LOST PHONES
Why do I feel compelled to turn off my cell phone? It makes it so hard to find.
Recently, I couldn’t find it anywhere. Worse, I couldn’t call it because I’d turned it off the night before. I couldn’t even use the “Find My Device” app or website for Android to pinpoint it on a map. Your phone has to be on.
But soon, Google is coming out with a version of Find My Device that works with trackers such as Tile Pro. They’re also hinting at a new Google Air Tags device. Either one would find your phone when it’s off by connecting via Bluetooth with any phone that’s near yours, then reporting its location to you. It will also help you find lost keys, wallets, and luggage. According to TechRadar, the new Find My Device network will be able to find billions of phones, many more than Apple’s current “Find My” Network.
But for now, iPhone owners have the edge. Their phones can already be found when they’re offline, as long as the owner has turned on a notification in the “Find My” app first. To do that, go to the Utilities folder, tap “Find My,” tap “Devices,” tap your phone, and turn on “Notify When Found.” It even works if the phone’s battery is dead, because the battery retains some residual power, at least for the first five hours. Of course you also have to worry about an Air Tag or Tile Pro tracker dying, if you use those instead, but they’ll send you a notification well before it goes.
The “Find My” app just found my brother-in-law’s iPhone. But first, since he knew it was off and thought he couldn’t call it, he drove all the way back to a restaurant where he thought he’d left it. Too bad I’d forgotten about Apple’s ability to find an offline phone.
After he left, I told my sister to turn on “Notify When Found” in the Find My app. Then she tapped “Devices” chose a phone from a longish list, and hit “play sound.” We immediately heard some ringing and got all excited, but it turned out to be her own phone. So when my brother-in-law walked in the door, phoneless, I asked him to trigger his offline phone the same way. We immediately heard a distant ringing. I raced up the stairs. It was coming from the guest bedroom. Sure enough, there it was, face down on the carpet. I must have accidentally switched phones with him. I’ve sure done that before. But my brother-in-law was just glad to have it back. It’s his work phone.
When I told a friend my lost-phone story, she said she never turns hers off. “That’s what people did in the old days” she said helpfully. A techy friend told me that a cell phone doesn’t use much power when it’s idling anyway. So from now on, at least until Google enables the “Find My Device” app for Android phones that are off I’m leaving mine on. I refuse to worry about the number of battery cycles it goes through, even though it ages faster when it’s charged more often and when you regularly charge it past 80 percent. “Just fuggedabout it,” I told myself. I can always replace the battery.
Getting back to my lost phone, wouldn’t you know? Just as I was turning in for the night, I found it lurking under a branch of my gigantic ZZ plant.
My New Pixel 8
When I couldn’t find my old Pixel 6a phone, I bought a new Pixel 8, at the new bargain price of $499. Amazon delivered it in four hours. I’d panicked because I was getting on a plane the next day and needed to stay in touch. I decided to sell the old one on eBay if I ever found it.
My new Google Pixel 8 is a better phone than the Pixel 6a was. Not only does its battery last longer, it’s screen is more readable in bright sunlight. It also has cool artificially intelligent tricks built in.
One of the coolest is “Magic Editor.” It lets you pick up a person on the right side of a photo and move them to the left or vice versa, filling in the space left behind. It also lets you change an overcast sky to a brilliant blue one or whatever other condition you want. But when I wanted to use it to remove a spotlight on my shirt, which was caused by an alarming amount of San Diego sunshine, Magic Editor told me it doesn’t edit people. It only moves them about or erases them.
There’s another removal tool called Magic Eraser, available to Pixel owners and to anyone with a $20-a-year Google One subscription, which offers extra storage and tech support. Using Magic Eraser, I easily removed two strangers from a photo of a statue of John Baptiste DuSable, founder of Chicago, just by circling them with my finger and tapping the Magic Eraser icon. Windows 10 and 11 are also getting their own version of erase. “Coming soon,” or so they say.
Internuts
– “Fly Through Tesla’s Gigafactory Berlin.” Search on those words to see a video shot by a drone. The crew is practically all robots.
– “Brick by brick, this robot is transforming construction.” Search on that phrase to see an autonomous bricklayer, part of a group that bricked a 49-foot tall building.