I have no idea, except this purse sometimes dumps the phone compartment — zipper’s a bit too wide. So I think it’s toast. Fell out somewhere. Dead. The good news is—it’s a 30.00 phone. The bad news is…well, I had to deal with the robotic help at TracFone. “Enter your phone serial number.” and “Thank you. We’ll send a signal to your phone. Please call back if you haven’t received it in 10 minutes.” No matter what help path you choose—same answer, same routine, no living person. I finally got a guy on chat who got the credit card removed.
I am now a customer of T-Mobile, and the number is ported. And I’m paying a bit more for the phone and for the privilege. I also now have the cheaper version of those phones you touch the screen to manage. Which would be fine, but entering names in the phone book is 3 erasures for every letter or numeral successfully touched. I think I like the phone (Alcatel), but man, is it cranky about entry. And having had (since childhood) a shaky right hand, I now see why people type with their thumbs on phones: you need the brace of the other fingers.
I have entirely resisted the idea of taking a selfie for the accompanying portrait. It’s just too…too.
I am also no longer using the purse side pocket for the phone. And I put it in a very loud pink gel-case, so I can find the thing during a total eclipse. Black phones are very easy to lose in the dark corners of the universe.
I like my iPhone – except I want a feature that keeps the on-screen keypad active during the entire phone conversation, for when you need it for (blasted) phone menus. I wish they’d keep at least a phone pad as actual, physical buttons. But nearly everyone is going to that design.
I still use the same mobile / cellular service, but despise their website. Impossible to find things. My cable provider’s website isn’t much better. I don’t know how these giant companies can service their customers like that.
My phone is in a white case, and I switched recently to a belt holster for (I hope) easier, quicker access. I used a fanny pack before.
When I upgrade the phone, probably next year, because this one’s obsolete at about three or four years old, I’ll need to get a bigger case, but that’s fine. I’ll likely get a bright turquoise case. Same reason: high visibility, bad eyesight.
Resisting the selfie? That’s good, very good!
I have a cheap flip phone w/ T-Mobile and prepaid service. Friends know better than call me, because it is turned off. It resides in a crochet cotton bag in my purse with my flash drives. Only way I can keep track of them. I can lose the thing in my small purse without the bag.
I have a knitted ‘sock’ for mine, and a purse that doesn’t let stuff fall out easily – it closes automatically when it’s picked up.
Right now, the phone is sitting where it can be plugged in and charged. That’s how little I use it. (Anywone who calls will get no answer, because it’s off. I don’t know the number.)
I dropped mine last Friday night apparently while getting out of the car for the dance. I didn’t notice it at all until I wanted to check the time, and it wasn’t on my belt. Uh-oh….we called it, went to voice mail. So I went down to my car to see if I could find it, no joy, not under, around, inside….
When I got home around midnight, there was a voice mail on my landline, it was the Chinese restaurant next door to the dance calling to tell me that one of their employees had found the phone outside the restaurant. Strange, because my car wasn’t parked near the restaurant…..
Well, I got it the next day, so it wasn’t a total loss. It’s a very old flip-phone that I got back in 2006, no data capability, and IIRC, it’s the same one I had when I came out to ShejiCon3 (remember the Hershey Kiss bush picture). I’ve got an Android, but can’t afford the data plan right now, and have no need for it, anyway. I can still use the features on the Android, I just connect to the home network and I can use the Google Sky application to stargaze, as well as other things…..a cell phone is just a convenience for me, not my lifeline to the world. And I don’t do selfies, either. š
And…..now the phone shows up. I had searched under the driver’s seat twice—but the underside of a Prius heated seat is foreign-feeling territory, and apparently it just wedged itself somewhere Jane was able to locate it.
But I am now firmly on the other plan, and at least know where the darned thing is!
The Android Device Manager will be handy in the future, then.
I finally broke down and got a smart phone because I anticipate needing the Google maps and messaging, as well as email for ShejiCon and I had to replace my dying flip phone. Since both children were sharing a plan readyGuy and I both joined their plan and got a discount. It’s still more expensive than the Sprint plan we left after 8 years, but I wanted to get the phone in time for it to be thoroughly familiar by August.
