Smart Phone...

Well, I've joined the rest of humanity with a new smart phone.

They can't put marshmallow on a flip phone apparently.

It's a Moto x Pure at the 32 gb size.  Amazon had it for sale for $399.

I've put bank apps and facebook and the usual thing.  I'm very interested in the navigation apps.

I loaded Waze and Google maps is built in.  I'll try them going back and forth to work.

Other items of usefulness are the voice commands and the timers.  Alarms and stop watch and count up timers -- all somewhat useful.


5/30/16 Update

I've tried to add as much stuff to the phone as is on my laptop.  I do have a tablet that I'm going to use as the main I/O device, but I wanted controls and knowledge at hand.  Campground reservations were made a long time ago.  In CA, campgrounds fill up and getting somewhere where they forgot you, might be a minor pain.  I wanted to access reservation numbers easily.

As I am late to the smart phone party, I am amazed at what they can do.  I'll be leaving my slide rule at home.  I do wish my near term vision were like the old days, the screens could be bigger.  But, still impressed.

What is really nice is the voice to text features and interfaces for some of the apps.  Useful and mostly accurate.  I hope they continue to make it better.  I used Dragon Naturally Speaking 15 years ago and it worked pretty well.  It did want you to talk in complete sentences -- a skill few have.

Waze seems useful and I used it a few times around home. "Traffic is not moving!"  not really useful news since I was in it.  I intend to use it for final destination directions and the gross stuff is up to a Garmin GPS.  In a couple of days I'll be trying to get out of LA -- we'll see what works.


Power in the car may be an issue.  I suddenly have a lot of stuff that has a thirst for power.  I was intending to charge as I drove, but that may be problem.  Some of the devices want a lot of current.  The tablet will not charge on the typical USB plug in.  I believe they are about an amp.  I'll have access to more than that in the car.  I alos have a Lime Fuel brick that has a lot of juice, so I may be relying on that more than I suspect.  All questions for the future!

Today is final stuff.  Gathering of the goods.  I'll do the packing tomorrow.  Food and stuff will be light for the first night.  I'll not worry about that until after Santa Monica.

If anyone is interested in more gear details, drop in a comment and I'll try to answer it.

Rich