Can you believe I set up three new apple devices and reconfigured a couple others during my 18 month old’s nap on Saturday? Yes, Gus is a good napper, but Apple also has perfected the art of getting people up and running on new devices quickly.
My iPhone 5 finally arrived on Friday, as did Eric’s new Mac Book Pro (replacing a four year old PC). Additionally, I had a new iPad 2 that I won at a conference last month (which I’m planning to use in parallel with my older iPad, which has 3G, unlike the free one). So, the Jasper household now has an iMac, Macbook Pro, Macbook Air, iPad 1, iPad 2, iPhone 5 and iPhone 3 (now an iPod Touch for Gus). I’m not sure if this is “normal” or not. Maybe it won’t be till we get my husband off the Android and onto an iPhone.
I decided to go through the pain of setting up everything at once and I’d been delaying until I had everything on hand. I had not updated software or applications in months, knowing this upgrade was coming. As soon as Gus closed his eyes Saturday afternoon for his snooze, I downed a cup of coffee and started unwrapping new devices.
Unwrapping an Apple device always impresses me, because it is so simple and fast. Once again, Apple did not disappoint. The devices were charged and ready to go, even the iPad that had been stored for months.
After a couple set up questions, the iPhone and iPad gave me an option to restore from backup. After 10-15 minutes, that was complete and all I had to do was enter some passwords!
– I enabled iCloud, and voila, contacts, pictures, videos and reminders!
– I logged into Gmail, and voila, email and calendar!
– I logged into Evernote, and voila, all my notes!
– I logged into Dropbox, and voila, all my files!
– I enabled “Find my iPhone” and voila, all my devices on a map… from any of my other devices.
I didn’t do much with Eric’s new computer, but he got it up and running right away too. I set up a couple things to link the rest of the family devices, like my calendar, so that he can stay synced.
Before naptime was over, I was fully operational and synced between all devices. As I sat there testing my “cloud-enabled integration” I added calendar invites, contacts and pictures and watched them pop up almost immediately on all the other devices on the desk, I marveled at how far we’ve come in the last few years. Setup is so easy, at least with Apple products and the applications I use, and integration is fast and flawless.
I still need to figure out what we are using for picture sharing, and I’m not sure how we are going to do Facetime or Skype between devices if they are on the same account, but I can figure that out over the holidays.
Life is good! I’m thankful for the ease, speed and integration of technology today.
