Smart Phones...

[Murgatroy]

I am a fair bit of a luddite.

Sure, I have a background of Computer and Electronics Engineering. Sure, I am the defacto IT guy at work. Sure, I have built dozens of high power computers. Sure, I have a massive network at home, involving nearly a dozen devices from computers, laptops, netbooks, gaming consoles and hand held gaming consoles.

However, I have until today avoided smart phones like the plague.

I haven't had a home phone in over twelve years. I have been using a cell phone as my main (and primarily only) mode of voice communications. I have an office line at work, however I keep it forwarded to my work cell/Nextel.

If a phone made and received calls, that was good enough for me. Then came texting.

Texting it seems is the preferred form of communications now. Major decisions are made completely through texts at my business. At first, I was opposed to the concept and found it a major inconvenience, however, as time has gone on, I have become used to it.

Last year I 'upgraded' to a feature phone that had a full keyboard. It looked like a little Blackberry, and I have often called it my 'Wannabe Blackberry.' I have been a very satisfied user of Virgin Mobile's prepaid service for a decade now. I find what they offer to be superior in price and equitable in service to any of the contract carriers around. Since Virgin uses Sprint's network, it has been fine. Recently Virgin upgraded it's phone offerings to include smart phones. I have ignored this trend as my phone did all I needed it to, and if I got really bored, it could connect to the internet and I could torture myself in that manner.

Well, I bought an LG Optimus today.

Wow.

I do not know how I lived without a smart phone as long as I did. This is the most impressive little device I have ever played with. I feel like I did back in the mid nineties when I discovered the internet (yes, I had been using it in limited fashions since the eighties, but in all honesty Windows `95 was the revolution.)

I have been playing with it since I turned it on this afternoon.

With that said, what are some of the favorite apps of the TGO crowd?

So far I have Angry Birds, GPS Essentials, Scanner Radio, a QR/Barcode Reader and a few other 'optimization' apps for clock, weather and system monitoring/control.

Tapatalk is next on the list, but I am interested in what else there is out there.

Edited August 7, 2011 by Murgatroy

[Il Duce]

ROOT IT!

Amazon app store

Shooter

Tapatalk

FML

Netflix

Tunein Radio Pro

YouTube

[Chadastrophic]

Most of my favorites are based around being rooted.

Non rooted favs apps: Fancy widget pro, engadget, Google gesture search, Google sky map, Google+, GPS status, HBO go, indeed job search, lookout, yahoo messenger, Google music (beta), mybackup pro, tweetcaster, USA today, the weather channel, USA carry.

Favorite games: angry birds Rio, cordy, hextacy lite, euchre (I'm a Yankee), fruit ninja free, solitaire.

Favorite rooted apps: adfree, mybackup pro (listed twice because root allows more functionality), rom manager, root explorer, titanium backup, set CPU,

[Guest GunTroll]

Are you calling my rotary phone dumb?

[Murgatroy]

Are you calling my rotary phone dumb?

If I still used a home phone, it would be a rotary. A classic with style.

[Guest Broomhead]

Pandora, Lookout, Advanced Task Killer, Brightest Flashlight Free, Fetch It (Lite), SoundHound, Blink, Dolphin Browser, and WeatherBug are my most used apps. There are apps for anything you could ever imagine.

[Guest GunTroll]

If I still used a home phone, it would be a rotary. A classic with style.

Your right. When I said that I was joking. But you did bring up visions of those cool and sometimes funky rotary phones of yesteryears. Seems like we have forgone style & class for the sake of function and ease. That's what comes from advancements with technology. Nothing wrong with that really but yesterdays artifacts did have style & class. That goes for about everything. Not just phones.

Maybe one day I will see what the hype about "smart phones" is.

[Murgatroy]

Your right. When I said that I was joking. But you did bring up visions of those cool and sometimes funky rotary phones of yesteryears. Seems like we have forgone style & class for the sake of function and ease. That's what comes from advancements with technology. Nothing wrong with that really but yesterdays artifacts did have style & class. That goes for about everything. Not just phones.

