Ios

I have an axe to grind with Siri. I use Siri every day to time my yoga routine. These are short reps of 30s poses. It takes about 30 mins to complete them. I searched for a good timer a couple of times in the past and then gave them up altogether once I figured I could use Siri to set up the timer for me. On a good day, it’s all good. But on most days, Siri is deaf. Not just any deaf, she’s so deaf that I’ll be screaming at the top of my voice to get her to effing wake up. Eventually I figured, maybe if I used a headset, things might get better. So I picked up a $75 Beats headset. Excellent headset actually. Stays snug fit in my ear – something the default iPhone headset doesn’t for me. Apparently, I don’t have the generic ear that the rest of the world has. Turns out, though, Siri doesn’t care if I used a Beats headset because it still depends on hearing me properly. Incidentally, Beats has a small button that I can press to summon Siri. The problem for me, though, is that I need to start the timer after I get into the pose. When I am in the pose, I can’t move around my hands much. So summoning Siri with a button is a non-starter. ...

After a lot of deliberation, discussions, depressions, planning and meticulous budgeting, Noni convinced me to just stfu and pick up that damn device. So we did just that. I am still a little unsure whether I like the feel of the device. I love my iPhone 5 because the form factor is just about perfect for me. This is my first 4.7″ device in the last 4-5 years that I have held a smartphone. Way too old for tech? Maybe. ...

I wrote about needing a good exercise timer here. I am using the yoga timer app that I downloaded and am reasonably happy with it. I hate quite a few things about that app. I could give feedback and make it better, but the app has a paid version. So chances are the paid version has these fixed already. Besides, it doesn’t do many things it claims to. So am quite unhappy with it. ...