Clouds, Apps and Androids... and so much more.

Two years ago I had no understanding of Apps and Androids in the context I was seeing advertised on TV... connected to mobile phones. I took the decision to get an Android phone and learn. I downloaded a variety of free apps, most of which lasted at most 5 minutes before I deleted them. I really don't understand why I need a cat that purrs when I 'stroked it's tummy' or why I needed an app to play games on a screen too small to see with buttons too small to use. However, I did like my weather app and the ability to Google anything at any time. 

I have taken to checking the news online rather than the TV often as I sit in Starbucks with a coffee. It can be a bit of a task on such a small screen but it passes the time and gets me the information I'm looking for.

Two years on and it's time to upgrade the phone contract. Over the last year more and more people around me have got iPads and other tablets and I have often been told that I would find one useful. I couldn't see it as I have my laptop at home and my phone when I'm out and about. My husband has tried to convince me to have one for the last few months and each time I've said 'no thank you'. But, while looking at new phone contracts I started to see a number where a tablet was available as part of the package. 

So, with an amount of research I have finally succumbed... I have reduced the monthly cost, switched networks to Vodaphone and am now the proud owner of a Versus 9inch tablet. 

I now have bits of information on 3 different items, and I know that wherever I am going to be, the information I want is going to be on the one left at home, or at work or in the car... whether it be photos, memo's, diary dates... 

There's nothing for it, it's time to learn about 'the Cloud'. It's somehow a little scary for someone who is forever saving things to a USB stick to trust an upload to somewhere unseen, and expect it be there when I want it, but we'll give it a go. 

According to my tablet I have an Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Operating System, come on, seriously? Ice Cream Sandwich...? I remember back to my college days when, as part of my Accountancy Course, we had to learn about computers. This was back when accounting was still done in large ledgers and the large calculating jobs were done on comptometers.

Even calculators were a recent introduction in offices. I struggled with the IT module of the qualification, especially the idea of software... I just couldn't get to grips with what they were talking about... until someone explained it to me in very simple terms. If you can actually kick it, (although it wasn't recommended that I did) it was hardware, anything else was software. I understood it then.

So, anyone with an equally simple explanation on how my tablet runs on Ice Cream?