For practical purposes, no. I believe Uber does have a web-based interface that you could use at home to order a ride, but the other stuff you need to do including ordering a ride to get back home would require an app and a data plan. And more than that – I did try to install the app once (using a wireless connection) and apparently it doesn’t like the version of Android on my old Samsung J6. But the phone is otherwise small and light and does everything I need so nuts to that bullshit. I have better things to spend my money on than a fancy new phone to replace my perfectly fine small one, and paying for a data plan that I might use once every two years.
A year or two ago I needed a ride for a short distance to a repair shop to pick up my car. I obtained this service through a means that might amaze kids these days – I picked up the phone (a landline phone, yet!!) and called a cab!
I had a chat with the cabbie about Uber and he said the cabbies and Uber drivers co-existed and got along in friendly competition. Cabs aren’t extinct.
I have caved and I have an iPhone because I need to do two-factor authentication every morrning when I connect to my employer’s VPN to work from home.
Phone stays plugged into its charger right beside my computer (except when I unplug it for a couple days to keep from frying the battery) and I don’t haul it around with me and I still don’t need one for everyday purposes.
I have a smart phone, but I hate it. Aside from phone calls, I occasionally use it to text. And at my last pacemaker examination, the technician installed an app on my phone and will mail me a gadget with which further 6-month exams will be done by putting the gadget over the pacemaker and invoking the app. I guess it will beat visits to the hospital.
I also have an app that I can use in case of power failures to find out how long to expect them to last. I have occasionally used it as an e-reader for my online books. But I much prefer the real reader for that.
I won’t say I was an early adopter, but I have no problems using a smartphone, and (like a LOT of users), it’s more about the non-phone features than anything else.
But there’s not a lot of things I can’t do with it that I couldn’t manage from another internet connected device such as a laptop or desktop, which is my preference.
A few things that I’ve found very useful (or for family) that would otherwise be hard to replace.
Travelling - lots of places don’t have wifi, or at least, good wifi, and it’s very nice to have a fallback. Though I’m just as likely to use my phone as a hotspot for my laptop than use internet features on my phone.
Navigation - my car is old enough to not have integrated navigation features, which I don’t care about when I’m going any of the normal places in town. But if I’m out of town (back to travelling) or going someplace new, it’s very nice to have a turn-by-turn set of directions and notifications of traffic ahead.
Health interconnectivity - this is actually for my father, rather than myself. I mentioned this in a thread a while ago, but after my father had a new pacemaker installed roughly a year ago, it had a companion app. Thank the FSM (for my father, and the persons who he was otherwise dealing with) I was visiting shortly afterwards, because getting the app installed and synced was waaaaaay beyond his skills and patience. But with it, abnormalities are sent to the monitoring company, and available to his cardiologist. And if the doctor requests, he can get a “live” reading by tapping on the app and forward it directly too them. As opposed to scheduling a doctors appointment, getting it bumped repeatedly or being forced to wait, and only having those limited results to establish the baseline.
So yeah, they’re not for everyone, and it’s far too often used as a means to further track and advertise to us all, but there’s a lot to be gained as well.
I guess I like them. I have two. My secret phone, and… then my hand-me-down Iphone I use for my medical things. I do nurse calls, my glucose monitor and reminders about my pump and all my medicine is ordered on an app at my pharmacy.
It could do a diet type thing. There are scads of apps for that. But I don’t need it.
All coupons and discount apps are the best thing out there.
If there’s one reason to have a smart phone, if you like discounted items, this is it.
I use them everytime I can and have saved a bunch of money.
And the Dope is insanely easy to use on a phone and it can travel with you. So fun.
I never talk in my voice on the phone. If we can’t text we’re probably not gonna be communicating.
Occasionally, very occasionally, I’ll have a conversation. I must initiate. Don’t answer ringy dingy dings.
My father died last October, a couple of weeks shy of his 78th birthday, and he never owned a smartphone.
Actually, I’m sure he would have had no idea how to use one. I remember him “proudly” showing his very basic flip phone to me and my ex a few years ago, joking about how tech-savvy he was. Paradoxically, he had worked with phones all his life as used to install business phone systems.
On the other hand, my mom bought one a short time before Covid hit. She was apprehensive about using it at first, even going as far as not turning it on for the first 24h for fear of meesing up. Now, she uses it daily, even for banking.
That’s interesting. Our landline became so unreliable, I put an antenna on our roof and pointed it at a cell site. That has a signal booster in the house so we have a good connection with our cell phones.