After 18 months of retirement from civil service I’m going back to work as a contractor subject matter expert for a couple of quarters. I loved being able to read all day and all night if the spirit moved me, but staying at home full time was getting to me as I realized that most of my social contact previously was from work, and now is from facebook. Not to disparage anyone here, but I was really getting bored.
It is both acceptable and reasonable to become bored with one’s own company. Conversations become much more interesting as soon as one adds a second person.
I turn my phone on when I want to use it. If I leave it on all of the time, the batteries drain pretty quickly, and I have to answer questions that should have a self evident answer. F’rinstance: “Honey, I’m going to the grocery store”. Ring-ring! “Where ARE you”? “At the grocery store”. Good way to lose my temper for no good reason and to no good effect!
I have one of the ancient flip-phones, and will be sad when it eventually dies and I am forced to upgrade. A cell phone is for my convenience, so while I may leave it turned on, I don’t use it for anything but calling out, unlike DH, who has an iPhone with everything on it but the kitchen sink. I don’t answer it when I’m driving, and I rarely take pictures with it (too hard to download). I do not like the concept of an electronic leash.
I’ve got an ancient Samsung flip-top w/o a data plan (data features deactivated). It cost me $30 with a $30 rebate. It’s about at end-of-life so I’ve been looking at a Samsung 5s Android with the lowest data plan I can get. I plan to force it to use wifi first and only use the 3G network if it can’t find a wifi connection. The cheapest I can find so far for an unlocked GSM phone (need GSM for international travel) w/o a contract is at Sams Club. I’ve nearly committed phone, but not quite.
Perhaps a stylus may help? There are capacitive styli made especially for touch screens. They are easily available and very cheap (only a dollar or two, unless you want something fancy), and they give a lot more control and accuracy. Very useful for typing on a small on-screen keyboard.
Turning the screen sideways into landscape mode so that the keyboard is bigger may also help.
I joined the smartphone world a couple of years ago when my beloved PDA began to show its age. The touch keyboard was a struggle at first, and I tried a few alternatives from the Play Store and, perhaps foolishly, resisted using the auto-suggestion function. Eventually I settled on Swype, though I’m very much a hunt-and-tap practioner rather than a swiper. After a year or so of use I have it well enough trained that it usually suggests the next word I want, which is surprisingly helpful for text messages — less so if for some reason I’m trying to compose fiction on the thing.
(Now I’m imagining a Ragi app that tries to calculate the numbers as you type. Perhaps it’s just as well the Atevi aren’t getting cellphones …)
Well at least you found the silly thing. I donate my old phones to a local women’s shelter. They usually can use even very old ones.
The one thing I dislike about Tracfone is their ‘customer service’. The local Radio Shack where I bought the last one is most helpful. Now if I need help I go there and let them deal with it. They seem to get through to humans immediately!
The only drawback to phone I now have is that my brother, sister-in-law, niece and I all have the same model. We now have identifying marks on our phones.
Happy Summer Solstice!
I started to leave for kendo practice this morning and couldn’t find my cell phone (again!!!!). I called it, didn’t hear it ring anywhere in the house. Figured it must be in the car, but it wasn’t anywhere that I looked. When I got to the dojo, I was looking to see if I had another bottle of sports drink in the back seat. That’s when I saw my dancing shoes bag, and decided to take a look in there for the phone. This is getting ridiculous, I keep putting it in the bag during dance class and forgetting I’ve done so.
If itās a smartphone youāve picked up, there will be a way to update the address book from your computer.
The Alacatel phone is an Android one, right? Youāll have logged in with a Google account, or had to create one, so go to https://www.google.com/contacts (logged in to the same account) and you can do everything with your contacts you might want to with your phone.
(Caveat: the phone can save its contacts in different places, and may not have uploaded the ones you entered to the Google account.)
T-Mobile recently got decent service in the NYC area, and we switched over a few months ago. So far Iāve been happy with their service.
