Interesting phone apps & uses?

[Misery]

Okay so, I got a new phone recently. I had an abrupt realization that maybe my dislike of phones wasn't really about the phone but was more that it was an APPLE phone. I am not so fond of iOS or their restrictions. Their many, MANY restrictions. I doubt I have to elaborate.

So, time to swap. Went Android. Got me a Samsung S23 Ultra. Which totally is definitely not the monolith from 2001: A Space Odyssey.

And... oh yeah. This is better. This is so much better. I can even put my old Atari emulators on there! I can put anything on there! It can interface with my PC for me to put files on there! I don't need to use FREAKING ITUNES just to put music files (or anything else) on it. Amazing! Have these things always been this easy to use? I'd never used a non-iOS mobile device before this week.

Anyway, here's why I'm making this topic: I've been like, extremely out of the loop on phone/mobile stuff for ages now, what with having been stuck with a device I couldn't stand using. So I have no idea what's what with this, which is a tad embarrassing as someone usually known for being into all things techy.

My question to those of you who do use your phones (of any sort) for things alot is: what kinds of things do you do with them? Are there any particularly interesting apps or functions that maybe I should try? Or things that are just extra useful to know about?

I dont mean games here. I can handle that part myself. I mean just... everything else.

Just... yeah, I'd love any recommendations or ideas and whatnot, anything at all.

 

[Jumpinbare]

Geocaching
Astronomy
Video streaming services
Audio streaming services
Weather apps
personal emergency medical info apps
Whatever your special interest(s) apps

 

[Rodafina]

All Trails - hiking

AllTrails: Trail Guides & Maps for Hiking, Camping, and Running

Search over 400,000 trails with trail info, maps, detailed reviews, and photos curated by millions of hikers, campers, and nature lovers like you.

www.alltrails.com

White Noise

White Noise Lite - Apps on Google Play

Great white noise sleep sounds. Find out why the world is sleeping better.

play.google.com

Adobe Fresco - for light art stuff

Digital painting and drawing app | Adobe Fresco

Adobe Fresco is a powerful drawing app with the world’s largest digital brush collection. Try an exceptional digital painting and drawing experience for stylus and touch devices.

www.adobe.com

 

[MC1Rcat]

I have an S23 ultra and have been a Samsung user for years (switched over after Apple iphone 5) because you can modify the launcher for the operating system and reduce the background motion and screen dynamics that trigger my vestibular and neurological problems ex: migraines. If I do not have this option I cannot even look at the phone for 5 minutes without feeling severe nausea. Apple phones only have a motion reduction setting, and probably a blue light filter by now, which do not fix things for my eyes/ brain enough.

apps I use for mods:

ADW1 launcher (may not be available anymore...but you can try other launchers to see what settings they allow) This allows me to change where apps are stored, folders for apps or not, what's on the lock screen, home screen, 2nd or 3rd screen....or how many screens you want( I only have home and lock), icon size, widgets and their placement, font size and color, clock, etc....also the speed at which screen transition effects happen and if there is bounce, buttons for accessing icon screen or no button..you can set swiping motions etc.

Sfilter (best blue light filter I have found so far because it lets you change the color of the filter and has a moveable, sizeable widget. I use a greyish pink color, which allows truer colors and cuts down on triggers)

I also change the themes (background color, icons and font, some even have ringtones)....I get them from the Galaxy store. There are a lot of free ones and you can try before you buy others....if you get bored with how your phone looks....whoa! you won't ever be anymore! I use plain themes that have no animation. I don't know how, but the themes being overlaid on top of the operating system has an effect on the screen dynamics...increasing or decreasing them. I currently use one called black paper.

You can also change the icons if you don't like the ones on the theme you are currently using. I just install them after doing the launcher and theme. You can get these from the galaxy store also. You can also get new ringtones if you want something different...or you can record your own or use a music file that you have uploaded!

I also use my phone to read and mark up pdfs, work on microsoft word and excel documents or google docs...so I can use it a lot for work and study purposes. This is just the tip of the iceberg! I hope you have fun exploring!

