Monday, November 6, 2017

Siri go away, go away, go away already

If Siri were just an app, I might use it once and awhile.

But Siri is this monster that is wrapped all around your phone by apple, and it's hell to get it to stop always getting in your way.

First I don't want anything listening all the time, so I shut that off.

Second, I don't want Siri hijacking the home button, because I use that a lot, and if you hold one millisecond too long Siri comes up, and you have to start all over doing what you were trying to do.

(How is the phone supposed to work anymore without a Home button?  I'm dreading being forced into that world some time maybe 2 years off.  Apple keeps removing all the essential things--they've always been like that--and adding more spooky troublesome stuff.  And the world is coming more and more to resemble the movie Brazil.  I vastly prefer simple buttons to spooky troublesome stuff.)

So, I turned off listening, then I turned off respond to bottom button, in the Siri preferences (which I had to use Search in settings even to find...and then there were a bunch of things and I had to go through two to find the right one).

But then, after finally turning off the home button enable, if you hold the home button one millisecond too long,  a new screen comes up telling you that you could enable Siri if you wanted to.  I pressed NO the first time but that wasn't enough.  Finally on the third attempt, I saw an additional "turn Siri off" and that seems to work.  Now I can hold the bottom button as long as I want without Siri getting in the way anymore.  I hope.

My favorite smartphone experience to date was with my iPhone 3G, which was great and lots of fun until Apple started messing with things and then the 3G hardware couldn't keep up anymore and essential apps like Maps didn't work anymore.  That was about year 3.

As smart devices are larded up more and more with "conveniences" they more and more resemble the Spaceship Heart of Gold in Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.

Douglas Adams could see very well in the mid 1970's where things were going.


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