Your Smartphone makes you dumber!

First thing I do every morning after shower and brekkers, is quickly check my phone for emails, messages, news and weather. This alerts me to anything I might need to check in depth later, find out if we can have a stroll out somewhere and know what news to avoid.

Up to about 18 months ago, checking all that would have taken much longer. This from an oldphart who never thought he needed a smartphone! SWMBO was even more against having one, to the point of throwing a hissy fit when I bought her one. Now she is on hers much more than I am, then complains that her battery does not last as long as mine. (Because the screen is always on, my dear!) ??

My last point of resistance, is that I refuse to bank online using my phone. I know all the arguments for doing this, but I am uncomfortable with it. The desktop and laptop are both protected, I’m not sure about the phone and TBH I don’t really need to use it for banking anyway.

The Moto 4g play os a very decent device. About on par, maybe a little better than bobs swift, he loves so much.

So I’d say it’s probably user error, rather than dumb software engineers

If you haven’t got many apps installed Richard, which you shouldn’t as you don’t use it, it should use anywhere near 1gb in monthly updates

A major os update will take 1+ gb but that is once a year, and the monthly security patches are usually 35mb. (give or take). I’d look very closely to what that phone is doing. It may know you don’t like it and is sending all your ambiant data back to its creators in  China.

We have 3 moto g4, the one above that you have Richard , and one below what daves daughter  has, there is about £40 between the 3 devices, all are decent devices.

Your Bluetooth /speaker issue can be fixed in the main settings, it asks you if you want the BT mic to over rule the loud speaker, or somthing to that effect

As I only use BT buds these days I set it all to yes. I’m yet to have an issue. The issue I do get, is my ear buds will be connected, as I set them to auto conect. But don’t have my Earphones in, so I say hello with the hone to my ear, before realising I need to toggle the earpiece setting, to override BT. You can do the same for speaker to. The quick  buttons are on the call screen.

Fantastic what these coders think of. Maybe your first reaction  shouldn’t be to jump straight  to belittling people when you can’t operate something, or have no intention of learning to do so. It’s not the other persons fault your ignorance of the product, and lack of will to learn it.

Most of the times, you moan about your phones, the answers are simple. A hell of a lot more simple than say windows, and you learnt early versions of that. Probably even earlier computing crap too.

Much easier to get your emails on a phone or tablet, even if it just to triage them. Also in this day and age, if you deal in emails, you need to have instant access to it, as it is used today like a sms service, between business, more and more.

More dumb?

The Duke wrote:

The Moto 4g play os a very decent device. About on par, maybe a little better than bobs swift, he loves so much. So I’d say it’s probably user error, rather than dumb software engineers If you haven’t got many apps installed Richard, which you shouldn’t as you don’t use it, it should use anywhere near 1gb in monthly updates A major os update will take 1+ gb but that is once a year, and the monthly security patches are usually 35mb. (give or take). I’d look very closely to what that phone is doing. It may know you don’t like it and is sending all your ambiant data back to its creators in China. We have 3 moto g4, the one above that you have Richard , and one below what daves daughter has, there is about £40 between the 3 devices, all are decent devices. Your Bluetooth /speaker issue can be fixed in the main settings, it asks you if you want the BT mic to over rule the loud speaker, or somthing to that effect As I only use BT buds these days I set it all to yes. I’m yet to have an issue. The issue I do get, is my ear buds will be connected, as I set them to auto conect. But don’t have my Earphones in, so I say hello with the hone to my ear, before realising I need to toggle the earpiece setting, to override BT. You can do the same for speaker to. The quick buttons are on the call screen. Fantastic what these coders think of. Maybe your first reaction shouldn’t be to jump straight to belittling people when you can’t operate something, or have no intention of learning to do so. It’s not the other persons fault your ignorance of the product, and lack of will to learn it. Most of the times, you moan about your phones, the answers are simple. A hell of a lot more simple than say windows, and you learnt early versions of that. Probably even earlier computing crap too. Much easier to get your emails on a phone or tablet, even if it just to triage them. Also in this day and age, if you deal in emails, you need to have instant access to it, as it is used today like a sms service, between business, more and more.

Steve, I can see that there are lifestyle issues in play. I understand that some want 24 hour connectivity. For me there is no substitute for voice calls, via the house phone, as mobile is usually crap at home.

