A week in a lifeboat......

similar tale- except I got comfy in my old lifeboat phone and nothing currently on the market tempts me.

Anyway, check out fruux.com for excellent cross-platform contact and calendar synchronization. I've used it for over a decade to keep devices from different families playing nicely.

Good luck!

 

Yup, my first "smart" phone, still using it, 5+ years on. Fit's in the hand nicely, has all I need.

 

if you find Safari limited and prefer a more open experience I give iCab about 400 stars out of 5. It's so good you have to wonder how the "walled garden cops" missed it.

 

I've used Tracfones forever. Every few years I get a new one and finally they started using smartphones. Now I feel like I am in the 90's.

 

Wow! That is really interesting! Because I have also gone from Android (OnePlus One?) to iPhone 5s last week.

I've been using my OnePlus One? (the original flagship killer) with 64GB of storage since early 2015 and it's been great! But it's beginning to show its age, mostly in physical body. The outer case is a bit cracked up (though the screen is fine), I never kept it in a case, only had a screen protector on it. It works 100% fine.

The other day I was over at my sister's and she gave me two of her iPhone 5s's since she and her husband upgraded. My plan was to sell them both and get my 16 year old son a replacement for his OnePlus Two ? (he is way tougher on his phone than I am on mine and his is falling apart despite being a year newer). As many of his school friends have iPhones he wanted an iPhone, but I was not going to plunk a grand for a teen phone. So we decided to try the 5s. He transferred all his stuff to a black 32GB model and I did so to a white 16GB one (those were my sister's and her husband's old phones). For me it's an experiment as I have never owned an Apple device of any kind. The kid loves his (save for too small a screen).

I have mixed feelings about the Apple experience. For the most part it works fine, but I get really frustrated with so many little things that were just normal on Android and are either impossible or difficult or expensive on the iPhone. The 5s does work as designed very well, my sister has kept it in perfect condition, so it's like new. Camera is excellent, battery life serviceable (my 4 year old One plus is better), the solid feel of the device is great and as an actual telephone for phone calls its small statute is actually more convenient than my 5+" OnePlus. But certain apps that are important to me like Torque and Hybrid Assistant are not available. I know I can still use my Android phone for those, but it's nice to have one device for everything. Anyway, I am giving this iPhone thing a try, but I am not blown away by it compared to Android. It does same things and certain things it can't do (ever try to connect your iPhone to a samba share?). Maybe I still haven't learned everything there is to learn about the iPhone, but so far I am unimpressed by the walled garden and there are simply no compelling reasons to drop the ridiculous money they cost on them, IMO.

 

It is true that when someone is in a public location and nothing to do the cell phones come out of the pockets. Is this just a fad and will something come along that will ever replace the cell phone?

 

I still think the 5S was Apple's best looking phone ever. And the touch ID was fantastic. It still is, for that matter. And how many phones that came out in 2013 can still run the latest operating system?

The best thing about the iPhones is how they play so well with Apple's computers. It would take too long to list all the conveniences. The two I use the most are copying and pasting between phone and computer and being able to read and answer text messages on the computer without picking up the phone. I can even use the computer to talk on the phone, but I rarely do that since I don't need everyone in the building hearing both sides of my conversations.

My two biggest beefs?
No Torgue Pro version for iOS. That's just criminal.
When you adjust the volume while watching a video, a giant volume indicator pops up in the middle of the screen. It's huge and right in the center.

 

I’ve been an apple fanboy from day one. I’m using an iPhone X now and love it.

 

I'm using windows PC, but like the iPhone experience. For example: that every app opens right where you left it. And there's usually a very direct and intuitive way to do most anything you need to do.

