Talk to me about smartphones

[robardin]

@Chronos

Sure, I like Apple, but I also like Google. Just what exactly are the advantages to staying in the “same ecosystem”?

By “ecosystem” I don’t just mean sharing apps - you can now designate up to N (I think N=5?) people as a “family/friends” circle who all share app downloads - but also that iOS devices, be they Mac, iPhone, iPad, and yea even iPod Touch, have built in conveniences to communicate with each other that are very handy. Yes, there are Android equivalents, but they usually come piecemeal, may cost extra to work with your provider, and won’t work with iOS devices unless the user “on the other side” does something special.

Examples: iMessage, FaceTime, Find My Phone, Find My Friends. I use them all the time (well, not FaceTime).

“iMessage” is “just” an Apple iCloud based mechanism for sending text messages - I can still send ordinary SMS text messages (as any modern cell phone can do) to anybody, Android, Windows, or whatever else kind of phone. BUT, because it’s through the iCloud, I can receive “iMessage” texts on all my iOS devices at the same time. I don’t have to have my phone out to answer an iMessage, I can be on my iPad or (if I had one) an iMac. Also, it’s internet cloud based, so I don’t need cell reception either.

Yes, there are other ways to do “messaging over data network” that are not tied to iOS, such as Skype (which is also the “independent” form of FaceTime). But you can’t know that someone else has GOT third party software installed, or necessarily what their userid is on Skype, etc., etc. OTOH, any old person with an iPhone who texts me will by default send me an iMessage.

Same thing with “Find My Friends” - there are independent “locator” apps you can get that cross platforms, but requires you reaching out to your friends/family and making sure they’ve installed and are running those services.

Find My Phone is great too - from any iOS device, I can send out a message to another iOS device to make a binging noise to help you locate it. This is better than just calling the phone, because it could be on vibrate mode - and you couldn’t call my iPad in any case. Further, you can use ANY iOS device, and login to your AppleID to use “Find My Phone” to find your own phone. My kids frequently ask to use my iPad or iPhone to find their phone which is under a pillow or book somewhere in the house.

Bottom line is - for me, my family of five people were all already users of iPhones and iPads for several years when I switched to a Galaxy S4. I enjoyed using the phone, for the most part, but definitely felt “cut off” from the rest of my family.

There is another “configuration” thing about the Android phones that is (or was) pretty fundamental: you can’t restore a phone’s configuration to another phone, even one of the same type. With an iPhone, you can back the phone up, and should you lose or damage the phone and get it replaced, you can restore it - and after it’s done, it’s basically just like your phone always was. If you upgrade your phone to one with a different screen size/resolution (as from an iPhone 5S to 6S) there’s a bit more work involved to rearrange your app icons, but most of your stuff is restored.

With an Android phone, each phone is set up as its own device - if you get a new one, you set that one up all over again. Downloading apps, setting up the icons where you want them, the wallpaper, ring tones, wifi passwords, etc., etc., - you can restore the “address book” and contacts lists, of course, and your email and calendar are on GMail / Google Calendar, but all that other stuff? Do it again from scratch.

[robardin]

@zbuzz

You mention jotting down notes. With the Handoff feature that was mentioned, depending on how recent your Mac is, you can be taking notes on your iPhone for example, then when you sit down to your Mac, all the notes will be right there on your Mac just as they were on your iPhone. It works the other way, too, Mac-to-iPhone, as well as for apps like email, texts, web browsing and has 3rd party app support.

Incoming phone calls will show up on your Mac, so if you left your iPhone in your bag or it’s out of reach you can just “pick up” using the mic on your Mac. You can initiate a call too.

You can also use your iPhone as in Instant Hotpot for your Mac very easily.

So not a ton of stuff, but some little touches that make it easier.

That’s right, if you already have a Mac, these touches can quickly be invaluable - seamless cross-device sharing of things like pictures/notes, but also text messages (iMessage) and even incoming phone calls, if your phone and your Mac are both alive on the internet it will route the call to all your iOS devices as something you can pick up with FaceTime (including audio only).

Why is this useful? You can have your phone charging somewhere and not miss calls (from anybody) and texts (from other iOS users). And, you can respond to the “text message” from your Mac, which has a full sized keyboard. My wife does this all the time, sits at her desk or in bed using her Mac, then gets a text message from her sister or from me or whatever while her phone is nearby, and she doesn’t have to go and dig it out to deal with it.

…But if the incoming text message were an ordinary SMS text message, as sent from an Android device, she would. So you can see how the more people in your Inner Circle are iUsers, it becomes almost exponentially more convenient to be one yourself.

[Novelty_Bobble]

@robardin

With an Android phone, each phone is set up as its own device - if you get a new one, you set that one up all over again. Downloading apps, setting up the icons where you want them, the wallpaper, ring tones, wifi passwords, etc., etc., - you can restore the “address book” and contacts lists, of course, and your email and calendar are on GMail / Google Calendar, but all that other stuff? Do it again from scratch.

Not true with Lollipop I believe.

Also, for notes etc. Google Keep works really nicely across your laptop and portable devices and such apps as “Evernote” are available.

My own advice to the OP would be to get a new Moto G or E. Battery life is perfectly acceptable, the unlocked versions cost very little (my wife got a moto E for £80) and they’ll do everything you require.

The only thing I never quite understand is why the USA monthly plans are so much.
I go with Three in the UK and pay a total of £17 a month for a Wifi dongle hotspot with 5gb of data and a sim with 200 free texts, 200 free minutes and 500MB for the phone itself (an unlocked Moto G not tied to a contract and cost £120 off the shelf)

[Novelty_Bobble]

@robardin

…But if the incoming text message were an ordinary SMS text message, as sent from an Android device, she would. So you can see how the more people in your Inner Circle are iUsers, it becomes almost exponentially more convenient to be one yourself.

Again, this is not something specific to apple devices. Android devices can do this too.

[robardin]

@Novelty_Bobble

Again, this is not something specific to apple devices. Android devices can do this too.

I know there are Android equivalents. The point is, the iOS versions are built-ins, the Android ones require installing apps and enabling services and all that. It goes back to the fundamental philosophical differences between the two - iOS is a (closed) ecosystem for Apple devices, Android is an open (mostly) platform meant to be hardware independent.

The flip side though is this stuff works out of the box with all iOS devices, including other people’s iOS devices, as opposed to “only if they installed X and allowed service Y”. If your world consists of a small number of people who you know are so enabled, no problem. But once you get up to, say, 10 people, it gets very likely Someone hasn’t installed the latest Something to work with what everybody else has. That’s where iOS “just works”, and the value of this increases with the number of iOS users you deal with on an everyday basis. If that number is small or zero, no biggie.

On the plus side for Android, the Google apps for Mail, Calendar, Maps, Docs, etc., all seemed much better on the S4 2 years ago than they do even now on my iPhone 6S+.

The downside is that my S4 also came with two other Mail, messaging, web browser, music/media plaything and Calendar apps, from either or both of Samsung and AT&T, on top of the Google versions, that I couldn’t remove without “rooting” the phone, and which occasionally insisted on asking me yet again if it should be the default app.

[cochrane]

@kiz

ETA: I just saw the post about Metro PCS’s $30/month offer. We paid the same, too, when we first started with them. Be aware that, like with all data plans, the price will creep up after that first year. Still $55/month is a bargain compared to people who are locked in a contract.

I’ve been with Straight Talk for almost three years. They’ve held their price steady at $45 a month while gradually increasing their data caps. I started with 2.5 Gb of high speed data a month, then increased to 3, then up to 5 Gb of data per month. It comes to $48.88 a month with all the fees and taxes.