Frequently I cannot dig a phone out to look at what it might show; when I need hands free it is because I do not have both hands and eyeballs available to deal with a mobile.  I am not alone in having a problem with using Bluetooth for call origination during or after travelling in a car. Over the past three months I have trawled the web for answers; no one has been able to solve the riddle of why it will start off the call correctly. I speak via Bluetooth and say, e.g. ‘OK Google call Fred’, it responds via Bluetooth with ‘Call Fred on loudspeaker,  why? I need hands free because I am driving or otherwise busy and don’t have spare hands available and cannot look at it either. It is sat in a pocket, probably under an item of clothing.

When it has not been near the car, the hands free is more predictable. Why not all the time? Nokia did it years ago but in 2017 it is not possible?

Diverting email from several different accounts to a phone may be useful to many but gives me no gain, the PC sorts them anyway. There is no way to do that hands free on a phone…

The answer is that whatever clever programming has given to you and yours with their lifestyle, the flexibility you benefit from does not extend to me with my odd and perhaps peculiar (to the programmers) usage patterns.

ps If my usage and movement patterns are being reported to anyone (a) they would not take 1kb of data and (b) blink and they would miss the devious details (none).

Ok Richard. But why do you feel the need to jump in on every mobile related thread, and try and belittle the people the use and make the devise. When you just admitted, It just isn’t intend for you?

We get you don’t like having a computer on you, but I think you are in the tiniest of minorities, world wild. Or at least in the 1st world. And in up and coming  countries, mobile Internet is how they see, trade and interact with the outside world. How farmers and children can learn and work.

I’m sure you can fix  for your BT issue, I use my device as an in car handsfree daily, with out issue. Except when phones updated to bt4.0, my old car wouldn’t support it, so I went 12 months, with out aprox 2013/14) But that is neither the car, or the newer phones fault. But rather time. Old car new phone. Funny enough it was the original moto G that was my first phone to have bt4.0 all phones for now.

I’m not sure on your age of car, or rather age of in car BT phone connection, but if it’s running the older bt3.0. That may be the issue. Thou, my issue was it 4.0 just would hand shake properly with the older revision.

As with your emails, you would need to divert any mail.  But it doesn’t matter, you clearly like the way you have things set up.

I don’t know what you mean about your movements being reported back etc. But I can guarantee, at least your network supplier (ee Orange etc) will have records of the phones movements, your Nokia to,though your moto will be more specific, and with your new one Google is defo keeping tabs on you. Unless you have turned it off. It’s a great feature.

You can’t turn off your carrier logging your movements. You probably can’t stop Google either. Rather you just turn off your own access to see the data Google have. So I’d leave it on, and at leave it at home when you doing the bank robberies.

My father in law, can’t do tech, and decent dumb phones are now getting do hard to find. He has had a terrible job finding a good simple phone. He must of had 10+ over the last two year. All failing, in rather ear volume, ringer volume, test on screen size, or button size. I just place an order for the “new” fake nokia 3310, I think that may be dumb enough, for him, but actually be a good phone.

Steve, please let’s keep civil. I responded to your suggestion that shed loads of data being moved meant that my phone was being tracked. I am well aware that cell site and other data is available on the network, I worked with such data (and others) years back, but it would not require access to the mobile set. Frankly that is a ‘do not care’ item for me. Spend money via almost anything except cash and the same thing applies, it can and probably will be tracked back to you but who cares?

Perhaps rashly I had assumed that knowledgeable mobile users might know the solution to the Android <> BT issue. However an explanation came from other contacts saying that frankly the Google implementation of BT leaves a bit to be desired – it was not one of their priorities. I now know from web searches that it is an issue with almost every make of mobile, not just Moto, Sony, LR and others.

As for the BT devices I have two that I use; I am not sure about the headset which is old. It works fine when kept away from the car. The car based one is recent, the same as the ‘phone (4.1 I believe). I tend not to use that car for local journeys to the supermarket, tip or to shopping or hospital car parks> The car BT is not much use the moment I step out of the car…

In short the modern ‘mobile’ can be more like a hammer when I need a drill, so currently it has reduced usefulness to me. I will investigate the use and availability of a wired headphone, it may be more reliable.

I would be very concerned about the amount you are paying, Richard. As Steve says, I have a Wileyfox Swift. I am with EE and have just 512 MB of Data, unlimited text and calls, all for £9.98 a month. I use data all the time when out, text quite a bit now and I figured out emailing and using Firefox on the move a while ago. I have never used all my data, but do come close to it at times. (Esp. when SWMBO and/or a needy grandbrat is trying to track me down!) Since buying a cheap holder at the local Spar filling station, I have almost cracked ‘hands free’ as well.

I am almost into the second decade of the 21st century now…. ???

But it still P****s me off when I can access my EE account quickly and easily over the phone, whereas on the PC it occasionally refuses to believe that my number IS my number! ?