My introduction to the iphone 5s

I have a 5S. Really don't like it (been about a year and a half).

It's really hard to keep it from invading life.

Previous phone was a Blackberry. It was a great tool for the work details of life, and an awesome email/ data device. It sucked on the internet, which turns out to be a good thing. It means I had it when I needed it, but never used it if I didn't have to.

pinchvalve wrote: The iPhone to me is the ultimate tool for avoiding dead time.

Maybe. But for me, it consumes the margins in my life. I can't have every moment of my life being productive. Down time is healthy.

pinchvalve wrote: The more you use it, the more you will realize how much better life is with it.

I couldn't disagree more. I dream of the day I can throw it in the river.

I have a cabin in the mountains, just out of reach of a cell signal. No electricity, no phone, no TV. It is glorious. If I have to stay in touch with work, each morning I hike up the mountain in range of a tower and get my messages, then make a couple of calls. The rest of my day is peacefully blissful.

We are drowning in data.

Battery life...

My Blackberry could go for nearly a week. No chance of that with an Iphone.

The battery life thing was a real shock to me when I started.

One thing I learned about was a protective case by a company called Mophie, which has built in batteries, and extends the life drastically:

Mophie case

I never actually bought one. I changed my habits a bit- plug it in every night, bought a car charger, carry a spare cord in my backpack, turned off a few apps. I get by now- just find it weak at the end of the day if I have a long day of phone conferences. Oh yeah- I try to never use the GPS mapping. That is a total battery suck.

I use an Otter case. Yeah, they're big. I got used to it. (my life is kind of a rough environment (construction), so there is no way I will do without). I learned to adapt to the case too.

Friend here has a mophie case. She loves it. It really does deliver on extended battery life, and isn't all big and bulky, for being an external battery pack. Though haters of the otterbox and similar will hate it, for it does bulk the otherwise smallish phone up.

Agree about GPS. That and keeping the screen brightly lit. Huge battery suckers.

In reply to SVreX:

Why do you let a device invade your life? You can choose to use the time, or you can choose not to use the time.

That is not the smart phone's fault.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to SVreX: Why do you let a device invade your life? You can choose to use the time, or you can choose not to use the time. That is not the smart phone's fault.

I must agree here. I actually have 2 iPhones, one personal, one work issued (I don't like to mix the 2) and most people who know me now know that calling my cell between 6pm and 6am is likely to get you my voice mail. I come home, both phones go on mute and go on the counter with my car keys until I leave for work the next day. Occasionally I'll take one out to the shop if I'm expecting a call or need to take pictures.

Yes there is a certain addiction to being connected all the time. And I certainly struggle with it but we have the power to put it down and walk away. I don't need to be somewhere without cell service, I can create the same thing by turning it off :)

I've got a 4S that I've had since launch day (coming up on 3 years ago), and it's definitely showing signs of the battery starting to have problems. On Tuesday it was plugged in at work until about 3:30 when the wife picked me up for an appointment. At just before 8:30 when we were heading into the theater to see GotG it died from low battery- despite the fact it was still showing as having about 20% batter left. I was using it a good bit during that time- was sitting around waiting a lot so playing games on it and browsing- but still, it lasted barely 5 hours of moderate use before going from full to dead.

I'm planning on holding out until the new models come out and then deciding whether I want to blow the money on the newest model or pick up a discounted older one (like a 5s) once the new ones are out. I don't really consider switching away from the iPhone an option- I've got too many apps and utilities on iOS that I'd have to re-buy and re-configure and have an iPad that shares some apps with the phone. Unfortunately since I'm on a budget carrier I can't get any subsidy on the phones- so if I want one of the new ones it would be upwards of $700 to get one...

Smartphones have turned otherwise normal people into boorish idiots. Mine does NOT run my life. I turn that beeyotch off when I want to and if the company wants me to have access after hours well they better supply me a second phone on their dime. And I will still turn that damn thing off when I hit the sack.

The only things I do with my smart phone are talk, text, limited web browsing and listen to pod-casts. The last two are only on the train ride to work. I am thinking about going back to a dumb phone and getting tablet to do all the rest of it.

alfadriver wrote: In reply to SVreX: Why do you let a device invade your life? You can choose to use the time, or you can choose not to use the time. That is not the smart phone's fault.

I never blamed the smart phone. I said it is hard to avoid.

I didn't say I have been unsuccessful in managing it. I said I'd like to throw it in the river.

Get it??

I challenge you to go to a youth sporting event (or any other "family" environment) and summarize how many parents are there in body, but not in mind (focused on their smart phones). It easily exceeds 75%.

It is clearly difficult for a lot of people, and that is a fact that too many people fail to consider.

It doesn't necessarily make life better.

BTW- currently, about 1 in 3 households have NO landline phone.

That would make it pretty hard to turn off entirely.

Do I ignore it? Every day. No problem.

Are there still distractions from life? Every day.

I am amazed every single time I am in a face to face conversation with someone and they consider the unknown random person at the other end of the ring tone more important than me.

I wasn't suggesting all of the distractions are my own. Most are not. Personally, I find it incredibly annoying and distracting when a phone goes off in a movie theatre, business meeting, or church.

Still a distraction. Still invasive.

In reply to SVreX:

No, I don't get your point. Sorry.

In reply to alfadriver:

I get it.

Anyway, SVREX, I am coming to terms with exactly that. We, too, have no landline. We're gong to keep all phones away from the table, and I am trying very hard to use it only for work stuff when I am at work or otherwise isolated (not when the kids need/want/deserve my attention). It's working so far.

Still don't like it. Honestly so far I'd rather ole' flippy.