Having the Internet and maps available whenever, wherever is something you quickly get used to. Itās nice, living in a science-fiction future.
When it’s not in my pocket, my mobile is under my pillow — just got in the habit when I worked nights and kept the ringer on my land line phone by my bed turned off for obvious reasons. Kept the mobile under my pillow in case of family emergencies — my immediate family knew to call me during the day when I was asleep only if somebody was in the ER, or otherwise having an emergency situation. It just has become a habit. I always try to carry it with me when I go out — since I have a 27 year old car, having a phone in case of breakdowns is a good idea. It’s an ATT flip phone I’ve had for about four years — you pay a set amount for a period of time, and if you use it up, you can add more, or if you don’t it rolls over. I don’t make many phone calls in any case.
ISTR a serious security flaw in the Android OS a week or two ago. If one isn’t using it much, it may be a good thing to so what ever it does to update the OS. š
Georgia Tech researchers have identified a weakness in one of Androidās security features and will present their work at Black Hat USA 2014, which will be held August 6-7 in Las Vegas.
The research, titled Abusing Performance Optimization Weaknesses to Bypass ASLR, identifies an Android performance feature that weakens a software protection called Address Space Layout Randomization (ASLR), leaving software components vulnerable to attacks that bypass the protection.
For those of you who have Android phones there’s an app called Lookout that will help you figure out if your phone is at your house or somewhere else, and you can also send the phone a signal to “scream”, which I have never tried. (The website claims it’s quite loud.) There is also a backup function for contacts and photos, which didn’t really work all that well until I upgraded to the paid version (which I did because my phone is mostly used for business calls or when I’m out of town).
The Samsung has a keyboard feature called “Swype” which allows me to enter by running my finger over the letters I want to type without having to actually type each letter which I’m quite taken with. The phone does some guesswork, but it’s usually about as accurate as I am when I’m typing letter by letter on the touch screen. I really like Swype and miss it when I’m using my Nook or other touch screen device that doesn’t have it.
I recently took some selfies by accident when I was trying to take pictures of something else. I promptly deleted them since the expression on my face was awful as I was squinting into the sun trying to focus on my intended subject. So now I at least know how to take a selfie if the spirit ever moves me to do so!
Swype is available from the Google Play and Amazon app stores; Google Keyboard and SwiftKey are similar options. If any of these come with the phone, thereās probably no real reason to switch. (I thought the Nook had Google Play; if so, you donāt need to do without.)
First-time use of a smartphone has something of a down-the-rabbit-hole feel. Been using āem for two years now, and Iām only now realizing how many of the apps Iāve found āindispensableā. (I will advise against installing any of the popular ācasual gamesā: those things are nastily addictive.)
I have Lookout and have needed to find my phone on occasion by making it “scream.” It’s been in the car cup holder, the backyard garden bench, and in the wrong pocket of my purse! Well worth the $20 a year, I think, to know I can use that function or the GPS map function online to find it, or “kill” it if it truly lost or stolen.
I had to switch back to my old Android and, since I’m on a Macbook, of COURSE it won’t connect for backups and such, and it’s becoming crankier and crankier (Calibration doesn’t stay calibrated, so trying to hit the sweet spot on a screen ‘button’ is an exercise in frustration). So I’m getting another iPhone (on T-Mobile also) to replace the one I’d been using before – but had to give up when I moved. I’m not a techie by any means, but I can say that I use the camera and Google Maps features on a daily basis. They are simply too handy.
Several days on into the new phone, I have been able to figure how to a) answer it b) hang up c) find out who just called that I missed.
We are making progress.
@ dhawktx — You might still be able to get that old iPhone switched to your new number or service. Or rather, you might get its old number switched to your current / new service. I still use an iPhone 3gs. Maybe next year, I’ll get the chance to upgrade it to a new model iPhone when the iPhone 6-whatever comes out.
@ CJ — Be sure to hold your mouth right. Those new multi-touch gestures are really something! š
I still recall something that implied hani keyboards have small dips for hani claws or fingertip pads to press the keys. But apparently, Tully can use these easily enough.
He had to use a “pick”.