We dropped the landline.
I might make one or two calls a day, and a text or two. I also use it as my carry around Kindle.
2FA = Two factor authentication. Instead of just a password, something else (often a number) is texted to your phone. There are other methods - time based where you have to enter a number that changes every minute - the number generator lives on you phone. I had a time based token, but I had a little device that did that.
I worked on a a computer all day, and have a computer at home. I don’t travel that often and I usually have a tablet. Sometimes I am out of wifi and a smartphone would be handy - but often in that case I’m often camping and want to be out of communication anyway – I have a flip phone for emergencies ($60 with a $5/month plan)
When I had a pacemaker installed on rather short notice (they and I knew there was some chance the ablation would result in my needing one, but we were hoping not), somebody showed up shortly after all ready to install the companion app on my phone – only to discover that no, my phone couldn’t do that. I had an iPad with me so they installed the app on that instead. It’s not entirely happy on the iPad – it keeps telling me not to force close the app when I’ve done no such thing, I’ve just closed the iPad or used another application, and not only is it set to run in the background but it often tells me that it communicated while the device was closed or doing something else so I know it actually is running in the background – but it seems to work well enough there to serve the purpose. It sends an automatic report every three months and is capable of sending an alert between times, though I don’t know if it’s ever done so; if so nobody told me about it. (The alert’s not an emergency alert, they’re only checked M-F 9 - 5 and not continuously then.)
I still only have an old landline phone, no smart/cell/flip/whatever phone. I virtually never use the phone and don’t want to pay for something I will basically never use. Especially since I have little money and zero familiarity with the whole…thing surrounding them and have no idea how not to get screwed over by a payment plan or whatever.
I got my first cell phone in 2008, after my employer said I needed one for work. Its Internet capability stopped working after a few weeks, and so I used it only for calls, texts, and alarms. I kept using it until 2024, when I moved to an area that no longer offered 2.5G service. I replaced it with an even dumber flip phone.
I don’t feel I’m missing out on anything. The only two annoyances I’ve encountered so far are:
TicketMaster seems to require a smart phone, so I stopped buying tickets myself. The one or two times in the past year I’ve needed to use them for an event, I was going in a group anyway, so I got someone else to buy the tickets. If I’d have had more time, I might have called up the venue and/or TicketMaster to complain and ask for a workaround.
I went to a restaurant a couple months ago where the waitress didn’t bring menus to the table, but rather asked us to scan a QR code to view the menu online. But when I told her I didn’t have a smartphone, she relented and brought a paper menu. If she hadn’t done that, I probably would have either asked her to recite the menu to me, or simply left.
Is there some other way not having a smartphone is supposed to make my life harder?
It’s funny, I was just thinking the other day how things used to be:
Big fat wallet in my back pocket with ID, several credit cards, membership cards, coupons and a big wad of cash.
Carrying 10 pounds of paper when traveling and constant surprises as I only found out about changes when my options were most limited.
Juggling a paper map or Thamas Guide while trying to figure out what street I was on. Finding parking lots by driving in circles.
Keeping a cup full of change in my console for parking meters.
Finding a good restaurant in a city I’ve never been in by looking around for the best looking sign I can see.
Waiting in line everywhere and arriving extra early in order to buy tickets.
Making fixed dinner plans when the group is together and not being able to change them until too late.
Read, watch a video, entertain myself when I have to wait or just want some downtime while I’m out and about
These are just off the top of my head right now. I treasure the ability to always have information at my fingertips, to find things, order things, buy tickets while out and about, change travel arrangements quickly, monitor my credit cards, and have separate adventures with a group but still share and come together without rigid planning. All without the weight and volume of “stuff” I used to have to carry around.
My mom used a flip phone until 2022. It went bad and the only replacement I could find was junk. She hated using that flip phone.
I reluctantly got her a Android Samsung Galaxy A01 and setup contacts. I setup Chrome with a few News links bookmarked.
She never used the other features on the phone. She could answer calls but had trouble hanging up. I doubt that she even used Chrome. Mom was 89 and it was only a year before she passed.
Of course it depends what your life is like. You mention Ticketmaster, but if you only go to a couple of events a year you can find a way around it. I go to a three or four events every month, so for me it would be a huge inconvenience to work around the need for a smartphone every time.
One other thing I just thought of: I’m constantly referring to Google Maps on my smartphone to get directions.
