Ask HN: I bought my first-ever smartphone. Now What? | Hacker News Reader

Ask HN: I bought my first-ever smartphone. Now What?

4 pointsthe-rahul4 comments

Hi,

After spending the last 9 years using a Nokia 1100, I just bought very first Smartphone yesterday - an HTC Desire 816. It can safely be said that I've missed most of the "mobile" revolution and basically used my old mobile phone as just that - a phone, I made and received calls and sent and received text messages. Now , after purchasing this device (which runs Android 4.4.2, by the way), I am at a loss about what to do, what to install etc.

I am a sysAdmin who writes writes small pieces of software by night. I have installed JuiceSSH and Evernote thus far. As for social apps, it came pre-installed with the FB app and Whatsapp, of which I've tried the latter for the first time last night.

I don't know what else to install/ use this for. So I'm asking the community for help to understand this device/OS and what it can be used for. Any help suggestions will be appreciated.

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I dunno, dude. I was like you until recently, but smartphones are really personalized so my experience may not help you. What would you put on a laptop that fits in your pocket? I'm not much for social media apps and am actively hostile to Facebook's app because it has a history of spidering through your contact list and sucking up all your data. My phone has a couple of games (Ziggurat, King of Dragon Pass, and Lords of Midnight), an ebook reader, some useful map stuff, a couple apps that track the various public transport options in London so I know how long I have to wait for the bus. It's entirely possible that none of those are useful to you, if you don't play videogames or don't, you know, live in London. I also have google chrome. And skype. I find my phone (Samsung Galaxy s4) useless for writing longform, although email is more convenient when you can fire one off on the train.

Try not to think like a system administrator.

Instead, think about your unique life. What do you do in your daily life that you might like to enhance? There are apps for just about everything, many suck, some are good. You might also write a better one.

Track your health? Know where your kids are? Calendar and synchronizing with other humans and organizations?

Where might you eat lunch where you are right now? What stars are visible in the night sky, in the direction that you're pointing your phone? What else can you know based on where you are or where you're pointing?

Oh, and take a shitload of pictures. I set my camera to the maximum resolution, so that I can crop and still have a nice result. I also take videos at work when something weird or notable is happening with the [thing] that I test.

Sometimes a picture is the quickest way to note something. I know some people snap every meal they eat, for example. Or take a picture of your kids if you're out somewhere, in case they get lost.

Welcome onboard. If you are a news junkie - 'Feedly' & 'Instagram' are for you and if you often get reading time without internet, 'Pocket' is for you. Photo-editing Aviary, Photo-Sharing Instagram, Flickr. Zomato for finding hotels. Tell your interest so we can suggest based on that.

Try Android programming[1] atleast once. Who knows, maybe you'll enjoy it. That's what happened to me.

[1]: http://www.smashingmagazine.com/2010/10/25/get-started-devel...

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