November 9, 2017 Presented by Jeff Hensel
Attendees: 32
Although seeing Part 1 of Smart Phones for Seniors is not required for this one, click here or simply scroll down to the previous presentation to take a look.
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Jeff shares more non-technical answers to common questions about getting and using a smart phone.
We will continue on smartphones for seniors by sticking to the basics.
No technical jargon allowed!
Please feel free to add smarphone questions for future meetings by going to the Smart Phones for Seniors page on our club website. WWW.SSCCB.wordpress.com
It is critical you remember your Apple ID and Password as well as a Google Account ID and Password.
NOTE: When creating the Apple ID, you should use your current email address. Although you must create the password it CAN be the SAME as your email password.
The Google Account used for Android phones (Samsung, Motorola, LG, etc.) is used for everything Google. This means the gmail, Google Photos, etc.
We will do our best to share smartphone topics and make them appropriate for any smartphone. Either an iPhone by Apple or and Android by Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc.
We will do our best to share smartphone topics and make them appropriate for any smartphone. Either an iPhone by Apple or and Android by Samsung, LG, Motorola, etc.
The ‘swipe’ is a method of seeing another screen and you can swipe in virtually all directions.
However, a swipe to the right can have a subtle difference to reveal a different screen.
1.Begin the swipe from anywhere on the screen (orange circles).
2.Begin the swipe from outside of the left edge and swipe to the right. On some phones, namely an Android phone, this will reveal a different screen.
This doesn’t work on every smartphone nor every screen of your smartphone. But give it a try to see what occurs.
One of the most fun things to do is to look through the thousands of available apps for your smartphone. And you’ll be amazed at how many are absolutely FREE.
Apps can be FREE because the developer simply desires to do this or the app was created for a store and the app is a method to show their brand and opportunity for you to use services.
Or, the app is FREE to you but small advertisements appear on the screen at certain times throughout use. In some cases the ads are hardly noticeable while in other cases they are not.
From a person perspective, I try FREE apps first. If I use the app more than once per day or it the app provides significant value, I will pay.
These days, the Apple App Store and the Google Play Store have about an equal number of good apps. I’m not counting ‘fart’ flashlight apps or any others in that ilk.
Apple has a few subtleties different from Android.
Apple app icons always appear on a screen or within a folder on the screen.
Android apps can be deleted from the screen but they remain on the phone. All apps are found in the App Drawer which is identified by an icon. Some Android phones have a slightly different App Drawer icon.
On Android smartphones, there is an App Drawer icon where you can touch to see every app installed on the phone. Importantly, you do NOT have to see every app icon on a screen is you don’t want to.
Conversely, iPhones and iPads do not have a drawer thus, all installed apps will have a visible icon that takes up screen space.
You do NOT have to use every app that is included with your phone. In many cases, Apple and Android will let you uninstall included apps. In some cases, included apps are forced to remain. This is the cost to you for having free apps included with your phone.
However, after experimenting with new and different types of apps, you may find that you have screen after screen that are full of apps.
Here is what I do.
Goodness, has this changed over the last 2 years.
No more $199 smartphone with a 2 year contract. This ship has sailed.
Now, you can purchase a smartphone or make payments.
Alternatively, some carriers offer new but older model phones for free with a contract but no more top of the line phones.
I hear the question, “which is better, connect to wifi or connect to AT&T or Verizon?”
The is not an either or answer.
However, connecting to wifi, when you are at home, is FREE since your home will have free wifi as part of your internet service. Actually, you pay for this for wifi is not an extra charge.
When you are not at home, connecting to your carrier with a data plan is how the smartphone connects to the internet. Typically, the data plan has a charge but you can do lots and lots of stuff with the minimum of data plans.
If your are a frugal person, you can certainly was the bytes and the cost of those bytes but personally, it is cumbersome to track and might save you $5 per month by watching closely.
What I do NOT recommend is to turn your phone off when not in use. Yes, this can save a few pennies or even a few dollars per month but it turns your phone into a piece of plastic, metal and battery that provides no value. Leave it on.
Ok, Ok. Bluetooth is a technical term and feature that many of us won’t use.
Wait, I use Bluetooth every day.
My earphones use this wireless technology to allow me to hear a book or music with a wire dangling around my neck.
My Fitbit health tracker sends information from my wrist to my smartphone throughout the day and I don’t have to do anything.
Yes, using Bluetooth is a battery draining feature. But, it doesn’t drain it by much at all.
Other than making phone calls with y our smartphone, other means of communication exist with it.
One is email and another is texting.
Electronic mail is simply a paperless and immediate form of letter writing to one or more people at a time. Actually, this is amazing in and of itself. One can even include photos or documents as part of the email just like including photos and documents within a letter. Email is very popular.
Texting is another form of writing but in a slightly different manner but in many ways getting the same result. Write a message to one of more people and they get it instantly. Texting is written to a phone number wile email is written to an email address. The two are completely separate.
The downsides of the two are also significant.
Email not so much of a downside but texting…now that’s a different story.
Many believe texting is just like speaking. They expect you to answer immediately. And, in a lot of cases, we do answer immediately. That can cause some obvious problems. We can stare at our phones while walking down the sidewalk or across the street or even while driving. HORRORS!!!
Even though one can send a photo by text, the quality of the original photo is greatly reduced to allow it to flow across the texting network. Sending photos via text is NOT a method to share good quality photos that the receiver might want to print.
To save time and energy and to avoid typos via that ‘fat finger’, simply talking to your phone and have it convert it to text is also one of it’s amazing features. Speech to text has evolved to far in the past few years that speaking and seeing the correct text is virtually guaranteed.
I’ve heard this question many times .
In the early day of smartphones, just 10 years ago, connecting them to our computer was the only method of installing apps or uploading photos to our computer.
Now, this is completely wireless and connecting to our computer is unnecessary.
