posted
So, I got myself a new phone last year, and soon filled it with fun apps.
There are games--Long strategy game, quick action games, deep thinking games.
There is social media--Facebook, Hatrack, etc.
There is the News--with 2 different news conglomeration sites. I am up on the latest news, and non-news stories.
And a couple Audio Book Apps so I can listen to books.
And, I downloaded a book reader with a library of books to purchase or public domain.
I was addicted to the games. Each minor victory gave me pleasure, as the games are designed to do.
I am now a news junky.
I am again posting on Hatrack and other places.
But the app that has the most use, that I look forward to using, that I tell myself, "Get the next level in the game and we'll reward ourselves with..." reading the books.
The thrill and glitz and glamour of the connected world is fading. Right now I'm enjoying "Chicot The Kings Jester" by Dumas (who brought you "The 3 Musketeers". Its fun, its engaging, its "Game of Thrones" with a bit less bloodshed, a lot less sex, and an abysmal absence of dragons.
Posts: 1941 | Registered: Feb 2003
| IP: Logged |
posted
I had an old Samsung clamshell/ flip phone that my brother had owned before me but which wouldn't always power up any more. So I was already planning to get a new phone when I visited my Uncle in Thailand in 2014. Upon seeing the misery that was my phone he decided to purchase an iPhone 4 for me, which I treasure to this day.
There are many possibilities with those smart phones, but the ones I actually use frequently are:
- Camera. It's so perfect to have a camera with me at all times. Countless times I have just taken pictures of information I would've had to write down before. Like opening hours, phone numbers, a useful table or passage in a book or during a lecture, an informational sign, bus/train schedules, routes, travel plans, you name it. And then there are those moments like when you are working in Berlin and you run into a guy from the zoo with a 30 cm insect that he allows passerbys to hold, and don't you want a picture of that?
- WhatsApp and Facebook+Messenger - living 600 km distant from my family, I heavily rely on those for conversation with my loved ones.
- Google Maps. I'd be helpless without it.^^
- Weather App
- Planets - helps identify the stars and planets by naming them when you point it their direction
- YouTube, because my laptop will often prove itself unable to play music from YouTube while allowing me to do other things at the same time, so my phone will be attached to the speakers for music.
- Safari, because who doesn't like instant access to the limitless knowledge of the internet at all times?
Reading, well, that's another question altogether. I don't read books on my phone, it's just too small for that to be comfortable. I do have a Kindle reader, and funnily enough, I feel perfectly comfortable reading SciFi on it, while I do not at all like reading fantasy in eBook form. Those latter ones have to be real - preferably old - books for me to enjoy them to their full potential. I have read all of the EnderVerse novels on Kindle, but for the Alvin Maker Series (which I'm reading right now) I instinctively bought the second-hand paperback version, and I love the feel and the smell and both enhance the reading experience for me. [Doesn't hurt that the story is lovely either.]
Posts: 366 | Registered: May 2016
| IP: Logged |
Printer-friendly view of this topic
![[Big Grin]](biggrin.gif)
![[Smile]](smile.gif)
[Doesn't hurt that the story is lovely either.]
