Tag: Apple

I upgraded my iPhone 6s Plus to iOS 11 and now GPS does not work

I upgraded my iPhone’s operating system to iOS 11 when it told me to. Big mistake. Not only did key features of the iPhone change (Podcasts) to less capable versions, the built-in Global Positioning System (GPS) is now junk. It works until it doesn’t work.

When driving for Uber, GPS is very important

If I didn’t drive for Uber, I probably wouldn’t care about the GPS. At least not as much as I do now. When you drive for Uber, the GPS is very important. Not only does it tell you where to go to pick up your passenger, it continuously sends tracking information back to Uber so that it can keep the passenger updated as to your status.

Yesterday the GPS on my iPhone was not working correctly.

The first trip of the day, I picked up a passenger at a nearby grocery store. Uber was sending me up-to-date navigational information to the pick-up spot. When I pulled up to the front of the store, I had to wait a few minutes for the passenger. The reason? Because her Uber ridder app showed that I had not yet left, let alone arrived. Even though the GPS was working for me, it evidently wasn’t sending updates to Uber.

My navigational system has fallen and it won’t get up

On the next trip, the Uber wasn’t sending me navigational information. It was like I was looking at a screenshot of a navigational screen. As I was driving to the general direction of where the passenger was, I rebooted the Uber app and then rebooted the entire iPhone. When it came back up, I had to cancel the ride because I had taken far too much time getting the iPhone up and running. In the Uber settings, I switched from the native navigation system to Waze. I then drove around a bit with Waze up to make sure the screen was updating my location. I appeared to be working, so I went back into Uber and went online.

A few minutes later, I got a passenger request. It was over at Prime Outlets, an outlet mall in Hagerstown off Interstate 70. Right before I got to Prime Outlets, I got a text from the passenger asking me if I was on my way. Great, it sounded as though the iPhone wasn’t sending navigational updates to Uber. I replied that I was and would be there in a few minutes.

I picked her up and drove her home. She was a frequent passenger of mine. After dropping her off, I got another request right away. I began driving towards the new passenger. The navigation system was doing what it was supposed to do, at least it appeared on my end that it was.

About a minute from the new passenger’s location, the passenger canceled the ride. No biggie, since it has been over two minutes since they requested the ride, at least I’ll get the $5.25 cancellation fee.

Where’s my $5.25 cancellation fee?

A few minutes went by and the cancellation fee didn’t appear on my account. It showed $0.00. I then looked at the last trip, the one where I picked up the rider at Prime Outlets. It showed I earned $3.45 for the trip, the bare minimum you can make on a single trip driving for Uber. The trip showed it took 15 minutes, 35 seconds and was 0.00 miles.

I logged out of Uber and went home. Then I emailed Uber support. I told them I should have received a cancellation fee because it had been more than two minutes since the rider requested the trip. The got back to me and stated the cancellation fee did not apply because it showed I was taking too long to get to the passenger. My iPhone was obviously not sending navigation info to Uber.

I also contacted Uber about the $3.45 fare. They informed me that I would need to send them the following:
– Date of trip
– Time of trip
– Pickup and drop-off location
– Fare
– Rider name

Once they have that, they’ll be able to assist me. As much as I’d like to blame Uber for this, the problem is with my iPhone. The problem with my phone is because Apple essentially forced me to upgrade the operating system.

Apple sucks and I hate it

I erased the iPhone and reloaded the OS. What else could I do? I just finished paying off this iPhone. The last thing I want to do is get a new phone. I’d like to roll back the OS to the prior system, but Apple doesn’t allow that.

I wish Apple cared less about protecting the privacy rights of murderous dead Islamists and more about taking care of its existing customers. Just because they release a new iPhone doesn’t mean I want to buy it. By forcing a crappy OS on my two-year-old phone, breaking features I rely upon, doesn’t mean I will go out and buy shiny new iPhone 8. My iPhone was working perfectly fine until the new operating system.

When I do buy a new phone, it will not be a phone made by Apple.

I blame Tim Cook

I know it’s not rational, but I have some major hatred for Apple’s CEO Tim Cook. For some reason, when I was erasing my iPhone and reinstalling the same awful OS, I was picturing him laughing at me.

The laughing Tim Cook is the worst of all the Tim Cooks.

Again, this was not a rational thing to do. I’m fully aware of this. I’m sure Tim Cook is a wonderful person with many redeeming qualities. That said, yesterday I wanted to put him in a rear naked chokehold and watch him go to sleep.

I decided to put the iPhone down for a while and take two Xanax.

Nobody will ever get rich driving for Uber

In retrospect, I think the basis of my anger had more to do with where my life is right now. I allowed myself to get worked up about a missing $5.25 cancellation fee. Nobody will ever get rich driving for Uber. When you drive for Uber, every dollar is important. I now have to go into Uber’s system and find the information about the zero mile trip. They have all this information, yet it’s up to me to obtain it and send it to them.  For what, to get them to pay me a few more bucks?

It sucks to be in that position.

I have become disillusioned with using an iMac

Last summer, when it was time to upgrade my PC, I decided to buy an iMac. Ever since buying a Windows 3.1 PC at a Radio Shack in Tullahoma, Tennessee back in 1994, I’ve used only Microsoft Windows computers.