 

[tazz]

I use Google Drive to view PDFs (even the ones not on Google Drive, e.g. downloads). For me it is the easiest PDF viewer I've encountered so far - not for marking up PDFs or anything fancy like that, just reading, scrolling, zooming. I mention it because it wasn't clear to me that Drive would be good for PDF viewing. I installed it for other reasons and then the next time I tried to view a PDF it asked if I wanted to use Drive, so I did, and now I always do.

 

[Progster]

I have an Android phone and use a PDF scanner for work, weather app, music app (foobar), step counter, brisk walk minutes counter (Active 10), google maps, but don't use a lot of apps because of the constant bombardment with ads that I can't block like I do on my desktop.

I'm very interested in any useful app that doesn't have ads.

 

[Metalhead]

I mainly use my phone to stream music with headphones when I am out in public.

 

[Misery]

Okay so it's been a number of days of me having my phone here and I've had a chance to explore some of it.

First off, like what @MC1Rcat said, I went and checked out the themes... geez there are a LOT of these. I musta spent like 20 minutes just browsing through the Samsung store thing for those, I eventually picked up this one:

It's animated on the lock screen, which is really cool.

Though I'm looking at this image here and it doesnt look remotely as good as it does on the actual phone screen. Bit of a screen door effect with this monitor really. But on the phone it just looks gorgeous.

On the note of visuals the strangest thing about it so far is that the resolution starts out different than it should be? Like, it's not using the max resolution unless you go into settings and change it. I dont mean the theme, I mean everything. That was strange.

Well, the experience has been odd in general, I'm having to learn a whole new OS here and there's like 5 bazillion functions that I dont even know yet. There's this helpful tips section in there, and I thought it was going to be like these 3 or 4 quick tips on how to poke the screen or something like that, but it's this giant long list of soooooooo many things it can do. iOS wasnt like this, it always felt like it just couldnt do much at all.

And then the number of options and functions just spikes even higher once you start using the pen thing.

So far I've gone and set up some of my retro game emulators on here, which is quite the strange experience really. And I've got my various AI-related things (as I actually use the various text AIs like ChatGPT and Bing quite a lot) on there. I also got a fractal app, so I can make those on there.

Honestly the only problem I'm having right now isnt really with the phone, it's instead a pain thing. I'm not used to having to look down a lot while sitting and such, so my neck is kinda messed up. But my physical therapist tells me I kinda gotta push through some of that...

Geocaching

I looked this up... this looks really interesting. I do a lot of hiking. Wouldnt it be kinda dangerous though? Like... you're dealing with things just left there by random people? Fortunately the actual area I'm in isnt dangerous... unless you think grass is scary or something... but that part, I dont know what to think of that. If there's ways to be safe doing this I might actually try it out.

Adobe Fresco - for light art stuff

Digital painting and drawing app | Adobe Fresco

Adobe Fresco is a powerful drawing app with the world’s largest digital brush collection. Try an exceptional digital painting and drawing experience for stylus and touch devices.

www.adobe.com

Ah, I'd not thought of this! I do have an Adobe account and the weird pen thing, so this I'll have to try (well, probably, it's confusing to keep track of what is ON the account, they've got so many different apps and such, I'm not actually sure what's in mine).

I'm very interested in any useful app that doesn't have ads.

Yeah, this is exactly what I'm generally after as well. Either apps that are just premium one-time buys, or apps that have an available purchase in them to activate said premium ad-free version. If the app in question doesnt offer a premium version, I usually just wont use it.

I mainly use my phone to stream music with headphones when I am out in public.

Yeah, I'm probably going to do this a whole lot. I picked up some noise cancelling headphones recently... finally... to help with my sensory and anxiety issues. I havent set them up yet.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Depends on what you're into, but I've got a bunch of circuit simulators, IDEs and cool programmable calculators on my phone. Not to mention DOSBox, and probably even Retroarch (although I don't even know if I've used the latter because I hardly ever game anymore).

Some top picks:

- Proto
- Voltsim
- Logic Circuit Sim
- Pydroid / Cxxdroid / Javadroid (seriously underrated series of IDEs)
- GNU Octave (FOSS Matlab clone without the library support)
- Calculate84
- GCalculator
- HiPER Calc
- Love 2D (game engine)
- TIC 80 (fantasy console)
- Hexen (modular synth)
- FL Studio Mobile (DAW)
- Termux

It's kind of cool that you can literally take a decent picture and code your own image manipulation filter for it, save it to jpeg and email it to friends or upload it to instagram on a borderline-potato. I think most people underestimate the power they literally hold in their hand on a daily basis.

