For the past several years, I used a Galaxy S8 Active. You know, it’s the phone you can drop from an airplane, hit and crush a car’s roof, land in the neighbor’s pool, pull it out, wipe it off and make a call. However, with my entire family possessing a hoard of iPhone’s, there I stood, an outsider looking in.

Longing for love and acceptance, I ventured into an Apple store in November 2018 and purchased an iPhone XS Max. Yeah … the ‘Max.’ The ultimate. The coup de grâce. It will be the phone I will die with, the phone that will outlive me, one that will let me enjoy my retirement looking for cheap buffets, and garage sales. I felt the slick golden beast in my hand and Apple’s seduction oozed through my body. Apple was subliminally saying; God has an Apple. He will even text you if you ‘BELIEVE.’

I believed. “Sold,” I said to the Apple Expert. I had to have it.

My first several connections with my mother via FaceTime were fantastic. Then I upgraded. 12.1.whatever. Then came 12.1.1.whatever. And more ‘whatevers’ after that. And for the last four months, FaceTime has been challenging. FaceTime with friends or family is perfect until the four to five-minute mark. After that, I get Apple’s equivalent to Microsoft’s Blue Screen of Death, “poor connection.” Regardless of effort, FaceTime would only recover if the phone was restarted and try again.

I turned to Mr. Genius. Mr. Genius called on my home phone and subliminally confirmed I was no smarter than the fish in my aquarium, “FaceTime error is a fairly simple error and fairly simple to correct.”

Before doing anything, he checked Apple’s System Status page to ensure FaceTime Servers were up and running. I presume if the servers weren’t up, he’d have a crisis and wouldn’t bother with an old, bald, fat, sixty-year-old from Washington.

“Yup. Good,” he noted. “Let’s try restarting the device.”

“Ok,” restarting.

“Now, let’s test FaceTime.”

Five minutes passed, “Poor Connection.”

In the course of attempting to repair this, here’s a list of attempted steps Mr. Genius requested I perform, in order.

  • Run a speed test on my networks to ensure that they are reaching 5mbps or greater. If not, low data rates cause problems with FaceTime
  • Toggle Wi-Fi off and back on again
  • Connect to a 5 GHz Wi-Fi signal and not a 2.4 GHz or vice-versa
  • Turn Cellular Data Off
  • Toggle Airplane Mode on, wait 20-30 seconds and toggle Airplane Mode off–the quick method is via Control Center
  • Toggle FaceTime off and back on again, then sign in again
  • Change internet connection to cellular data by toggling off Wi-Fi
  • Turn off Wi-Fi Assist
  • Restart or reset my home router
  • Force the FaceTime app to close and launch again
  • Restart device and then force restart
  • Change DNS info, as may fix FaceTime connection issues
  • Set Date & Time to a time that is at least one year ahead and try again
  • Delete the FaceTime App and reinstall it via the App Store

Phillip Moffitt wrote that cultivating the two paramis (perfection and completeness) are found in patience and persistence are essential. The two go hand-in-hand.

Patience is the ability to abide by things the way they are. It allows you to tolerate failure, disappointment, defeat, unpleasantness, and confusion without giving up—both on the meditation cushion and in life. Persistence is the capacity of energetic resolve—the determination to hold steady to your intentions. Persistence brings into play the essential energy for directing your attention to what needs to be done right now. Deliberately placing attention on patience gives you the strength to cultivate patience; steady attention on being persistent will yield the energy to nurture new habits of mind.

I must admit, it was only through patience and persistence that I finally found an answer.

“Hey, Mr. Genius. I found the soultion.”

“Great,” he paused. “What was it?”

“Well,” I stated. “You know that SIM Card in the iPhone?”

“Yeah?”

“I took it out and placed into my old Galaxy S8 Active. Works like a charm.”

“But sir, FaceTime does not operate on Android.”

“Yup,” nodding to myself. “If they want me, they can call.”