An App For That

On Saturday afternoon as I mowed our lawn, I noticed two middle school girls across the fence in the schoolyard. They had a soccer ball with them, and I could tell by the way one manipulated the ball with the toe of her shoe that she plays the game at least some of the time. But they never once dribbled the ball, attempted to kick it into the softball backstop or defend that "goal". One had the ubiquitous, thin rectangular object in her hand and never looked up at the sky or at the face of her "friend".

Pretty soon, after the familiar hold-it-vertical-and-scroll, the rectangular object went horizontal and then both of her thumbs were pecking away.
Minutes passed. The other girl went and sat down in the dirt, stared at the ground. The girl with the "smart" "phone" continued to peck away, eventually sitting on the soccer ball itself.

Feet between them, but in completely separate spheres.

Why is it that if this thing is actually a "phone" (was there once a word "telephone"?), I almost never see anyone actually talking on one?

But I am curious about one thing. I wonder if the smart phone has an app to tell you what color the sky is, what painted clouds look like... and whether the display is bright enough to actually view the information that ap would provide... when one is actually standing outside under patches of blue with spring blossoms all around and joyously watercolored clouds that change by the minute.

I wonder these things. But I won't know because I don't have an app for that answer. I have the sky and creation and the song of the birds instead.

Or I suppose I could have texted somebody to ask Siri for me.