I awoke groggy within the Austin airport, my head aching from the place I might pillowed it on my lumpy backpack. My purse was near me, our boarding passes for my household’s 5 a.m. departure tucked protectively in a single facet. Then one panicked thought jolted into my head: WHERE WAS MY PHONE?
Let’s backtrack: My husband, teen daughter and I had been flying from Seattle to Cleveland for the April 8 whole photo voltaic eclipse. By way of a bizarre tangle of occasions, we missed our departing flight. The one new flight we may nab left us caught from midnight to five a.m., sleeping on the airport ground in Texas’ capital metropolis.
When you’ve ever deliberate a long-awaited journey for your loved ones and watched it begin to go improper, my thoughts was pinging like a ball in a pinball machine. There have been one million threads I used to be attempting to weave collectively to avoid wasting this spring break journey.
And since it is 2024, 999,999 of these threads required use of my iPhone. From rebooking the flight to alerting our resort that we might be late to finding our baggage, I used to be continuously tapping and calling on my trusty cellphone display screen.
However I might dozed off for two or 3 hours on the chilly ground of Austin-Bergstrom Worldwide Airport, and by some means after I woke, that cellphone was not in my hand, pocket or purse. Had I left it someplace in our sleepy late-night trek by means of the airport? Was it perched on a toilet sink or sitting on prime of a merchandising machine? Or worse, had some early-morning traveler noticed it whereas I slept and made off with it?
Then I remembered: I used to be carrying my Apple Watch. Despite the fact that the battery was ticking worryingly low, it nonetheless had energy. I pressed the facet button beneath the digital crown. It introduced up a display screen of icons, together with one exhibiting a ringing smartphone. One press and I heard essentially the most pleasant sound my ears may hear, a sweetly persistent BING BING BING.
That blue button is pinging my misplaced iPhone. I am so grateful it exists.
Apple Watch comes with a function that can beep a misplaced iPhone, and I might by no means wanted it extra.
It turned out that my cellphone had merely slipped down between two suitcases. I tracked the beeping, discovered it instantly and began to breathe once more.
Learn extra: Utilizing an Apple Watch Remodeled My Relationship With Self-Care
I did not even need an Apple Watch
I by no means wished a smartwatch. I beloved the easy fashion of my Movado Museum basic watch, with its elegant black-and-gold colour scheme and minimalist design. However my husband, the techie, gave me an Apple Watch Sequence 7 for my birthday again in 2021. He raved about options like health capabilities, and the power to set timers. Certain, OK, I am going to attempt it, I assumed.
Now, I am hooked.
I take advantage of the maps app to search out my strategy to appointments. I take advantage of the exercise app to trace the whole lot from brief walks to the put up workplace to lengthy biking exercises. I take advantage of the climate program to test the forecast and temperature. I take advantage of the built-in timer after I want a reminder to slip a loaf of contemporary bread out of the oven. I take advantage of the tap-to-pay Apple Pay possibility at our native drive-in burger joint.
However I do not suppose any function on the watch – together with telling time – has made me as grateful because the find-your-phone possibility.
After all, there are different smartwatches on the market, together with Google’s Pixel Watch. You might discover a kind of different choices extra to your liking. I occur to be tucked into the Apple ecosystem, and I am OK with that.
The Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame performed Darkish Aspect of the Moon, Ain’t No Sunshine, and Right here Comes The Solar in the course of the eclipse.
Face it: We want our telephones, even for celestial occasions
I do not lose my iPhone that usually. It is often shut by, in my pocket or purse. However after I get that sinking feeling that I left it someplace, I am eternally grateful that one contact on my wrist could make it beep – so long as it is shut sufficient to me.
I’ve used different methods to search out my misplaced cellphone, in fact. I’ve requested my daughter or associates to easily name it to make it ring. I’ve beeped it from the Discover My possibility on my husband’s cellphone. However the easiest and quickest means is to simply press the button on my watch.
When the moon slid over the solar, the temperature in Cleveland dropped noticably. It was undoubtedly well worth the trek from Seattle.
Our eclipse journey turned out to be value all the trouble. The Cleveland skies brightened simply in time, and we watched the eclipse from outdoors the Rock and Roll Corridor of Fame. The museum performed Pink Floyd’s Darkish Aspect of the Moon because the solar slipped away, then flowed into Invoice Withers’ achingly unhappy Ain’t No Sunshine in the course of the 4 minutes of totality, earlier than triumphantly blasting The Beatles’ Right here Comes The Solar as sunshine returned.
When the solar slid behind the moon, the temperature dropped about 10 levels immediately, and the folks round us erupted within the purest expression of pleasure, kissing and dancing and snapping photographs. It made recollections my household will always remember. And at the present time, with a lot using on staying linked, I am grateful I did not have so as to add a misplaced cellphone to my checklist of mini-disasters.