 

I am new to iPhone. Please tell me what is the intuitive way to "dismiss" the incoming call when the phone is locked? I have a very obvious way to answer the call, but no obvious way to dismiss it if the call happened to come when the phone is locked. When the phone is unlocked, there are two buttons: one green (to answer) and one red (to dismiss). However when the phone is locked and the call comes in I have no obvious way to dismiss the call. What?! I am sure I am missing something, but there is nothing obvious. On an android phone there is always an option do either answer or dismiss. Help.

 

" it doesn't have a rotary dial on it or (and) I don't know where to put the quarter. "

Sadly, that's pretty much me.
I'm NOT ancient yet. But I do remember rotary phones, and when phones were JUST phones.

No we debate functionality based on 100+ things the "phone" does or doesn't do, besides being a Phone. And we attach terms of being Obsolete to a product that is only 5 years old. In fact we've come to expect that obsolete reality to happen.

As someone who really enjoyed the Golden Era of the classic flip phone, I think we should expect product functionality beyond 5 years, but it ego, the rapid advancement of all computer based technology, and great marketing that has us leasing and upgrading our "cell phones" yearly.

And we imagine or even embrace the embarrassment of NOT having the latest and greatest.

But how much do our cell phones NEED to do? They are our portable connection to the internet, sadly I think sometimes almost our entire world, they are camera's and recorders of anything at any time. They are our connection to entertainment.

I was in line at Subway-Sandwich Shop, the other day. As I went down the assembly line of sandwich construction the guy behind me in line was also having his sandwich built.

While I was just directly telling the girl, what I wanted on my sandwich and how I wanted it, the guy next to me, seemed proud to be able to be in line, and also talking hands free to someone on the phone simultaneously.
So when the girl would ask him what type of bread, he would answer, then talk to the person on the phone, same with meat choices and condiments. The girl, I don't think realized he was ALSO talking on the phone, so he was confusing her at every step. By having a simultaneous discussion. Something like he would say, " I'd like Tomatoes, Olives and Peppers"...to her, then say to the person on the phone..."You don't like Tomatoes? " Then the girl would say....."You don't want Tomatoes?"...then he would say...in a snotty tone.."Yes, Tomatoes"....and on an on.
My feeling was......get off the damn phone. Have ONE discussion at a time. Do we really need to multi-task to that level? He wasn't having the sandwich built for the person on the phone, he was just talking about his sandwich to the person on the other end.

Rant, rant, rant...I'm just not sure it wasn't a better world when we didn't carry the world around in our pockets, and we were forced more often to look out on the world instead of look into a screen.

I started to NOT love Cell Phones, not 5 years ago, but way back when the Flip Phone suddenly wasn't in vogue. Hey, you always knew when someone was talking on a Flip Phone. You didn't need a retinal scan or finger print reader to use it. It was pretty much good at 1 thing...being a phone. And..IMO that was kind of nice.

 

Click the power button twice. That's the actual power button on top (old ones) or right side (new ones) One click silences the ringer while keeping the call ringing, the second click rejects the call.

I think there's more than one way to do it, but this method is available by default in all versions of iphone hardware & software.

 

^ Oh good, someone knew.

 

I really need to get my regular phone working again. It's the iphone se. Same shell & dimensions as the old 5s but newer guts for faster uh, call rejection? Whatever, it was a great phone until it went swimming. I put it in the food dehydrator for a week and everything worked except the camera. So I bought a new camera part for it and did the tiny careful surgery and.... still no camera.

Doing the math I've been in the lifeboat about 36 weeks now.


WILSONNNN!!

 

You beat me to it. I've read that the rational for not having a reject button when it's locked is that when it's locked, it's quite likely in your pocket or purse and you wouldn't want to accidentally hit any buttons while fishing it out. However, it would have been a simple matter to add the words, "Press power button twice to reject call" somewhere on that screen when it's ringing while locked.

By the way, pressing it once silences the ring without rejecting it or answering it.

 

That reminds me of one of the early Breaking Bad episodes: obnoxious bank line loud-talker.

 

I feel your pain! What ever happened to the phrase, "I'll call you back?"