtors’ prison watching a shipworm bore through wood
In 1792 Lady Braddock and Mrs Elphinstone duelled Braddock’s hat got shot off and Elphinstone wounded in the arm by a sword – later they had tea
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