 

[Misery]

I think most people underestimate the power they literally hold in their hand on a daily basis.

Yeah, I'm definitely getting this impression. The amount of power in this thing is staggering. And these gizmos are horribly expensive... if I'm going to own something so high-end I want to make sure I'm really getting full use out of it.

Like I've got my fractal apps, normally those are a very heavy drain on whatever they're running on... even high end modern systems can be dragged to a near halt by them... but this thing is lightning fast for those compared to how I generally expect a mobile device to be with something that demanding.

Not to mention other functionality that isnt just the phone itself. Like I use AI stuff a lot (I don't mean image generators), heck I'm running the Edge browser on this PC here (which, it turns out, I actually really like, whereas I absolutely hated Chrome with the blazing passion of a thousand stars) and I've gotten so used to just poking the sidebar to use the Copilot functions (Bing). And of course I've got ChatGPT access. Amazing how useful these are. Heck, I almost went and looked up those things you just listed in the old way of Googling them, which would have taken forever, but then I'm like "wait, there's a less stupid way to do this". Fed the list into GPT and just said hey, please tell me what all of these are, and bam, it just immediately did so.

And so now I've got those on the phone too.

Currently I've also went and looked at some videos of the sort that are like, okay, for new users here's all these features you're probably not aware of and here's some recommended settings, and... good grief there's so much here. I found out about the Swiftkey keyboard thing, omigod that is so much better than the usual poke-poke-poke way of typing on these things. And the autocomplete isnt made of crazy. Granted sometimes it's like "okay you just typed S(EK%HVO and I dont even know what to do with that" as I'm still learning how to do the weird sliding thing.

Seriously have these things always been this versatile? Suddenly I feel I've really been missing out all this time.

The one thing I havent really tried is gaming, but I've found a great site for finding premium & indie games, and apparently I can get this thing to work with my Xbox controller, because apparently that makes sense somehow. This is exactly the sort of thing that'll give me a lot more options for stuff to do while I'm at the other house (where I dont have a PC and usually only have the Xbox with me).

Also yes I have Retroarch and stuff like that. Setting up emulators was one of the first things I did. Though there's no way I can fit my entire archive on here, the thing would explode.

 

[Slime_Punk]

Seriously have these things always been this versatile? Suddenly I feel I've really been missing out all this time.

I felt the same way within recent years. It's like the they just gradually improved while we weren't looking and the next minute, they were like mini-PCs.

Also, I'm not sure if you know about this but scrcpy lets you basically control your phone in real-time with your PC. Just for the accessibility / ease of use alone, it seems like a really awesome tool.

Also you're making me want to check out Edge again, which I never thought I'd say to anybody. The fact that they suddenly have Ublock and Dark Reader makes me think the same thing: "When did all of this happen?"

 

[Jumpinbare]

Okay so it's been a number of days of me having my phone here and I've had a chance to explore some of it.
:

...




I looked this up... this looks really interesting. I do a lot of hiking. Wouldnt it be kinda dangerous though? Like... you're dealing with things just left there by random people? Fortunately the actual area I'm in isnt dangerous... unless you think grass is scary or something... but that part, I dont know what to think of that. If there's ways to be safe doing this I might actually try it out.
.

Actually Geocaching is family-safe. A lot of families with kids are into it. There's a lot of user feedback, and fairly strict rules what can be in a cache, where it can be (like if on private property has to have owner permission, or not in a dangerous traffic area, etc). Caches that don't meet criteria don't last long because of user feedback. So if you are doubtful of safety, you can see how many finds there have been, and don't do new ones till there have been several finds logged

 

[tazz]

You know what they say... "safety third"

 

[MC1Rcat]

Well, the experience has been odd in general, I'm having to learn a whole new OS here and there's like 5 bazillion functions that I dont even know yet. There's this helpful tips section in there, and I thought it was going to be like these 3 or 4 quick tips on how to poke the screen or something like that, but it's this giant long list of soooooooo many things it can do. iOS wasnt like this, it always felt like it just couldnt do much at all.

And then the number of options and functions just spikes even higher once you start using the pen thing.

