iPhone

The Voice Of Christmas

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment


Are you getting a new phone for Christmas? You’re definitely not the only one.

Phones and tablets and even phablets (I hate that word) are some of the hottest gifts every Christmas season. I personally think I’ve seen more phone commercials this Christmas than for any other gift.

The new hot feature everyone seems to be advertising is voice control. You know, Siri, “Ok Google”, Amazon’s new Alexa feature, etc.

14177-9473-13163-7629-d019cb82cc26b00cc2ab1234c39db6481007b3ab_large_2x-l-l

This is the new feature phone companies are on fire for. But I’m really not a big user of voice control.

I know some people use the feature all the time. And you are free to make fun of me for sounding like an old fogey for this. But I pretty much only use Siri for one purpose – speaking out my texts. Continue reading →

Autocorrecting God

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

IMG_5330Ever notice something when you type out “god” on your iPhone? Go ahead and try typing it in a sentence if you haven’t recently.

While an iPhone will automatically capitalize most proper names and nouns, it won’t always autocorrect “god” to “God”.

Hey Apple – can we get a fix for this at the next WWDC?

Maybe your phone doesn’t do this. I’m sure some of you will tell me there’s something I can do in my settings so that I don’t have to go back and capitalize God every time I type it out (I may be under 30 but that doesn’t mean I know how to do 95% of the stuff on my phone).

Unfortunately just fixing my autocorrect settings won’t fix the real problem. The reality is that the failure of my phone to recognize God’s name is symbolic of a bigger issue in our culture.

As Christians we must stop assuming that the world sees God the same way that we do. Continue reading →

Why The Apple Watch Might Not Be Terrible

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

watch-dmI’ve been pretty steadily hate-reading test reviews of the Apple Watch. I don’t know why I’m so interested in reading about a product I think is so dumb.

Seriously – ever since Apple’s announcement back in the fall I’ve been shaking my head at this new digital wearable.

Maybe I’m being short-sighted. I just can’t see myself ever purchasing one. Of course I said the same thing about the iPhone when it debuted, and I finally came around to those in 2012.

There is however one feature of the Apple Watch I find intriguing. Apparently the watch has an innovative way of delivering alerts. They’re called Taptic Notifications.

The Apple Watch buzzes every few minutes, always reminding you of its presence and of your connection to your various networks. Continue reading →

8 Reasons For You To Give U2 A Second Chance

/ Alex Doriot / Leave a comment

u2If U2’s latest album popping up in your iCloud was your introduction to the band, I’m sorry. 

Not because I think it’s a bad record. In fact I thought it was a pretty amazing gift.

But even I have to admit that it does seem a little rude for even the biggest band of the world to arrive unannounced in your download folder.

So if your first impression of Bono and the boys is their drunken stumbling into your music library, I want to ask you today to give them a second chance.
Continue reading →

There Is Such A Thing As Free

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

photo.PNG-2Who gives away the most anticipated new album of the year to the entire world for free?

Certainly not the biggest rock band in the world, right?

That would subvert the entire process we’ve become accustomed to as consumers.

That would flip the recording industry on its head.

That would be unheard of…if it didn’t just happen.

You’ve probably seen by now that after 5 years of waiting U2 finally released their latest album “Songs Of Innocence” completely free to anyone with an iTunes account.

And they didn’t just release it – it’s already sitting in everyone’s purchased music folder, waiting to be downloaded. The album is a gift to every iTunes customer, just waiting to be received.

Who could have seen something like this coming?

Actually, it sounds kind of familiar.

Sounds kind of like a God giving away His gift of salvation completely for free. Continue reading →

A Brief Lesson From Your Phone

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment
IMG_2931

@HistoryInPics on Twitter

Your phone wants to teach you something.

Go ahead and pull your phone out of your pocket. Have a look at it.

Remember what your phone used to look like 10 or 15 years ago. Remember what it used to do.

The word Phone used to mean “the device you use to talk with someone in a different area.”

Now the word Phone means “the device you use to check social media, get directions, take pictures, write email, play games, listen to music, watch movies, read my Bible and occasionally talk to someone via text or video chat.”

The name of the device in our pockets is still a Phone. But the definition of Phone has completely changed.

The times have changed. There’s no going back to the old definition of Phone.

The same could be said for my definition. Continue reading →

Tips For The Beginning Time Traveler Part Three

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

I downloaded a new app for my iPhone a few weeks ago called Timehop. Timehop presents your day in Social Media History, allowing you to travel back to your posts across Facebook, Twitter, Instagram and just about every other outlet (except for Myspace).

photo-3It also has an adorable dinosaur named Abe for a mascot. He’s at least 10% of why I downloaded the app.

Timehop is pretty neat. Looking back at all your old status updates and tweets is more fun than you might think. Our old social media posts exist in a weird realm of the internet. They seem so important at first – important enough for us to stop what we’re doing and let the world know exactly what we are doing.

Then, moments later, they disappear, slowly scrolling down our news feeds until they’re simply yesterday’s news.

As fun as it is to look back in history, it’s also a little depressing.  Continue reading →

You Don’t Need A Filter

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

photo.PNGA picture is worth a thousand words. And when a thousand words aren’t enough, we use Instagram.

People of my generation (myself included) can’t seem to post a picture without putting a fancy filter on it. Whether it’s through Instagram, Facebook or Twitter apps, or even just on the iPhone itself, no picture feels complete without adding a little tint to it.

Why is that? Why don’t we think a normal picture is good enough anymore?

Continue reading →

How To Handle A Power Outage

/ Alex Doriot / 1 Comment

remove-ads-flappy-bird-both-android-ios-devices.w654The first thing I did when the power went out was go to my phone.

It’s amazing. Even just a few years ago I would not have had the luxury of another electronic plaything to occupy my brain while the power was out.

But during The Great Ice Storm of 2014, less power at home just meant more power for our mobile devices.

For many the power outages and school closings were an excuse to spend hours playing the latest game craze Flappy Bird.

Of course, if you hadn’t already downloaded Flappy Bird, you were out of luck. And not because the wifi was down. Continue reading →

The Hidden Wonders Of Waiting

/ Alex Doriot / 2 Comments

slide.001_2_2_2The dream of my childhood is alive on Netflix.

When I was a kid I used to fantasize about watching any television show you wanted whenever you wanted. In my head I dreamed of a network called “The Channel” – an on demand wonderland where viewers weren’t subject to schedules or programmers, able to watch any episode at any time.

I wasn’t the only one dreaming back then. The technology I once only imagined is now available not only through Netflix but Hulu, Youtube, Amazon, On Demand, and countless other streaming services.

The archives of television (and film and music) history are at your command. If you want to watch that episode of “Sanford and Son” where Fred thinks B.B. King is trying to kill him, you could right this second.

Take a moment to be in awe of this. Less than a decade ago if you missed your favorite tv show the night it aired (and you forgot to set your VCR) then you simply missed it. Continue reading →