Well, I set it up and have been using it for the last 3 days. Wrangler Heritage cargo pants have a left leg phone pocket that fits perfectly. Used it for doc check in yesterday. Very convenient. Also used it for gas fill-up with a low-limit CC in Google wallet. Also convenient.

I'll run the phone for a few weeks and see how it goes but right now I see little downside. As I type this, my house phone is down again for the 7th time this year. I do believe I may tell Frontier to stick it this time.

quote:

Originally posted by pace40:
Well, I set it up and have been using it for the last 3 days. Wrangler Heritage cargo pants have a left leg phone pocket that fits perfectly. Used it for doc check in yesterday. Very convenient. Also used it for gas fill-up with a low-limit CC in Google wallet. Also convenient.

I'll run the phone for a few weeks and see how it goes but right now I see little downside. As I type this, my house phone is down again for the 7th time this year. I do believe I may tell Frontier to stick it this time.

Sounds like you're having a good experience with it, wait until you find out how to read SF in the crapper with it in Wal-Mart!

Two apps I use almost daily are My Radar and Google Maps.

Interesting thing today. Had to sign into Medicare to pull some docs. Account was locked and had to be verified through LogIn.gov. Fine, I have a LogIn.gov account. Would not let me in without a photo of me and my driver's license. Only other way to verify was a visit to a "participating post office" Seems .gov is forcing smart phones as well.

Now comes the undaunting task of changing phone numbers everywhere.

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Sounds like you're having a good experience with it, wait until you find out how to read SF in the crapper with it in Wal-Mart!

You, Sir, are a brave man. NFW I sit on the throne in Walmart.

One thing that I use all the time that (speaking of Walmart) my three local Meijer stores also use is an app that lets you know where items are located.

Not that I don't need the exercise but some of the time I just want to get in and out and the various store apps come in handy, especially since I'm never in the same one.

Are split-peas in the soup isle? Nope.
The rice isle? Nope
Whip out the phone, select store loc. and type in the item and I get Row and Section.

And for GPS driving, I like Waze. It was the first one I tried.

OK then...Spent the last week changing my phone number on all active accounts. Interesting exercise. Purchase accounts pretty much let me do it online with little hassle. Financial institutions, however, were a completely different story. Banks, credit cards, investment accounts, credit agencies all required multi-level authentication with passwords and security questions I hadn't used in years. It became very obvious that once this number was changed, it became me. All authentication from that point on went through the phone. Heck, the bank where I do my personal banking wouldn't even do it online or on the phone. I had to go to a branch and sit across the desk from a rep so they could text me a security code I could read back to him while I was sitting there to prove my phone was me.

Anyway, it's all done. My smartphone equals me. I don't like it at all but I guess in the modern world, that's the way it is.

My biggest gripe during this switch is that the phone comes with all settings preset to steal your information. It was a full-time job for a couple days to find and turn off all the crap to make the phone secure. Shouldn't it leave the factory with you being required to turn on what you want? Rant over...other than to say I was born a couple decades too late. I would have been fine living my life, in its entirety, while payphones were still a thing.

quote:

Banks, credit cards, investment accounts, credit agencies all required multi-level authentication with passwords and security questions I hadn't used in years.

You need a password manager app. Mine, mSecure, syncs between my iPhone and MacBook. A unique long strong password for each account. This is a hacker-plagued age.

Well...its been exactly 2 weeks since I joined the 21st century on a smartphone. Logins, check ins, pos payments are more convenient, no doubt about it. Point, click, done. One downside I've noticed...friends & family that used to call and chat no longer do so. In fact, the phone hasn't rung once since I switched over. It's all text messages. I called it myself just to make sure it worked. Progress?...I think not. I'll take the mid-20th century any day, even the party line with Mrs. Murphy.

^^^^^^^^

My family and friends all know that I don't like texting back paragraphs or even long sentences to them because of the T9 keyboard on my dumb phone, so I get mainly phone calls.

quote:

Originally posted by pace40:

quote:

Originally posted by HRK:
Sounds like you're having a good experience with it, wait until you find out how to read SF in the crapper with it in Wal-Mart!

You, Sir, are a brave man. NFW I sit on the throne in Walmart.

well, sometimes it's any port in a storm!

None of that changes the utility of the smartphone.[/QUOTE]

My ground line was getting more and more solicitation calls - 10+ every day!! I disconnected it and told my smart phone to only accept calls from people in my Directory! Saved answering ground line calls that demanded my time, especially during dinner time!!