Yeah, I have had the phone over a year now and it can do waaaay more than I am aware of and I have been through all of the settings on it and the Developer mode. They add things with software updates too! The Accessibility settings may help you do more things without looking at your phone so much... using voice commands or setting up side buttons or swipe directions to open frequently used apps, answer the phone, etc. I also love the Edge panel for apps I use a lot and for having a speed dial icon set, reminders and weather....and it is neatly tucked away on the side...so I dont have to see it all the time and can have a clean screen. You can also use the S pen as a remote controller for some things...AND... if you get into the whole world of Bixby routines, there is a ton of stuff you can automate according to your location, the day of the week, time of day or which wifi source you are connected to. That might help with having to look at the phone often. For example you could have your Bluetooth come on and have your music app open and your volume set to a certain level ....just by walking out of range from your home wifi. You can also setup Bixby routines to communicate with AI controlled devices in your home. Like, you could have your garage door open whenever your car is within a certain range from the house. There's all kinds of nuts stuff I have seen youtubers doing with the routines. There are tons of videos out there on these things. I get my mind blown every time I watch one.

 

[MC1Rcat]

Like, it's not using the max resolution unless you go into settings and change it. I dont mean the theme, I mean everything. That was strange.

It is strange that the settings start out on the more "medium" range for everything. But, I think this is to avoid using the battery up too fast. There is also a power saving mode, which helps extend the battery to days, in case you are stuck somewhere w/o a charger or have an emergency situation. The phone also has a lot of health and safety/ emergency settings/ call features. It's great for people who need the security of a medical alert system as well. I have a side button programmed to call EMS if I press it 3 times, since I am a faint/ fall risk. It is amazing how many things the phone can do...and it's not on Samsung's website. You have to watch youtube techie videos to find out about it...and each OS update, things get even better. Starting with the S23, Samsung will be making updates for the phones for 5 years now...yay!

 

[Jumpinbare]

I shy away from updates. I have had 2 older Android phones become nearly useless after an update. I honestly believe they send you a sabotage update after your phone gets so old, so that you get frustrated and buy a new one.

 

[Progster]

I have the Geocaching app too, but have only found one cache, the reason being that I don't have a car. Pretty useless without a car. Otherwise a great idea, and something I would want to do more if I had the means.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I have the Geocaching app too, but have only found one cache, the reason being that I don't have a car. Pretty useless without a car. Otherwise a great idea, and something I would want to do more if I had the means.

Greatly depends on the area. There are a number within walking distance of my house, and I am a bit off the "beaten path". In higher population areas, geocaches abound.

 

[MC1Rcat]

I shy away from updates. I have had 2 older Android phones become nearly useless after an update. I honestly believe they send you a sabotage update after your phone gets so old, so that you get frustrated and buy a new one.

Do you have Verizon? When I had Verizon, I used to have that problem a lot....because Verizon updates the technology on their network on a constant basis. Then, when the software on your phone is no longer updated by the phone's manufacturer (this used to be after 2 -3 years for Samsung Galaxy), your phone will no longer be compatible with the carrier's (Verizon) network. My phones used to start dropping calls, and missing calls and voice messages after 2 or 3 years, and I would have to get a new one...because no amount of troubleshooting would fix it. This happened to me (and my roommate) for a few years...and about 3 phones...until I talked to someone else who had another phone carrier and had the same phone as my (then) last phone. They had no problems at all! When I switched to ATT, I no longer had that problem. I think Verizon does it on purpose to force people into buying new phones. Just before I switched, I had the problem again, and Verizon was telling me I had to either upgrade my phone service plan to a 5G plan or get a new device in order for the phone to work properly. I realized I was being conned/ strongarmed, and I switched to ATT with the same phone....it worked just fine on the ATT network for a couple more years!!!! and would have kept going if I had not wanted a new phone. I still have it and it is still a perfectly good phone...there are just no more software updates for it from Samsung.... so it is no longer compatible with Verizon's network.

 

[Jumpinbare]

I am on Straight Talk, which uses Verizon as one of it's carriers. On this phone, I am going to resist updates as long as I can, and see if the phone operates properly for a longer or shorter time. I let the phone update when I bought it so it would be starting fully up to date, but I have blocked updates since then. I am always getting nag-o-gram notifications to update, but I clear them and continue as always.