So today I had to drive about three hours for work. One hour of me driving to a colleagues house and then two hours riding with him.

The Google maps app is neat, but odd. It changes the route OFTEN, and I found that is was helpful more for estimating time and distance left. With the LEAF completely out of battery as I pulled into my driveway this evening, I am happy to have that additional functionality as compared to flippie.

The mail app was very useful from a business perspective. Let me explain. To log in via laptop, we need to pull out a token, use that code plus a PIN we remember, along with our logon password, ID number, and it takes a good five minutes to get to the actual checking of the mail. A beep-boop from the iphone and I knew I was a few clicks away from mail. Had our mail service been more normal, this may not be such an advantage.

I tried to show off the QR reader app, and failed. It's useful, but not nearly as much as expected.

It's big in my pocket, and I didn't like carrying it around.

I, against my own thoughts, tried turning off bluetooth for battery savings. When I arrived back at the LEAF's parking place, I got in and drove off, a bit late as usual, for family dinner. I forgot to turn it back on, so when Tunawife called, I scrambled to figure out how to quickly turn on bluetooth instead deciding to use speakerphone. It didn't help that the phone was out of battery... again... and so it was plugged in, making fumbling with it harder.

Still not convinced.

Get Waze for routing instead of Google Maps, they seem to have the most reliable crowd source traffic info (plus you tend to get warnings about accidents, broken down cars, the cops etc).

BoxheadTim wrote: Get Waze for routing instead of Google Maps, they seem to have the most reliable crowd source traffic info (plus you tend to get warnings about accidents, broken down cars, the cops etc).

Got it. Will try today.

I've found the built in Maps app pretty good compared to Google Maps, which is also ok. I've also heard that Waze works well, just haven't had a chance to check it out yet.

Waze worked well, although there was no traffic to try it out. I took my on a vastly different trip to work, and on roads I had never even been down. A very indirect way, and yet a few minutes faster. I like it so far, although it doesn't integrate with bluetooth to interrupt the radio to tell you to turn. Not a big deal, especially since the Google maps version tells you the direction and then keeps the radio off for ten seconds afterwards. You miss a lot of news/song that way.

And I forgot my charger at home. Here's hoping for battery life today.

I've had varying success with both the built-in Maps app and Google Maps. In general I like how Google handles things better- the built-in Maps app seems to not get that when I search for something general that I want it to search NEAR ME (or where the map is showing at the moment if I've turned the GPS off) and not anywhere in the world. I've used Waze a bit, but it's not THAT useful in the smaller city where I live and it can be a bit distracting.

If you REALLY want full-on GPS functionality, there are still (I imagine) a number of the apps from the GPS makers on the phone that function almost identical to how their stand-alone units do. They tend to be a bit on the pricey side, or at least were when I last looked, but often offer a lot more in the way of routing options and things like showing you the speed limit of the road you're on (and warning you if you exceed it by too much).

Ashyukun wrote: I've got a 4S that I've had since launch day (coming up on 3 years ago), and it's definitely showing signs of the battery starting to have problems.

Have you tried imaging the battery? Let it discharge all the way to nothing (when it shuts off for low battery, leave it alone for a while before plugging in even), then let it charge up to 100% before unplugging it. Do this 2-3 times in a row, and see if it helps. Then you can go back to normal usage.

Flynlow wrote:

Ashyukun wrote: I've got a 4S that I've had since launch day (coming up on 3 years ago), and it's definitely showing signs of the battery starting to have problems.

Have you tried imaging the battery? Let it discharge all the way to nothing (when it shuts off for low battery, leave it alone for a while before plugging in even), then let it charge up to 100% before unplugging it. Do this 2-3 times in a row, and see if it helps. Then you can go back to normal usage.

I can try that, though it may be difficult to do it multiple times given most days I'd not be happy with not being able to use it at all for the better part of the day. :P

I like the built in mapping for it's ability to integrate data from texts, emails, etc, but also find that incredibly Orwellian.

However, it doesn't hold a candle to my Garmin for accuracy. Time calculations can be off by 20%, my Garmin is dead nuts accurate. To the exact minute on a 4 hour trip. I also like the Garmin's interface and display of the current speed limit. At least the Iphone over estimates, so I won't be late.

Add this to the battery issue, and I'll stick to the Garmin for a while.

When I do use the Iphone mapping, I get it to point me in the right direction, then turn it off for the long legs of the trip (to save battery). Then I turn it back on when I am close and need help on the side streets.

I went a weekend without using it at bad times (when the kids needed/wanted/deserved attention), and even used it to help with a homeschool activity. Also, my 1 1/2 year old daughter figured out how to flip through pictures that my six year old son took of me walking around the house. That was fun.

My wife got a smartphone too (she is saving money overall due to dropping me off the plan) and is trying to get started using coupon apps. Likewise, we are trying very hard to avoid becoming "nose in the phone" types.

I even turned on bluetooth on in situ the other day and was very proud of myself.

Battery life seems to be OK for an entire day's worth of use. Which means that I do not need to charge it at work.

A point for the iphone: Due to family strife, I talked to my Mom for about two hours yesterday during work, and was able to use the earbuds and the speakerphone with very clear communication. I found that the speakerphone is able to bring a clear signal despite being at various angles and distances from me. That's something I was not expecting. It's actually clearer than my desk phone, and I used it to make a business call in the same way yesterday.

I also used it last night after the kids went to bed to quickly respond to a business E-mail or two without the ten minute long process of powering on/logging in/signing in/shutting down the work laptop (that is usually at work anyway).

Maybe there is hope for this thing after all.

I am now officially making all office calls with the iphone and the earbuds, at least until my desk phone gets better... if it does.