Maybe one day I will see what the hype about "smart phones" is.

For a lot of things, I am a function over form guy. I carry a Glock after all.

However, there is something to be said for the style and form of a lot of the items of yesteryear. The entire Art Deco movement that came after WW I was great, from the building to the cars. However, I think that the radios and phones that started to become popular in that same time were some of the most beautiful electronic devices ever. After WW II the automobiles that came out were over the top, and then in the 60's everything started to lose style and go utilitarian. The 80' and 90's were the time if the Digital Revolution, and that is when everything went boxy, style was gone, and it was replaced with Modern.

Now, while I can complain, it is amazing to the degree we have effectively shrunk the world in the internet age. Some of my closest friends live a thousand miles away, but I see and talk to them every day.

The Smart Phone is just the evolution of technology and communication. I can now carry a computer that is capable of nearly anything in the palm of my hand and stay connected to the world. There are apps out there that I can use to control my car if I so desired.

While I will also point out the degree to which humanity has become lazy and dependent on these devices, and future generations will be even worse. Being a man that grew up with one television station (that I never watched cause I was chopping wood, collecting eggs or shooting squirrels in the woods) it is amazing how adept and accepting I have become with technology.

[Guest bkelm18]

Angry Birds, Chess, Pandora, Kindle for Android, WeatherBug, plus a couple Chemistry apps that help tremendously with school work.

[Mike.357]

gotta have Magic 8 Ball and flashlight.

[robin48]

Zedge, Amazon, Tapatalk, XDA

Sent from my MB860 using Tapatalk

[zapfbroad]

it's an amazing progress that my desktop computer of 10 years ago cost 5 times more than my smartphone but the processor was 4 times slower and it had 8 times less storage capacity. the transition from phone calls to pagers to text messages to mobile emails is interesting. there was a study done that said something like 80% of people under 25 consider it rude to call unless it's an emergency fully half of those won't leave a voicemail and would prefer to send text messages because it allows people to respond at their convenience. 25 years ago a phone call was The Thing! same way nobody writes letters to people for personal correspondence anymore. I think I'm just suspicious of new things and not quick to change, though I often do eventually I tend to deliberate longer than average.. I still worry about microwaving food and how tech progress will impact our society 15,30,50 years down the road from now. My great grand-daddy worked half his life on coal barges because that was one of the best industries for his time/place. Aside from a few locations where are they now.. I think we should open to change and progress (after careful consideration) but always be mindful of the repercussions of what we are doing may be and continously reassess if we are being smart, safe and moral. Flashlist app, scanner radio app, radar now, words with friends(scrabble), wifi tethering

BTW rooted EPIC 4G Sprint running Syndicate Rom Frozen 1.1.0 by ACS.

- '1943 on my latest Quadrant Standard benchmark, how's your life.'

[Mike.357]

if a simple message will work I text, if I need to talk to you and you don't answer I will not leave a voice mail, you will see the missed call and return it.

[Chadastrophic]

Finally someone else rooted and running a custom rom. I love cyanogen mod 7 with faux123 kernel, underclocked and undervolted.

[Guest Anadais]

Most of my favorites have already been listed... Angry birds, Amazon app store, farkle, fruit ninja, google+, hulu+, Key ring, Kindle, Netflix, pandora, redbox, espn scorecenter, scanner radio, stumbleupon, TAPATALK, youtube...

Plants vs. Zombies, stupid zombies, and Guns 'n' Glory are fun too

[Guest pfries]

Finally someone else rooted and running a custom rom. I love cyanogen mod 7 with faux123 kernel, underclocked and undervolted.

Epic 4G running FROZEN overclocked undervolted

[ls3_kid]

I don't think this app has been posted. "Shazam". It "listens" to songs and tells you the name and artist.