Dumb Smartphone Questions

Factual Questions
1

So I’m finally getting a Smartphone. I was reluctant to initially because of the cost and bulk, but I was reviewing my plan with Verizon and they gave me a deal on one I couldn’t refuse. I decided on an iPhone 5S because I already own an iPod classic and they seemed smaller and better built compared to Android offerings.

  1. Since I have about 80 GBs of music, I take it I want to make a special folder in iTunes for what I want on my phone and sync it manually.

  2. It seems every site- Youtube, Yelp, Ebay has an “app”. Is there any real advantage to using their apps as opposed to just a web browser? The three apps I decide I really want are Sky Chart for looking at the night sky, Mobilinc for controlling my home lighting, and Google Maps since the Apple offering is so horrible.

  3. How fast does it burn through data to use Google Maps, say to have the aerial imagery active while riding in a car or on a bicycle? Is data usage an issue if you’re not watching Netflix all day?

2

1) Since I have about 80 GBs of music, I take it I want to make a special folder in iTunes for what I want on my phone and sync it manually.

You know what’s not so great about touchscreens? “Virtual buttons.” Personally I still just use my iPod Classic; it’s got a much bigger capacity and I don’t have to look at it just to pause or skip a song.

Anyways, to answer your question, what you want to do is make playlists and “Sync only selected playlists.”

**2) It seems every site- Youtube, Yelp, Ebay has an “app”. Is there any real advantage to using their apps as opposed to just a web browser? The three apps I decide I really want are Sky Chart for looking at the night sky, Mobilinc for controlling my home lighting, and Google Maps since the Apple offering is so horrible. **

Dedicated apps are generally more efficient than using the web browser. Mobile versions of web pages universally suck, while the dedicated apps are (hopefully) optimized for use on the smaller screen.

3) How fast does it burn through data to use Google Maps, say to have the aerial imagery active while riding in a car or on a bicycle? Is data usage an issue if you’re not watching Netflix all day?

Google maps can use a ton of data depending on how much it needs to reload, but you can cache maps and use them offline. Also, satellite view will use a lot more data, for obvious reasons. GPS does not use data, and can be used with saved offline maps, but it will eat up your battery, so use judiciously.

Streaming audio and video will burn up massive amounts of data extremely fast. When you are connected to wi-fi it does not count against your data, so you want to be on wi-fi whenever possible. If you’re just checking your email and looking at a few web pages every day, you won’t use very much data at all. I use my phone that way, I’ve got a 200MB/month plan, which is not a lot, and I’ve never gotten close to using it all. You’ll use a lot of data at first, just playing around with it, but after a few months you’ll learn what’s actually useful and what’s not and your data usage will plateau.

3

If you use the earbuds with a built-in mic and a button on the mic, the button will play/pause the music.

How do you even turn that off? Mine is on all the time, and my battery life is fine.

4

Settings > Privacy > Location Services

5

Another question: I’ll be traveling to Canada this fall. I’m assuming roaming data is about a billions dollars, so the best thing to do would be to turn it off and leave it in my suitcase. Are voice rates so expensive it would be for dire emergencies or only, or would a quick phone call home “call me back on my hotel phone at …” be reasonable.

6

See this thread: Can I Use My (American) Cell Phone in Canada?

7

For 2), I currently chose mobile sites over apps, except for banks. All the apps I’ve tried (e.g. Kickstarter) actually have LESS functionality than their mobile site. It varies site-by-site, so you’ll want to try both and see what you prefer.

8

True, but I primarily use it in the car, and that doesn’t really work while driving (I mean, yeah, it would, but I’m pretty sure it’s illegal in the DMV where I live and do most of my driving).

9

Now I’m curious - how do you listen to your iPod when you’re in the car? When I’m in the car, I use Bluetooth, and there are controls for play/pause/skip on my steering wheel. But even if you don’t have that, wouldn’t pretty much any car Bluetooth setup provide controls for you?

As an aside, I looked into the earbuds-in-car question a couple of years ago, and what I found led me to believe that at least in Texas you can drive with one earbud in, just not both. That’s usually fine for me because I listen to talk instead of music.

10

Your iPhone will have mobile data roaming off by default. You will still be able to use your phone on wifi. If you wish, you can get an international mobile roaming dataplan from your provider. It’ll prolly be an extra $20 or $30 for a couple hundred megabytes.

11

I drive a 2004 Crown Vic, which predates built-in AUX 3.5mm plugs and iPod docks, so I’ve got an old-school tape adapter setup (yeah, it’s got a tape deck :)). I could take out the factory system and install a head unit with modern features, but that’s a lot of expense and hassle to replace a system that works just fine for me.

12
  • Believe it or not, I specifically sought out a Crown Vic with a tape deck. I looked at dozens of cars that were all made during that brief sliver of time between when cassette decks and AUX inputs were standard features (they all just had CD players, which are now also pretty much obsolete).

I’ve transferred all my CDs onto my iPod/iTunes, but I’ve still got all my old awesome mixtapes from back in the day. Plus, of course, it lets me use my state-of-the-art tape adapter with my iPod :D.

13

I have heard (from someone who goes on cruise ships) that if you are in a usa port, on ship, tied to dock, and the phone accesses the ship cell relay, you are charged international rates. This bit a customer who boarded early in Miami, watched some sports game while thinking he was connected to the land-based cell tower, because the ship was still tied to dock, and was charged $100’s. I don’t plan on being on a cruise ship, so i didn’t check into this further. Presumeably if you board in Portland, Seattle, New York, Houston, etc, you can be charged the international rates for your target country before you even leave the usa dock.

14

btw, do smartphones have anti-spam features for sms?

15

Bolding Mine.

Definitely not. iPhones are not specifically bad, but they are not nearly as well-built as a comparable top-tier Android phone (well, maybe Sony stuff).Apple spent their most recent budget on appearance more than solidity. The devices look nice, because of the metal, but they’re generally worse all-around in terms of robustness, resistance, and durability.

This is one area where I cordially despise most of the reviewers you can find. They tend to pay too much attention to the look of the device and less to the case utility. They will, to a damn man of them, pretend that plastic is a negative. In fact, plastic casing is better for almost any practical purpose and makes for a lighter device, too.

This is not to specifically say the 5S is a bad device if you like it (note that more and more customers seem to consider its size a negative, as does Apple). I declared jihad against Apple many years ago for entirely different reasons.

16

Not at the phone level, no. Carriers generally put a stop to this and won’t charge you for spam that does go through.

17

could you at least assign a different ringtone to unknown numbers like you can with voice calls?

18

With most phones, there are a variety of options for assigning rings, as well as ignoring unknown numbers.

19

It depends. Some apps provide capabilities not found on the web site. For example, with the Walgreens app you can scan the barcode on your drug bottle with the phone’s camera to renew your prescription. With many bank apps you can deposit checks by taking a picture of them.

20

International roaming is indeed nuts, but usually the phone companies have ways you can pre-pay for minutes and data at marginally less crazy prices. For Canada specifically, for $15 Verizon has a thing you can turn on and off from month to month that lets you use your normal minutes and data up there.