New to smart phones - recommend me some apps, please.

Fergie

Fergie

Adventurist
Founding Member
After many years of rocking a flip phone, I finally upgraded to a smart phone as it is needed for my upcoming educational advancements.

Specifically, I've got an iPhone 5S.

What kind of apps have you found useful? I'm not in to the game and entertainment side of things when it comes to technology, but would like to know some of the more practical ones around.

Any and all advice is appreciated.

Thanks,
Gavin
 
Tapatalk, Tasks, Flashlight. Each social media outlet has its own app as well. I also have a barcode app for work.
 
MotionX and GPS Kit are two great GPS apps that give you the ability to download various maps for offline use. I use both quite a bit.
 
Be careful on downloading a flashlight apps, I read they are the worst for malware. I think the 5 has a built in flashlight.
My favorites Apps:
Weather, Pandora, Splash ID (to store passwords, etc) my bank's app, Pure Gas (finds ethanol free stations) GasBuddy (finds cheapest stations) Geocaching (when I remember to play)
 
I've got Pandora, and FB, but that is it so far.

I'll take a look at the GPS and tapatalk apps.

Thanks.

PS - Jonathan, I'll trust you...this once.
 
Waze was recommended by a buddy, especially for large metro areas.

I'm so used to having a *just* a phone, that getting used to all the tech stuff is a bit odd.
 
Fergie said:
Waze was recommended by a buddy, especially for large metro areas.

I'm so used to having *just* a phone, that getting used to all this gal-darned tech stuff is a bit odd, dag-nabbit!
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Fixed it for you Pops...
 
TangoBlue said:
Fixed it for you Pops...
Click to expand...

Entirely true. My Dad was an early adopter of all things tech related. I remember when he rented a digital camera in the early 1990s because it was "the wave of the future." Boy was he right, but I never picked that habit up.

Figure I might as well get modern while I can.
 
Fergie said:
Entirely true. My Dad was an early adopter of all things tech related. I remember when he rented a digital camera in the early 1990s because it was "the wave of the future." Boy was he right, but I never picked that habit up.

Figure I might as well get modern while I can.
Click to expand...

Anything can happen... my Luddite wife who has a 7 year-old Nokia flip-phone and refuses to give it up got a Samsung Tab 4 - 10.1 for her Birthday last year. Now she's finally on the internet and checks her own email. She even showed me an add for a Samsung S6 the other day, which can only mean she's considering a Smart Phone.
 
These days it is inevitable. With many companies phasing out flip-phones and phone only contracts, you can't avoid it.

It really does amaze me how much people stay in non-verbal contact with each other via snapchat, texting and other services. And there is not much of a technology gap between the generations either, I've noticed...I'm just slow on the uptake.
 
I went down kicking and screaming into the smart phone world.

Until just a few years ago I didn't know how to text. Desert racing finally broke that wall down for me. We discovered that texts would often go through when a cell phone call or two way radios didn't. I finally gave up on trying to text on a flip phone and got a smart phone.

Until the last two days, is never really used my phone for the internet, laying in a hospital bed will do that to you I guess.

This thread has been great for me as well, I have ZERO apps on my phone, just found the flashlight thing using the camera flash about two hours ago!
 
Texting is the way of communication these days.

I've found that since my kids have moved out we didn't really call each other very often, however, texting is the way we stay in routine contact with each other.

I had a rather strange experience on September 11, 2001. In the Washington DC area during that tragic event cellular communications was essentially overwhelmed and unusable. The only way of reliably communicating was through texts for those fortunate enough to have BlackBerries. A few years later I experienced the same thing during the domestic natural disasters of Katrina and Rita.
 
TangoBlue said:
Texting is the way of communication these days.

I've found that since my kids have moved out we didn't really call each other very often, however, texting is the way we stay in routine contact with each other.

I had a rather strange experience on September 11, 2001. In the Washington DC area during that tragic event cellular communications was essentially overwhelmed and unusable. The only way of reliably communicating was through texts for those fortunate enough to have BlackBerries. A few years later I experienced the same thing during the domestic natural disasters of Katrina and Rita.
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See, BlackBerries are the only other tech/phone platform I've used. With the encryption and security they had, along with the lack of a camera, they were preferred for the work I did at the time.

When I moved out from my folks place, I was still in the same town, just at the university. I'd bike down to the local coffee shop to grab a cup with my Dad on his lunch break. When my wife and I were out of town and out of state, we used Skype a lot. Heck, my first recollection of wireless was in 2003 at the Space Needle, and my Dad was using the internet from his HP PDA...thought that was the coolest thing in the world!

You mention cell lies being clogged; just recently, the main cell and high speed cable was cut in AZ, severing the link for almost everything north of PHX. Verizon set up mobile towers, but much of the traffic was restricted to texting due to bandwidth limitations.
 
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