The Phone

I’m writing on my iPhone tonight.

That’s not something you would hear twenty years ago.

If you did hear someone say they were writing on their phone, you would’ve thought, “Ole Melvin has a permanent marker and is writing his name or phone number on the wall mount or the receiver.”

2007 and a guy named Steve changed the world. Sometimes I wish he would’ve minded his own business and left well enough alone. But I guess he was trying to expand his business.

If he (or whoever came up with the idea) hadn’t had a vision, I wouldn’t be able to post tonight. Phones have come a long way. And so have their accessories.

I remember seeing someone talking on the phone using a wired earbud plugged into their 3.5-millimeter audio jack for the first time.

We were traveling down the interstate in a major city. We passed a car whose driver was swinging her hands around and bobbing her head. She was animated.

We pressed our noses to the window and stared as we passed her. She had a wire hanging out of her ear. We almost laughed our heads off. We thought we had witnessed a tried and true nutcase.

Who would’ve ever imagined where technology would’ve taken us? First, it was a wooden box on the wall. Then it was the rotary phone. Then it was the keypad phone. Next was the cordless phone. Now it’s a technological gadget that just so happens to be a phone along with everything else it does.

Andy and Barney had quite the phone in their office. It was a two-piece deal. They had to hold the mouthpiece and the earpiece. It was the stickshift of phones.

Do you remember the keypad texting days? Three clicks on the number five got you to the letter L. And one of the most common letters was on the seven key. It was a long, drawn-out process to get to the letter S. Especially if you accidentally pressed one too many times.

Now we’ve got QWERTY keyboards on our phones and can reach every letter with only our thumbs. I’ve tried writing like that on a regular-size keyboard, but it wasn’t doable.

Nowadays, you don’t have to type — you can swipe a finger across the keyboard. Or you can speak to the phone, and the keyboard will “type” itself.

So instead of having a phone on the wall of our homes, we have them in our pockets. And now we have screens and apps on them. What a weird concept.

Who knew phones would be such intricate parts of our lives?

sent to you from my iPhone,
– Caleb