Tour de iPhone

After a momentary panic attack at the price and the commitment, I finally agreed with Big A's idea that perhaps I needed an iPhone for my birthday last June.  At the time,  he and I were not texting and using our little flip phones just for emergencies in our basic grandfathered contract with Sprint that we had for 5+ years.   Also, my first generation iPod just went kaput after all these years so I figured it was the fiscally responsible thing to do rather than a new phone of another type and a new iPod.

After that first initial bill that was part of the previous plan and then a part of the new one plus the accessories that we got 20% off at the Sprint store when we upgraded, we both nearly hyperventilated at the bill. 

Fast forward nearly 10 months and now that the bill had settled down into it's new normal amount (which is still nearly 3 times what we paid previously), I have to say......I love my phone!  I actually use the phone part very rarely.  I enjoy more the 'in the moment' Facebook postings and immediate searches when things pop into my head such as 'Can squirrels actually live inside of trees?' which was my last Safari search on Tuesday night.  For fun, I thought I would give you a tour of my iPhone screen.  Technically it's Screen 2 since Screen 1 is the pre-set options that the phone came with and can't be changed. Behold my brain in a visual format:

While I wish I could ditch the Stocks and somehow move it to the first screen, I pretty much live on Screen 2. 

When it comes to things like my computer's hard drive or my iPhone, I like order and labels.  As you can see, all of my QVC apps are in a "folder" (Is there a formal name for these iPhone groupings?), all of my games in another, and since Apple started me off with a Utilities folder, I have added to it by including things like Google Maps, Mapquest, Flashlight, Pandora, and Dictionary.com.

After that, they are arranged in an order of mostly used or all for the same location: 

• I'm surprised my Facebook app isn't worn out yet.  
• I've been meaning to set up a Twitter account only to follow people like my beloved Kardashians but so far, I haven't gotten around to it. 
• Since I'm a registered gold card Starbucks girl, I loooove their app.  I can check my balance, check out their weekly song choices (which now saves me a trip from walking into their coffee shop which may or may not be a good thing), and see how many stars until my next free hot chocolate!  I think I can even pay using a bar code that pops up on the app but I haven't tried that yet.
• Food Network's In the Kitchen is one of the few apps that I actually purchased.  As luck would have it, a few weeks after I bought it, Starbucks' holiday special they had going for one week in December included this app for free.  I hate when that happens!  Although I can't say I have used it a lot.  I have found recipes on there and saved them in my 'quick list' in hopes of making them someday but I find searching for recipes from certain shows using their actual website on a computer to be easier than trying to do this from their app.
• I have used DTE Energy a couple of times to report power outages.  Funny thing is that I've never received a text from them saying it has been restored as it says will happen.  Of course, by the time it is restored, I'm just happy to have it back.  Murf ain't cut out for Amish life.  
• I love weather.  I love watching red (i.e., thunderstorms) sections coming towards me or blue which indicates snow.  Because of that, I have my local news channel's weather app along with the always cool (until they started naming winter storms) Weather Channel where I like to check the picture behind my local forecast which matches the level of cloudiness/sunniness/rainyness/snowyness specified in writing.  Also included is Atlanta so it's fun to see what's going on down there as well.   
• I like seeing what others are reading so the Goodreads app is linked to my Facebook page so the few Facebook friends that also use Goodreads keeps me up-to-date on their books.  You can also find reviews of the book that you are reading or want to read from other Goodreads users.  I just stick to my 1-5 starred review of the books I finish.  
• Who doesn't love to use Amazon?  This is the only app that comes and goes.  Sometimes I don't see a point in it while there are other times when I'm sitting in the living room and think of something or see something and want to search Amazon to see if it's available.  Again, I think I prefer the full blown web page than the app.
• Last but not least...Bob Ross.  I 'like' Bob Ross on Facebook so I caught wind of this free app one day when they had a post about it being available.  I ran to the App store and downloaded it.  I love the sound bites of Bob saying random things.  There are also a few videos.  Love it!

As usual, all of this iPhone goodness is backed by a cute picture of the dog.  I really do have the whole world in my hand.