I’m glad you could all be here for me at a time like this. It’s not every day that 60 or 70 of my dearest friends are taken from me all at once. The wound still seems so fresh that it’s hard to believe they’re gone, but I must accept the loss and move on. They would have wanted it that way.
On what seemed like a normal Friday afternoon, I plugged my iPhone into my computer and casually hit the “sync” button. I ignored the “some of your apps are not saved to iTunes” warning and even callously told the program “don’t show me these messages in the future.”
Little did I know “some apps are not saved” really meant, “every single thing on your phone is going to go away.” I didn’t even get a chance to say goodbye. Just like that, they were gone, and all I have left are the memories. Even now, I can remember how some of them made me smile.
Oh, Facebook and Twitter, my bedrock apps. My phone’s screen still has two greasy spots where your sweet icons use to be. I’ll always remember how you constantly updated me on John Hodgman’s Scrabble games, Bill Simmons’ thoughts on “Jersey Shore,” and the day-to-day affairs of irrelevant people I went to high school with. Oh, how I wish I could find out if our former prom queen was “having a blah afternoon :(” for just one more day.
Battleship, truly you were “the original naval game.” My fleet flies their flags at half-mast for you. B7? Hit. Very, very hit.
MLB At Bat 2010, I may miss you most of all, and not just because of the $15 it took to buy you. No, I’ll miss all the hours I wasted finding out if Cliff Lee got the win for my fantasy team instead of studying, and all the power you sucked away as I listened to game audio of Roy Halladay’s perfect game. Farewell, you battery vampire.
Words with Friends, I loved how you never judged me for using a Scrabble solver to help me cheat and beat my friends. Thank you for keeping quiet that I never cared what “matzas” were as long as I got the triple word score that came with them.
Shazam, thank you for letting me impress all my friends by smugly telling them the music in that one Verizon commercial was Cold Case’s “Life Magazine.” I’ll always owe you for that.
Urbanspoon, I…I actually don’t remember ever using you. You were probably a stupid download.
But now, you’re all gone, all $100-plus of you. Sure, I could download most of you again (except you, MLB. I still need to feed myself), but it would be like buying a new dog after my old one died. It just wouldn’t be the same.
Besides, if I felt the need to write a eulogy for my apps, it’s clear I spend way too much time on my phone.