Deserted Island

I joke with people about computers and technology, especially because I work in the industry. Whenever I get a customer service agent on the phone that’s having system problems, my comment is always, “Yeah, those computer guys are idiots!”

I also regularly say that technology is great, until you get addicted to it. And I got bitten by that exact problem earlier this week.

My lifeline to the outside world is my Motorola Atrix 2 phone, a touch-screen Android unit that has been running a 2-versions-behind operating system version since I got it. Users have been bashing Motorola for close to a year now, trying to get them to release the much-lauded “Ice Cream Sandwich” (ICS) edition for this phone.

Well, this week it finally happened. ICS for the Atrix 2 was released to the public on Monday. I am not usually what the industry calls an “early adopter” when it comes to this stuff, but I figured that if Motorola had taken that long and tested that much before releasing the software, it had to be a seamless transition.

Holy. Crap.

I won’t go through all the details, but suffice to say it was like I was stranded on a deserted island. I rely on this phone for everything. It’s my phone, my computer, my text message center, my radio, my TV, my alarm clock, and my camera. Plus in the role of my computer, it links me to e-mail, Facebook, Twitter, Tumblr, WordPress, Google Maps, the public transit schedule, and a mountain of other web sites that I use to connect to the outside world.

Poof. Gone. Applications were crashing or not initiating at all, communications were dodgy at best and non-existent at worst. From a technology standpoint I was just sitting in the blazing sun, looking out at the ocean, hoping that a ship would pass by so I could scream for help.

Then, all of a sudden it was over. I woke up on Thursday, and suddenly everything was fine. All the applications worked. No reason for it at all, it just started working.

There is a marvelous convenience in having that much power packed into a pocket-sized instrument. The down side being, all that power disappears when that contraption goes belly-up.

Technology is great until you get addicted to it.