I wouldn’t describe myself as ever really being a fan of Microsoft products. In fact, ever since Windows 95, I felt that Microsoft was just trying to fix its operating system with each and every new operating system, fixes that it was making consumers pay for. I used a Windows PC because that it always made more sense. Macs are expensive. Inexpensive PCs are never hard to mind.

Windows PCs always seemed more practical because of the amount of software that’s available for the PC compared to the Mac. My thinking began to change with the release of Windows 8.

I hated Windows 8

Windows 8 thought I had a tablet for a PC and wanted me to swipe left and right to access content. It knew I didn’t have this type of computer, the kind that you could swipe the screen to make it do things.

It was then I began giving Apple a second look.

I was at the point that even if a Mac costs more than a comparable PC, I didn’t care as long as it was easier to use. I was a fan of the iPad and figured using a Mac would be similar to using an iPad.

Wrong.

I bought my iMac in July of 2015 and at the time, I loved it. It came with the Yosemite operating system and when it was using that, it was great. Apple then updated the OS to El Capitan. I held off on upgrading. A lot of people were complaining about how El Capitan was awful. I figured as long as it wasn’t requiring me to upgrade, I’d let Apple get all the bugs out before inflicting it on my iMac. Plus, like it says in the Bible if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it.

If only I had adhered to the word of God

After a couple of months of being nagged at to update the OS, I finally relented and upgraded to El Capitan. What a mess. Everything was slower. It seemed like the spinning beach ball, Apple’s retarded version of the hourglass icon, was constantly on the screen.

It was as though I suddenly didn’t have enough memory. When I purchased my iMac, I ordered it with 8GB of memory. It should have been enough. It was enough until I upgraded the OS to El Capitan. After the upgrade, it seemed like I needed more memory.

Some programs just wouldn’t work anymore. TextWrangler, a free code editor for the iMac, would continuously crash. I finally had to switch to Sublime for code editing.

I looked into it, and I had the option of upgrading the memory to 16GB, but it wasn’t as simple as opening a panel and replacing the RAM. No, it was a lot more complicated than that. I would need a special kit to open the computer and remove the glass display that’s held in place with an adhesive.

That seemed ridiculous. I’ve been upgrading hardware on computers for years, both in my personal life and in my professional life. I’d never had to deal with adhesive, especially to remove and replace memory. Upgrading memory is a regular thing to do when you own a computer. Not so when that computer is an iMac.

El Capitan was Apple’s Windows 8

I’ve since upgraded the OS to Sierra. It too seems to crave more memory that I have. Other programs I used with Yosemite and even El Capitan stopped working when I upgraded to Sierra. They would crash, some almost as soon as I would start them up.

If I had it to do over again, I would not have bought an iMac. I would have bought a PC, even if it was running Windows 8.

Who knew storing nude photos on the Internet was a bad idea?

I think what surprised me the most about the Apple iCloud naked celebrity photo scandal is that it’s 2014 and people, celebrities in their 20’s, thought the Internet was a safe place to secure their private nude photos.

Since when was the Internet a safe place to store anything?

Edward Snowden, the American hero coward who leaked highly classified information about NSA monitoring capabilities, currently hiding in Russia, told the world that nothing you do online or with a cell phone is private. He said the government had access to anything. If you believed Snowden, why would you think anything was private on the Internet?

If you own an iPhone, by default, it sends any photo you take to the cloud, specifically, the iCloud. The reason? In case you lose your iPhone or it becomes damaged, all your photos will be backed up and obtainable. I like it because I can take a picture with my iPhone and then immediately have access to the photo on my desktop or laptop. You can always turn this feature off if you want to.

Did any of these naked victims know that they cold turn this feature off? I’m guessing not.

Some people love taking naked photos

Having worked for years in the photo finishing industry, I know for a fact that a lot of people like taking naked pictures of themselves. When I got out of the Air Force in 1994, I was hired by Wal-Mart Photo to work as a repair technician in a new, gigantic photo lab they were building here in Maryland. If you dropped off film at a Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club for two-day processing anywhere in the Mid-Atlantic or North-East region, it would be sent to us, processed, and then sent back. Most of the process was completely automated and normally the images were not seen by human eyeballs. As a repair technician working on the high-speed, automated photofinishing equipment, that standard didn’t apply to me. I would see a lot of the photos being processed.

There were a lot of nude pics, much more than you would think coming from people who shop at Wal-Mart or Sam’s Club.

Whatever you think the percentage is of people taking nude pictures of themselves is, double it and then double it again.

The takeaway from all this is that if you’re a celebrity who enjoys taking nude pictures of yourself, make sure the technology you’re using to capture your nakedness doesn’t automatically store the photos on the World Wide Internet Web, protected with the same simple, stupid password you probably use for everything else. Depending on your level of celebrity, you may have someone working for you who is in charge of your security and technology. If so, they should have ensured this didn’t happen.

If however your level of celebrity is on a downward journey, you can just go on Twitter and blame the technology you never bothered to learn:

If Kirsten Dunst is smart enough to know how to put a pizza icon with a poop icon in a Twitter post, creating the phrase piece of shit, how did she not know that photos taken with her iPhone, even “private” naked pictures, would automatically backup to the iCloud?