Memory is a strange thing. Smart phone story

[Mark Lloyd]

I got a box of candy this Valentine's Day, with the message "I love you more than my phone.".

[Jerry.Tan]

Thats all I have. Prepaid flip phone. I rarely use it, but it is handy at times to call someone when I'm not at home. I do send and get some texts too. It does have a built in browser, but it's very limited. It cant open a page on ebay or craigslist, but it can load a very simple webpage. It works well to get a weather report and radar maps, and that is all I really use it for anyhow. I like that feature so I can monitor the radar maps during bad storms. That alone was worth the price about 2 years ago, when I was camping near a river which was flooding. One look at that radar map, and I knew it was time to pack up and evacuate the area.

[Ed Pawlowski]

Yes, nice to have that sort of information. With most weather apps, you get an alerts issued by the NWS in seconds. You can also keep tabs on the weather where your hunting cabin is in Montana and your yacht in Key West.

[R. P. McMurphy]

If you have cell service at your camp site, you're not really camping. Did they have remote control natural gas campfires and wifi too?

[J0HNS0N]

True about needing cell service for immediate weather updates. However if you use the right map app (Google or CoPilot for example) most of the other map functions will work without cell service and are quite handy when hiking and camping in the wilderness.

They do require that you preload the maps of course but with modern phones that's not a problem. I keep all of North America on mine and it hardly makes a dent in the SD card.

[trader_4]

I can see that, if the app has ads. So far, the apps I've loaded, haven't had that problem. I guess it depends on the particular app.

Apps I have are:

GasGuru Holo Bulb (flashlight) Shush Ringer Restorer Cocktail Flow (really cool, has recipes, and you tell it what booze you have available and it will tell you what cocktails you can make) RPN Calculator ConvertPad (unit conversion, metric etc) Wifi File Xfer Dropbox Accuweather Ebay Compass360 PowerBubble (level) SpeedTest YouTube SuperBackup

[bob_villa]

Since they're not a receiver of a GPS satellite signal...how could they give your position without interface to a cell tower?

[trader_4]

Smartphones do have a GPS receiver built in.

[J0HNS0N]

If you don't already, you might want to save your apps current versions before updating them. In more than one case I've had to go back to a prior version because the update added advertising along with the new 'features'.

[trader_4]

I have to admit, I've never understood a lot of internet economics. Those apps I have are all free and I don't understand how their free stuff makes them any money, with the exception of Ebay of course. I guess Youtube has ads when you watch the videos, just like the regular version, so there's that. But apps like Powerbubble, ConvertPad, etc, I have no idea how or if they make money. Some of them do offer versions that cost $1 that have extra features. But in every case with what I do, those extra things aren't worth it. An example is Touchpal, the keyboard I use. It's free. For extra you get some different color skins for the keys kind of stuff. I guess that floats some folk's boat, but I doubt I'd use it if it were free.

[Ed Pawlowski]

I use Google frequently but have never paid them a penny, yet they seem to have lots of money. I also ignore the ads, but evidently others don't.

Plenty of good apps for phones too that are free, some ad supported, but it is easy to ignore them too. I guess it all works though.

[Dean Hoffman]

Don't outfits like Google peddle their market research to advertisers? One newspaper I read has ad pop up from time to time. Eight seconds long with a counter. That doesn't annoy me too much.

[trader_4]

Yes, Google, I can see the revenue stream. For an app like Sush ringer restorer, or the PowerBubble level, ConvertPad (unit conversion), those, IDK.

[Horace LaBadie]

Doesn't a dialog come up asking what you want to do, either drop the old call or drop the new call, or put the old call on hold?

[J0HNS0N]

I can only guess that the authors just like to give away their work. And it's not unheard of in other OSs, especially Linux.

I would have difficulty bringing myself to pay $20 to $99 for Windows software but I don't mind paying a buck occasionally for an app that I really enjoy. And I tell myself that since I spend several bucks a day on sodas, why the heck not... :)

[Dean Hoffman]

Got it this time. Incidentally, our electronic gadgets have shortened our attention spans to less than goldfish. Article from the U.K. Independent: