I’m a 5s-er

October 9, 2013 was big day in the life of this tech-loving girl as it was was the day I became an owner of a shiny smart phone for the first time! The proverbial Wells Fargo Wagon (ok, it was really a Fed Ex truck) arrived that day with my iPhone 5s and ushered into my life the age of uninterrupted connected-ness.

Up to this point I’ve only dabbled in the cell phone world. Tracfones have been adequate to keep me in touch when I was off the grid and occasionally strayed away from my home or school or church wireless network. And my mobile device of choice wasn’t a phone but an iPad tablet. I was quiet happy with all the things I could do on it.

But with life changes my telephone needs changed as well and progress seemed to dictate that smart phones were the way to go. The timing coincided with the newest iPhone release so I ordered up a 32 GB Space Grey 5s model (just like this guy), taking full advantage of the 22% ShopWELS Verizon Wireless discount.

While we are still getting to know each other (Siri and I have just been introduced), I thought I’d share some of my first impressions:

1. Speed – Not much to say here except “Wow!” I didn’t know how slow life was on my iPad until I experienced the 5s.
2. New features – Keep in mind that I’ve never had a smart phone before so many things are new to me (like the GPS – already loving RunKeeper!!), but the 5s in particular got lots of buzz for fingerprint recognition. And I am here to say, the claims are correct. It did take some time to get to know my right thumb quiet well and now it  opens perfectly with just my touch. You’ll have to give me time to figure out more about all the bells and whistles, but I’m particularly excited to try the slow-mo video option.
3. Must-have apps – Out of the box there weren’t many surprises with the apps that were pre-installed. They were important but not-that-exciting utilities that are needed to make things work well.
   A nice surprise were the number of premium apps that Apple offered up for free if desired. This offer is for new devices activated with this release. I had paid for many of these apps for my iPad in the past so I thought Apple was quiet generous to throw them in for free.
   Connecting to my existing Apple account (a fast and easy sign in) gave me access to my past purchased apps. Then the real work of sorting through the 100s of apps I’ve installed in my 4 plus years of shopping the iTunes Store began. Over time I’m sure many of the apps I’ve used on my iPad will make their way to my iPhone, but the initial cut included my all time favs …

• WELS Mobile
• YouVersion Bible
• Photogene⁴
• Instagram

So I’m off and running in the smart phone world. Friday night was the perfect opportunity to share the moment from The Diver’s concert at MLC and the iPhone camera quality did not disappoint.

I’m looking forward to many more positives with my new found connected-ness!