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32 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | NOVEMBER 2022 Let me tell you about my wife's phone. Martha, my wife of 51 years, has many fine qualities. But, and I'll try to put this delicately, her ability with technology is not among them. Martha has an iPhone SE. No, not the first one from 2016 although that would no doubt work fine for her. She has a second-generation model and will have no need to upgrade to the third generation which will have the latest Apple chipset (the "lightning-fast A15 Bionic") and 5G. By the way, do you remember all the hoopla about 5G, the latest and greatest rendition of cellular data communication? I, myself, was responsible for some of that hoopla in this very column not too long ago. My phone does have 5G capabilities. And I am not impressed. Sure, very occasionally when I am close to an ultra-fast 5G tower, I get very quick downloads. But most of the time my cellular data service is no faster than 4G. There are three varieties of 5G and the very fast one requires close proximity to a short wavelength tower. This is well-suited for densely-occupied areas, not for places like Beaumont. Should I be embarrassed to disclose that I have 187 apps on my phone? I am, after all, someone who writes about apps monthly. But even I was surprised by that number as I counted down the apps listed in my App Library (accessible on most iPhones by scrolling to the farthest right screen.) In fact, as I looked at them, I decided it was time to delete some of them. I found 27 I no longer need, that duplicate what I get from another app, that I installed solely to test for this column, and a few I haven't a clue as to why they're on my phone. Martha, on the other hand, has 10 apps and one widget. A widget is a way to group apps and/or functions. In her case, the widget has a single function – it calls my cell phone. Let me be clear, in pointing out that she has only 10 apps on her phone, I'm not criticizing her. Quite the opposite. What sane person has 160 apps on their phone? Basically, Martha uses her smartphone as a phone. For me, phone calls account for less than five percent of my phone usage. For her, it's the vast majority of her phone time. (I can't remember whether many years ago I paid $1,000 or $2,000 for a luggable phone I could use both in my car and on construction sites. But it was solely to make calls. Now phones are more akin to computers than telephones.) Martha loves email, but she eschews her phone for them. She prefers her laptop. Texts? Forget them. She has the text app on her phone for those who insist on texting her. But they might have to wait awhile for a reply. Better to email her. She loves photos of our two granddaughters. But she doesn't scroll through them on her phone. She prefers to have them printed so she can place them throughout the house for her to see far more easily than having to use a photo app. So what's left? Google, which she does use. Same for Contacts and The New York Times. The App Store app is there if I find an app I think she should have. (No luck yet.) I'm not sure if she's ever used the Clock and Maps apps, but they're there if the need arises. That leaves Settings with its constant red dot requesting her to finish setting up her phone. The fact that she doesn't want or need security features for her phone (Face ID in her case) seems so antithetical to Apple that they won't let her use her phone the way she wants to without a constant reminder that she's not adhering to the Apple way. What Apple doesn't realize is that Martha is completely oblivious to the red dot. She uses her phone her way. The heck with Apple. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@verizon.net. ~ Steve Benoff THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Little-known smartphone function… Using the phone to call people

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