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32 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | OCTOBER 2021 THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! By Steve Benoff Before I get into an apps discussion, I'd like to bring up the subject of phone politeness. Keeping in mind that others may have a different view, I think it's rude to allow your phone to ring in group settings. When I'm attending a meeting, at The Lodge for a show, at the movies, at the wonderful Redlands Bowl, I don't like to hear ringing phones. (I don't like Reply All for texts and emails, but that's a different issue.) There are several ways to quiet your phone. You can turn it off. You can turn the ringer down to zero. You can switch the ringer off. What I do is enable Do Not Disturb. This silences my phone when it's not in use. I used to turn the volume down, but I found myself forgetting I did that and would miss calls after the event. If Do Not Disturb in on, I get a notice every time I wake up my phone. That reminds me to disable it when the time is appropriate. You should all be aware of the importance of keeping the firmware in your electronic items up to date. I know you've heard of software. Apps are software. Firmware is the same but different. Firmware is software that is stored semi-permanently on a hardware device to make it run properly. The firmware in your smartphone comprises all the instructions necessary for your phone to operate. Without the firmware, apps wouldn't operate. It's the semi-permanent nature of firmware that makes updates necessary. There are all kinds of reasons a manufacturer considers in changing firmware. Sometimes a completely new feature can be added to a device even though it wasn't even considered when the device was first released for sale. But it takes a firmware update to enable that feature. Sometimes a security vulnerability is discovered in the existing firmware which could lead to a device failure on its own or an intrusion by bad guys. (There must be some bad gals out there too.) Most of the time we don't know or care why a manufacturer sends out an update. We just rest assured the update will make our device better or safer in almost all cases. Which brings me to the Widex app on my phone. As I've mentioned before, I wear Widex hearing aids. Many people think of hearing aids as a burden. I feel quite the opposite. Mine enable me to better hear (oh no, I split an infinitive) people speaking to me. The biggest improvement is when I listen to classical music. [Don't forget, the Classical Music Club has resumed in-person meetings on the second Thursday of the month at 7 pm in The Lodge Theater.] For me, I now hear high frequencies that were lost to me for years. And adjustments made by my audiologist have even improved my low frequency hearing. Hearing aids are, of course, sophisticated electronic devices. And as such the manufacturer may need to fine tune the firmware each hearing aid needs to operate properly. When I recently opened the Widex app, instead of seeing the main screen which enables me to choose amongst different frequency characteristics, I was presented with a notice that a firmware update was available for my hearing aids. Note that this was not a change in the Widex app, it's new firmware for the hearing aids themselves. The app sends the update to each hearing aid over the Bluetooth connection between them and my phone. The app shows me the update progress to each hearing aid. I have a cycling computer on my bike which gives me my speed, my heart rate, and the total amount of feet I've climbed, among many other things. It also has an app loaded on my phone. The cycling computer (that's what they call them) requires firmware updates from time to time, but it doesn't use its app to do it. The computer has built-in Wi-Fi capability, and when its within range of my home network, it initiates the upgrade by itself. But hearing aids are far too small to permit Wi-Fi. In the past, if hearing aids had new features or capabilities, you'd have to go to a technician to perform the update. Or, more likely, the hearing aids would go without any upgrade. But hearing aids can have Bluetooth capability. With Bluetooth connecting the hearing aids to my phone and my phone using Wi-Fi to connect to the internet, firmware can be loaded in my hearing aids to keep them up to date. All because of an app on my phone. That's quite remarkable. Which is why I'm remarking on it now. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. Phone Manners, Firmware, & Hearing Aids