Smart Phone users, convince us it's worth it

SlitheyTove · 11-02-2009, 03:49 PM

I'm trying to decide if it's worth it for our family to migrate from an unlimited messaging wireless plan to an unlimited data (web, email, etc). I can see it being useful. The spouse isn't convinced it's $40/month useful. Neither one of us absolutely needs it for work.

For those of you who do have smartphones, what would you say is the reason why you'd never go back to plain vanilla cell phone plans? Or do you find that it's just a great way to check up on Facebook?

fireandrain · 11-02-2009, 09:45 PM

Here's an anecdote: My husband and I are driving to the St. Louis airport and we need to return our rental car. The road signage is poor, the rental car company didn't give us a map to explain where they are. The clock is ticking and we can't find the place.

My husband uses his phone to call the 800 number for the rental car company, and I use my iPhone map application to get directions from "current location" to the rental place. I had the answer long before anyone picked up the phone at Budget.

Do I need an iPhone -- no. But the map function really has been wonderful and has prevented me from getting lost a few times. When traveling on a cross-country trip, I found it great to use the Wikipedia application to learn more about sites we were passing. It's nice to look at weather radar to know when the storm will pass, to find restaurants to eat at, and to read the New York Times when I'm waiting on a line at the bank. (I realize that these examples are iPhone specific and not about data plans in general.)

And it is fun to use Facebook and get e-mail when I want to. But if I had to cut the budget, it is something I could do without. It is definitely a luxury for me.

thumper1 · 11-02-2009, 09:57 PM

I REALLY want an IPhone...but I have no justification for getting one. I don't even carry my cell phone with me at all times. But I know plenty of people with IPhones and I love the applications and ease of use...and accessibility they provide. I just need a decent excuse for paying the extra money for that data plan!!

emeraldkity4 · 11-02-2009, 11:04 PM

I had email with my LG 8700 verizon, and that came with unlimited data/web access, although it was slightly time consuming to sign into my gmail account to check mail.

With a Blackberry, I can glance at it to see if I have mail. The keyboard is also much easier to send text over a 10 keypad. However, it is not a make or break have to have.

aibarr · 11-02-2009, 11:34 PM

Upside: Constant connectivity. We were smack in the middle of Hurricane Ike and at no point during the storm or the aftermath were we *completely* cut off from the outside world. We always had either e-mail, text messaging, or phone service. If I flipped my car and plowed into a ditch on a highway somewhere, I could post a help message to Facebook, call 9-1-1, transmit my GPS location, and order a pizza to be delivered as I hung there upside-down and bleeding from my seatbelt. I take my music and photos wherever I go, so I can play my husband's orchestra pieces for friends and show them our cats or our wedding. I never worry about getting lost. I travel on business and can always find the nearest Starbucks or restaurant worth eating at, and I can find the local specialties because I can read local reviews and find the dives and holes-in-the-wall that are truly worth eating at... Great news for a foodie.

Downside: Constant connectivity. I'm my iPhone's slave. My coworkers and boss know that they can text, call, or e-mail at any hour of the day. It means that even as an engineer, where everything used to be able to wait until the next business day, anything can be an emergency and I'm always on call. Drafters in India can call me at three in the morning to ask me questions because they know that my phone's on my nightstand and I'm a light sleeper. (Yes, a lot of this is my own fault, but "my own fault" is keeping me employed in the construction industry right now...) It's like having a cell phone, raised to the next degree.

Eh. It's a tradeoff. It is one of those extreme life-alterers, though. How connected to the world do you want to be?

My husband adds that he turns his phone off when he doesn't want to be in contact, but he's a music professor on tenure track, so there you go.

BCEagle91 · 11-03-2009, 10:20 AM

> Here's an anecdote: My husband and I are driving to the St. Louis
> airport and we need to return our rental car. The road signage is
> poor, the rental car company didn't give us a map to explain where
> they are. The clock is ticking and we can't find the place. My
> husband uses his phone to call the 800 number for the rental car
> company, and I use my iPhone map application to get directions from
> "current location" to the rental place. I had the answer long before
> anyone picked up the phone at Budget.

I have a GPS on my PDA so I could just get directions for free.

My cell phone has web access though I never use it. It can do text
messaging too though I never use it. I do have a portable laptop and
an iPod Touch so I just need to find free connectivity if I really
NEED access. Fortunately that's getting easier and easier to do.

