The absent phone

While I've consistently had a cell phone since 2004, my phones have only been "smart" since 2010, give or take. While I had a tendency to keep every old phone of mine, all my old tech was purged in the great move of 2014. While the loss of the flip phone archive was almost sad, what I found since was that I haven't had any outside pressure in ridding myself of my older smart phones.

Only one was removed, and that's because I gave it to someone that needed a phone. The rest just went into a drawer. There's something unusual about pulling out one of your old phones and powering it back on after a few years. Did you know Twitter used to have a widget on Android? My old LG Ally still has that widget, never to update again. 

So I got a new phone recently. The old one was having issues, so I bit the bullet and replaced it. The trade in offer, which I usually ignore, was... substantial. I actually traded it in. They cloned my data from old to new, hit the factory reset, and I was on my way.

Except not all the data transferred. An app that I keep notes with wasn't there, and when I redownlaoded it, the notes were gone. In times past, I would have gone to the old phone and moved it over manually. This time it was gone. Gone forever.

I have to admit, that's annoying. Fortunately, most of it wasn't what you'd call 'mission critical'. That stuff is kept on a google calendar. Love them or hate them, they're wildly convenient. 

I think it was my son that was the most disappointed. Even my old phone would have been a decent upgrade from the basic model we gave him. Oh well.