A Daily Frustration with My Phone


I experience this frustration at least once a day.

My favorite routine leaving my office in the afternoon is to start the Youtube App on my phone to listen to my favorite shows -- lately, these have been VOA. I have my phone set up so that it automatically logs onto the university wireless to stream the videos because the wireless signal is far better than my 3G reception in this engineering building with strange sturctures where my office is located.

My daily frustration begins as I get out of the building and contiue to walk to the edge of the campus near the verge of the wireless coverage. The Youtube app has paused mid-video. Not surprising since the wireless signal strength indicator reads 1 out of 3 bars. But 3G is back with 5 full bars!!! Obviously, it's time to switch back to 3G but unfortunately, my phone doesn't know to do that on its own.

So, as usual, I stop mid-track, exit out of the Youtube app, go to the settings to log off the wireless by hand, then retart the Youtube app to pick up the video from where it stopped. Often times, the last step of attempting to pick up the video fails. For some reason, Youtube doesn't want to pick up the video stream from where it left when I switched my phone back to 3G. Now, I have to remember where I stopped in the video, e.g., 4:45, exit out of the video, and reload the video.

The whole process doesn't take me more than a minute or two since I've done it so many times but it's just plain annoying.

Another daily experience of hoping that my smart phone was smarter!

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