What began last year as “modernizing” has turned into a bit of a tech tsunami at our house:
- Got my first smartphone, an iPhone SE, last fall
- Got an iPad Pro 10.5 for our Christmas trip, to replace the ol’ Acer Chromebook
- Got a Doxie Go SE wireless scanner
- Got a new external 4TB hard drive
- Got the Logitech K811 keyboard
- Got an Apple TV
Plus, Liz got her first smartphone, an iPhone 7, yesterday.
I’m not quite sure what has been driving the modernization of our household tech. Maybe because we hit hard limits with the old tech and updates were long overdue. Maybe because we have the money and time at this moment to acquire and absorb them into our routines and work lives.
I am not inquiring too deeply into the question. I’m sure the time we spend getting these tools working for us will repay us someday. Waves are cresting, so we’re riding the waves. The tides will ebb soon enough and, if our history is anything to go by, we’ll spend next to nothing on tech for the rest of the year.
Still, since I’m the household’s sysadmin and Head of Technical Support, I now have to up my game. iPhone and iCloud and iEverything can quickly become overwhelming conceptual mindspaces since I have only a patchy understanding of how they are all wired together.
Liz already had a long-beloved iPad Mini 4 that she did not need my help with, both because I never had an iPad until recently – so she was her own tech support for it – and because she hardly ever synched it via iTunes on our iMac.
I had advised that we both wait on upgrading to iOS 11. Apple has had such ill luck with the updates that I did not want to deal with any possible technial snafus, particularly before our Christmas trip.
But there was a selfish reason too: I did not want to deal with the mental overhead of learning the ins and outs of a new OS. Along with all the other new tech I've acquired, my mind is rather a muddle. What do I need to stay on top of next?
Liz’s purchase of her iPhone yesterday changed that delicate balance of competency. It arrived with iOS 11. Having to mentally flip between iOS 11 on the phone and iOS 10 on her iPad would be confusing.
So I’m upgrading all our devices to iOS 11 today, and then we will both settle in to watch the Lynda.com videos on iPhone and iOS 11 basics, iCloud, and other iTopics.
My goal? To have two Heads of Technical Support in the house.
