The Cell Phone / Mobile Phone Thread

It was pretty inexpensive. And “a week”? I already have it! Good thing, too, as even three days of the Optimus L9 had me gritting my teeth. They would have been ground down to nubs if I had to use that piece o’ crap for a whole week!

I've had a wireless charge receiver in my S4 for about a year, and in the past week it's started getting finicky. I might set my phone down on the charge puck and the puck's light changes color to show it's connected to the receiver, but the phone doesn't start charging. The past few days it's usually worked to tap the phone gently on the spot where the receiver connects to the charge circuit or smack the phone around a bit gently, but sometimes I need to take the back off, reposition the receiver manually, and pray I got it in the right place and it doesn't shift while I put the cover back on.

I'm really reluctant to spend more money on this phone because I'm going to replace it as soon as I have enough money to buy a new one, but do I need a new charge receiver or a fix to the contact points in the phone?

I think I've figured out the problem. I realized that there was no issue with the wireless charging stand I have in my car, and meanwhile even if I unplugged the charge base inside and plugged my phone directly into the cable, I was getting slow charging warnings, and my battery meter actually went down after a couple of hours sitting on the puck when the phone was definitely saying it was charging. I swapped out the cable and still had the same problems. I plugged my new Fire tablet into the same cable there and got slow charge warnings.

The problem is that after four years, and one year powering a Qi base 24/7, my computer's forward USB adapter has had a dramatic drop in current output.

edited 17th Jul '16 6:20:54 PM by TParadox

Yeah, that can happen. You can probably fit one of those extra USB port 5.5" bay front mounted thingies if you're desperate for a convenient charger location.

Eh, I have an AC adapter plugged into the power strip the computer system is on, by the tv, and by the bed, and eventually I'll get a powered hub.

Just recently my internet apps started to go slow and I think it has something to do with my data cap. I use. Straight Talk service with unlimited data but I passed the 5GB limit and I am now moving slower than usual. Should I contact Straight Talk to straighten this out? I really hate this slow speed on my phone and I cannot refill as I already have service activated. That KHUX app really ruined everything for me.

I think you just hit a FUP (fair usage policy) limit and got speed-throttled for that. You could talk to Straight Talk's reps, but depending on their policies regarding such caps there may not be much you can do to restore your connection speeds to normal at the time being. Usually for that to happen, you might need to pay extra fees.

If it's just data use going slowly, that's normal. After you use your 5GB, you're limited to 2G internet speeds.

& Well, I will find some money to pay for that hi speed connection despite already having a service for my phone

Edit:I wonder if I can convince them to lower my phone 3G rather than 4G? Or am I just grasping at straws.

edited 4th Aug '16 10:01:53 PM by GAP

More customer and consumer and buyer friendly news from what I prefer to call the "Cult of the Orchard". Hope you like lightning connectors on your Cult endorsed and hideously expensive earbuds, or burning electricity charging wireless ones (with attendant costs to your fuel bills).

Why? Because you are going to be out of luck if you want to use proper ones with 3.5mm everyone and their mommies has a pair plug on them, with the next iteration of their ever-increasing-in-expense-and-lacking-in-utility fondlephone:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37277965

"The iPhone 7 will not have a traditional headphone socket. Apple said its lightning connector could be used instead, which would make room for other components. It will also promote the use of wireless earphones, and has released a set of its own called earpods."

Jonny Boy Ives is a great designer how?

I am not exactly looking forwards to the price tags on 3.5mm to Lightning or Bluetooth adapters.

Is it even that much thinner?

It can't get much thinner without the screen touching the backplate as it is.

What tickles me is that there's going to be people defending this stupid, anti-consumer practice.

Would like to see them try and copyright the EarPod name when the BBC was using the term in 2006.

BBC already told them to go away at the high port over the Iplayer thingy, which the Cult were really not happy about the name of. At least that's the rumour I heard.

All I can find is them losing the iPhone trademark in China and ITV sending them a C&D over what became the Apple TV.

edited 7th Sep '16 12:33:58 PM by Deadbeatloser22

Hang on, haven't they been called EarPods ever since the 5 came out? I think the new ones are called AirPods.

Oh fuck. They cost 159 USD. So they are indeed including a Lightning to 3.5mm converter with the phone. Just one, though. And given the durability of Apple designed Lightning cables you'll probably be using some made by Anker or some Chinese manufacturer that can't be bothered with MFi certification soon enough...

Oi! Anker makes good shit (at least in the screen protector department). I've bought two and they've been quality.

Anyway, I guess this'll end up being the iPhone generation that truly tests the Apple faithful's ability to commit entirely to their ecosystem, more so than any of its forebears.

Gotta say, Schiller's way of phrasing it was profoundly absurd, though that was kind of going to be an inevitability— I was actually expecting them to ignore the issue entirely and leave the press to deliberate on it, but nope.("Courage?" Seriously? You just turned a cowardly dog's name into a justification for your profit-making decisions. Congrats.)

