When I bought my first smartphone a year and a half ago, the folks at Verizon didn’t bother to tell me that the model I liked was already over four years old. So even though I liked it a lot and didn’t really want to get a new phone, I was eventually pushed into it by necessity. It only had 8 gigabytes of memory, which apparently isn’t much once all the apps one doesn’t want (but can’t remove) keep repeatedly updating themselves without permission; I was constantly getting errors and my text program was so slow that it was really difficult to keep up my end of a text conversation because my phone kept bogging down & acting screwy. Plus even though I have international service on my plan, I was told the old phone wouldn’t work internationally. So a few weeks ago I decided to get a new used phone, and after TWO false starts (basically, the phones that looked like they would work wouldn’t accept a data transfer from my old phone) we finally got one that would work and I spent most of last Monday afternoon & evening moving into it. As those who’ve been reading for a while know, I’m really very OCD about how I like my environment (including my online environment) to be set up, and I don’t like change. So the trick of getting a new device for me is making it as much like the old one as possible so I don’t fail to appreciate the new one’s advantages by obsessing over the features I’ve lost. Anyhow, it’s finally mostly straight except for a few kinks I need to work out, and I’m told that next time I upgrade these newer phones (my new one’s less than 2 years old) allow everything to be copied to the new phone, including the settings (which I had to laboriously reconfigure this time). All in all, I’m very pleased with the upgrade, which for me is saying a lot; the new phone is a helluva lot faster and my texting is so smooth now, and I was actually able to upload this selfie (the first one with the new phone) directly to the blog instead of having to email it to myself & upload from my computer, which is how I’ve had to do them since the spring. It’s too bad the new version of my weather app is so much uglier than the old one and lacks the lovely background pictures, but I guess I’ll survive.
Diary #330
October 25, 2016 by Maggie McNeill
I, too, can’t stand change for the sake of it. Come to think of it, I find these so-called smart devices to be cumbersome and severely limited.
I use my current “smart” phone for checking my calendar, my email and for, gasp!, phone-calls! Everything else is either unusable or missing. While regarding the hardware, these _are_ real computers, software and UI wise they are a bad joke when compared even to the shoddiest netbook.
Hi! I tried to email via your button, but it’s not working. Could you share it here?
Get an iPhone. I moved from iPhone to Android so as to be able to write apps for it. It’s not locked up like an Apple id, but I want my old phone back – maybe with a bigger screen. Never gave me an instant of trouble, everything “just worked”.
I on the other hand am about to move from an iPhone to an Android device. 🙂
I am kind of OCD about controlling everything on my computer and thus I am a Linux user. I got the iPhone because it was a deal for $1 if I signed up for two more years with Verizon wireless at the time. Now they don’t do any deals like that.
So, I am looking to get more control of my phone with an unlocked android phone without all the apps I don’t want and one of the prepaid services that cost less and don’t have any contract. That way if I don’t like the service, I move somewhere else quickly. Motorola sells some phones that work with pretty much all carriers, USA and international.
Always been an Android fan boy. I also love upgrades and to be in the very latest version of the operating system. Love change, keeps the mind active, and seeing the beauty of new features.
There is more freedom with android, did a little course, which took me through installation of the android development software, then writing a simple app and testing it. All free software.