One major negative of a smartphone for me is vision. I need glasses
to read something that small. I usually only bring my reading glasses
when I am going somewhere where I need to read - typically to work
or the kids' apartment to work. At other times, I leave them at home.
A smartphone would be fairly useless unless I had someone else with
me that could read it.

MomofWildChild · 11-03-2009, 10:24 AM

I have an iPhone AND a Blackberry and break out in a cold sweat if I am not "connected". The Blackberry is my work device. I like the constant connectivity, and have to force myself to put it away or turn it off when appropriate. I check in for flights, check weather, check stocks, email people, Blackberry message with my kid, find out what's happening with everyone from my county mayor to Lance Armstrong via Twitter....... I realize it's not for everyone, but I like being connected to my world. And sports updates.....

BCEagle91 · 11-03-2009, 10:29 AM

Do you take it for a run in the woods?

SlitheyTove · 11-03-2009, 11:46 AM

Quote:

I need glasses
to read something that small. I usually only bring my reading glasses
when I am going somewhere where I need to read - typically to work
or the kids' apartment to work. At other times, I leave them at home.

How can there be somewhere where you don't need to read? I always bring something to read, hence I need to bring my reading glasses everywhere because I need to read everywhere.

My name is SlitheyTove, and I'm a reading addict. It's been 10 minutes since I last read something.
Hi, Slithey!

The smart phone is sounding more like a cool and occasionally useful thing, but not like something worth $500 a year. I ordered the spouse to talk to people at work and see if it would be worth it, but I'm now inclining towards just unlimited texting.

Youdon'tsay · 11-03-2009, 11:56 AM

I am a total neophyte on these things. If one member on a family plan gets a iphone, how will that change the cost?

Right now, mom and dad have a phone, and we make the boys share. We don't have texting even. With ds1 going to college next year, for Christmas we're getting him his own line and will add texting (per cc recommendations), but I'm trying to figure out whether we should bite the bullet and get him an iphone-like thing. Money IS an object.

BCEagle91 · 11-03-2009, 12:07 PM

> How can there be somewhere where you don't need to read? I always bring
> something to read, hence I need to bring my reading glasses everywhere
> because I need to read everywhere.

Ever go for a walk in the forest?
On a bicycle ride?
A walk on the beach?
A ride on a swanboat?
A walk through the gardens?
A hike up a mountain?
A walk along the rapids?
A walk through an old city?
Swimming? Baseball? Soccer? Tennis? Chess? Frisbee?
An amusement park?
Zoo?
Theme park?
Chat with your kids?
Chat with your parents?
Cook?
Mow the lawn?
Shovel snow?
Clean out the drains in the plumbing?
Watch a movie?
Watch a show?
Dance?

MomofWildChild · 11-03-2009, 12:14 PM

I don't run with my phone. Ever. That's my time to be with myself (and my Garmin and sometimes my iPod). Also, it would be too tempting to call my husband to come pick me up mid-run!

SlitheyTove · 11-03-2009, 12:28 PM

BCEagle, I have never shoveled snow. But for everything else, there's downtime. I'm waiting for someone to come out of the bathroom (or from behind the tree). Or there's lunch. Or there's a line to wait in. Or other people are taking a nap. Or you're stirring risotto, standing over the pot for 20 minutes, and no one else is around to talk to. Or you've finished your set of tennis. Or you are taking a break from mowing with a glass of ice water and the hammock. And so forth. There are always little snippets of time that can be filled with reading!

You probably don't want to hear that the spouse and I take something with to the movie theater to read before the movie starts

BCEagle91 · 11-03-2009, 12:34 PM

> Or there's a line to wait in. Or other people are taking a nap. Or you're stirring
> risotto, standing over the pot for 20 minutes, and no one else is around to talk
> to. Or you've finished your set of tennis. Or you are taking a break from mowing
> with a glass of ice water and the hammock.

Tennis is a very social game and the banter between sets is often quite enjoyable
and sometimes profitable. I spend a lot of my time doing intellectual work and mental
processing and there are a lot of times when the last thing that I want to do is read.

scualum · 11-03-2009, 12:43 PM

I always carry my phone with me on walks/runs - but then again, I come from a long family of scouts and believe in be prepared.

I've used it twice - once when my dog cut his paw and was unable to walk (and I am not going to carry a squirming 80 pound golden retriever for more than a mile) and the other time when I saw a fire in the starting process and called 911.