I'm hoping that Android users will resist it enough to prevent me-too abandonments of the headphone jack on our side of the garden, but the fact that Lenovo and Meizu are both doing it as well is worth being concerned about.

(There's also the issue of whether or not the design decision will bleed over into the iPad line, but I mostly use mine with my Bluetooth speaker anyway so it wouldn't be as big a deal.)

also inb4 headphone jack cases

That wasn't meant as an insult - I was aiming at comparing "aftermarket companies with products that work better than Apple's own" and "aftermarket parties that make cheap products that still somehow last long enough to make long term costs lower than using Apple's own".

Come to think of it, neither are insults...

bluetooth is a thing.... you can get bluetooth headphones for less than fifty bucks. I think I picked up a couple of really cheap sport headphones on ebay for like fifteen.

Remember when Apple stopped making computers with floppy drives, and that was just the final nail in that tech's coffin? Remember when they stopped supporting Flash, and gave the internet the final push it needed to convert to HTML 5?

I will concede to the fact that Apple has been right in the past about abandoning technologies that didn't need to be in vogue anymore, but there is one time they've done that and it hasn't worked: the 2015 MacBook. It's a beautiful, responsive device, and yet, I couldn't in good faith buy one last year because I live in a world where laptops need more than just one USB-C port to be viable computers; support for the standard is growing and hubs/adapters exist, but I don't want to have to resort to an external piece of hardware to use my computer for things as simple as copying a Word file to a flash drive.

(They also have made enough blunders to fill entire posts. Forcing Steve out, the Newton and Lisa, Ping, the iPod shuffle without buttons...)

Furthermore, Lightning as a standard is owned lock, stock and barrel by Apple, meaning that I as a person who uses both mobile platforms daily would have to use an adapter (that I'd probably misplace) if I wanted to get a pair of headphones to work with both my Android phone and my iPad. The port very well may be better at carrying audio, but because it's a proprietary standard you as a user have to bend over backwards to use it if you're not completely invested in their system (which I probably never will be, as I've always preferred Android in a mobile context).

I wouldn't be quite as annoyed with the decision if there was a USB-C port on the iPhone, but putting one of those on it would probably be akin to sacrilege if you asked them.

As for wireless, I can't tell you whether or not the AirPods are equivalent in quality to a comparable pair of plain old earbuds, but they pose the same problem that Lightning headphones do: you're getting locked into the Apple ecosystem (unless they announce Android support for whatever standard they're using for them; again, sacrilege). Bluetooth still doesn't have the quality that I'd like a pair of cans to have, and even then, it's more expensive to get a bad Bluetooth pair than it is to find a good pair of 3.5mm wired 'phones.

tldr the 7 is a product that assumes the user will buy completely into the  tree and it's all too eager to usher in a (proprietary) future that doesn't exist yet

edited 7th Sep '16 5:42:11 PM by Tre

Yeah, the only thing I like about Lightning is that it isn't the old gigantic 10-pin connectors they used originally.

30 pin. But who's counting? (I know I'm not. :P)

I thought they were called 10-pin.

I'm not sure either, as I have seen both numbers of pins quoted.

Meanwhile, those in the UK that want to continue staying loyal to the Cult's infrastructure, and hence buy their new fondlephone, will be no doubt delighted to find out that they're going to have to pay FAR more than their US counterparts for them.

http://arstechnica.co.uk/apple/2016/09/apple-jacks-up-uk-iphone-ipad-prices/

"In the UK the iPhone 7 costs £599 for 32GB of storage, £699 for 128GB, and £799 for 256GB, compared to £539, £619, and £699 for the iPhone 6S. That's a leap of £60 at the low end and a whopping £100 at the top. The iPhone 7 Plus is even more expensive, costing £719 for 32GB of storage, £819 for 128GB, and £919 for 256GB, compared to £619, £699, and £789 for the iPhone 6S. While Apple has doubled storage across the board compared to the iPhone 6S, it did not raise the price of the iPhone 7 is (sic - it should be "in") the US, while the iPhone 7 Plus saw just a $20 increase."

The same sort of "deal" applies to the larger fondleslab, or Ipad.

So... If you want to buy the high end fondlephone, and use Apple's newest earbuds in preference to using the adapter, and you live in the UK, you're going to be paying the north end of 1200 pounds for the privilege. I'm too terrified to try and do the math for the fondleslab plus bud thingys.

I'm sure I've seen Jeremy Clarkson, James May and Richard Hammond tax, insure and MOT really decent CARS for that amount of money. I'm pretty sure that Brexit is going to get the blame for at least some of this price hike, which the American buyers mostly won't have to pay, but the rest? Your guess is as good as mine at this point.

edited 10th Sep '16 4:08:31 PM by TamH70