Whrrl + My Phone = Fail

I mentioned that I was going to attempt to use Whrrl for the first time to create a story of our Easter Day festivities, and I was hoping to do that successfully then try again at the Yanni Voices concert the following evening, all as a warmup for our Disney Vacation.  Fail.

Now, the fault doesn’t all lie with Whrrl.  Whrrl is a brand new application / website, geared specifically for the iPhone, but makes a concession for those like me with very simplistic cell phones by allowing any one with a SMS capable cell phone to create a story and send messages and pictures. You just don’t have all the bells and whistles. Sounds reasonable. 

By the way, a story is the entire concept of Whrrl. Kinda like a photo album you’d create on Facebook, except it happens in real time. You take a picture of what is going on or create a short message, then send it right over to Whrrl.  It is added to your current story and is available on Whrrl and even sent to Twitter and Facebook if you set that up.  Other Whrrl users can “join” your story and add pictures and messages also – great for events or family get-togethers where more than one person uses Whrrl (instead of 2 separate stories of the same event, they can be one larger story). 

The fail? Ironically enough, my cell phone does not have the capability of texting the pound sign (#). Can you believe that? To start a story from your cell phone, you have to use the # character as part of the command. {This is also why I cannot create or use hashtags in Tweets from my phone – which would have been helpful at the Yanni Voices concert.}

I believe Whrrl could alleviate this little snag by allowing you to create your story online, then add messages and pictures from your phone (or even uploaded from your computer).  The site / application is still brand new, so this may be addressed in the future, however I am trying to keep in mind that it is mainly for the iPhone and just has allowances for regular SMS cell phones (that is, all SMS cell phones except mine, LOL.)

Completely off the topic of Whrrl, but another snag that would have prevented me from documenting the Yanni Voices concert via Whrrl, is that my evidently hormonal phone has decided it doesn’t really want to send pictures as messages anymore(the defunct phone as I now consider it!).  It will send messages all day long, but take a pic, click send, and it will act like it is sending then go back to the picture. Check the outbox and the only option is to cancel sending. 

Now, the hubs and I have been considering the iPhones. Actually, I have been thinking really hard about getting a multitasking state of the art piece of equipment that is also a cell phone because I want to do more and because I have always just dealt with a basic phone (hey – getting a phone with a camera was a big deal for me once upon a time, LOL!).  Hubs has decided that if I’m getting an iPhone, he is too.  His current phone has a few more bells and whistles than mine, but if I get an iPhone, he figures he may as well too, right? I find it ironic that my phone chooses now to go all hormonal on me, practically making the decision for me. The only hesitation? Are we ready to further extend our contract? {C’mon, you know I don’t pay full price if I can save – and that to save on cell phones, they use contracts as their bargaining chip.}  Now there is a second question – not only are we willing to extend that contract, but if we do, are we ready to do so in the next couple of weeks, before our Disney vacation?

Thank you for visiting the original Shake The Salt!!