IPhone Cafe

I traveled to Nebraska last week on business, and decided to take the opportunity to test out the Airplane Mode function on the iPhone.  I don’t normally listen to music on the plane, but as I waited at the boarding gate, a herd of hyperactive teenagers–all part of some school function and therefore particularly rowdy–hustled up to the gate.  I took one look (and listen), and whipped out the iPhone and earbuds.

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I am delighted to report that the Airplane Mode (hereafter referred to as AM) function is awesome, and eliminates the need to bring an extra mp3 player.  When AM is on, the phone cannot send nor receive signals, making it safe for use on board.  Of course, since all the games are web apps, I couldn’t access any of the games I had hotkeyed, which remains a huge annoyance for me.  The battery, even half-charged as it was, held up just fine on the 2.5 hour flight, with plenty of juice for me to make phone calls once I got to my hotel…funkyfresh

I’m not a technical person, so I hope this post translates.  Whenever I have my iPhone on and within range of any kind of speakers, the speakers will emit this terrible squealing feedback.  It reminds me of the M. Night Shyamalan movie “Signs,” where the baby monitors ever-so-conveniently pick up the radio transmissions from maurading aliens.  (Utterly unrelated sidenote: Does anyone else think the ending to that movie was totally lame?  Aliens advanced enough to successfully develop interstellar travel didn’t take the time to take a cursory glance over Earth and notice that it’s a water planet?  Which wouldn’t be such a big deal except that, oh yeah, they’re allergic to water?  Hello…)

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So anyway, my iPhone somehow causes any nearby speakers to emit feedback.  This always happens right before the phone is picking up an email, phone call, or text message.  But, it frequently happens for no reason at all that I can see.  It’s kind of annoying, but since I don’t know exactly what causes it, I don’t know a) if it’s a fixable problem, and b) if so, how to fix it.  If anyone else has noticed this issue, and has some thoughts that they’d like to share, I’d be really happy to hear from you…

I only know one other person with an iPhone, and we were having dinner at a local restaurant tonight when the conversation turned to “The Simpsons”–specifically, the episode “Homer to the Max” where Homer changes his name to Max Power.  I insisted this episode occurred prior to Season 9; my friend was equally certain that it was after.  Naturally, since we both had iPhones, it became a competition to see who could look up the answer first.  That’s when I discovered that, even though we had the same phone, the same plan, and were in the same restaurant literally a foot apart, he was able get an Internet connection and I couldn’t.  It was totally unexplainable, and therefore that much more annoying.  I got home, did a little research, and still can’t figure out why my phone wouldn’t connect.  If anyone out there reads this and has any ideas, I’d be glad to hear them!