By far my most favorite use is as a notepad that I always have with me. I use a custom keyboard to make typing faster and more accurate.
Anything y’all like to do with your phones that you feel like most people miss out on?
Calling other phones.
tf lol that’s like suggesting eating pizza with just your hand, instead of chopsticks like a proper civilized human
Only scammer use that function.
Weirdly enough, that’s a uniquely US problem.
I also received spam calls on my German number. It’s not that frequent but it happens.
You should report it to the Bundesnetzagentur, spam calls are illegal.
https://www.bundesnetzagentur.de/DE/Vportal/AnfragenBeschwerden/Beschwerde_Aerger/start.html
I didn’t know about this. Thanks !
Same in the UK, quite a few spam calls… odly a few that call an say nothing too - literal silence - then hang up
USB OTG on android phones is severely underrated.
- I can plug in a USB drive and transfer files around, I’ve used this to manage my retro handheld SD cards before.
- You can tether your hotspot over Ethernet to your computer with an Ethernet adapter.
- You can plug Ethernet into your phone to get faster connections.
- You can plug a mouse into your phone and get a cursor on screen. Not super useful tbh, but kinda cool.
- You can use your phone as an external webcam for your computer.
- It’s a bit more annoying than it used to be but you can use your phone as a universal IR remote with a small adapter and free apps (I miss my built in IR blaster from my S3).
- I haven’t used it much, but I can plug in a RTL-SDR dongle and get aerial TV on my phone, or a radio spectrum analyzer. I used it to discover that my garage remote is about to die and that’s why my car’s garage button won’t learn the signal.
- USB (or Bluetooth) game controllers just work.
Definitely a relatively niche usecase but I have SSH clients, terminal apps, RDP remote access clients, and other networking tools as apps on my phone for quickly messing with things. Very helpful to not need to bring out the PC when I’m fixing my network.
The ability to VPN into my home network to access my NAS. Honestly being able to access my NAS in general is already great for backups or just so I don’t have to think about what’s physically on my phone.
With a cheap Bluetooth device I can connect to my car’s diagnostic port (ODBII) and check engine codes. No more trips to the mechanic just to get it diagnosed.
WiFi direct cameras are a great addon too. I have a wifi endoscope (camera on a long bendy stick) for inspecting inside walls and my phone works as a screen for it.
Using a mouse is invaluable if the screen shatters and the touch panel stops working but you still need to get data off it.
When my pixel 5a decided to stop using the screen, I was able to do a full phone backup using the OTG to plug in a keyboard. Ridiculous but was a fun troubleshooting moment
I too miss my build in IR blaster from my S3.
Using a mouse is great for some games like OpenTTD!
I’ve been getting into having a pdf of the various manuals for things around the house on my phone. I recently consulted the manuals for my fridge, a new dehumidifier and the lawn mower and it was pretty awesome not having to find and dig out a paper booklet each time. My phone is on me all the time plus I can get rid of the paper copies.
I use a Galaxy Ultra. currently an S22u previously a Note 9.
I use the stylus everyday. I tired a phone.sans atykus (Pixel Pro) for a month and got rid of it. The sylus is so handy
I have gone ----> Note 8, Note 9, S22u.
I draw work sketches all the time eg just this morning my parter sent me a photo of her mother’s toilet and asked me how to fix it. I typed a long set of instructions, she said huh… And can you draw me a sketch, stylus out and I did and she said now she understands and fixed it herself.
Someone givea me some info, stylus out, tap the screen and start writing eg phone number, address etc. No unlocking necessary. I have used the stylus as a camera remote on the phone but not often.
The styus makes the phone so useful it still beguiles me how peoplendo without. I use a phone and desktop.
Automation. My phone automatically triggers API calls, settings tweaks, launches apps to specific pages/playlists, and collects usage statistics to a local and private location all on its own. This means I only get a day and a half of battery life, but the tradeoff is well worth it in my opinion.
I moved my PC to a corner of my house without an Ethernet jack, I didn’t want to drill any holes, pull any cables, dug out an old smartphone, connected with a micro USB (!) cable, enabled USB tethering, connected the phone via WiFi and had a nice Internet connection
nice, but usb tethering has always been slower than ethernet in my experience
Haven’t needed it in a while, but a wifi analyzer to identify which band(s) are least crowded
Back when we worked it, the app saved so much time and helped explain so much.
I got a waterproof case, so I use mine as a coaster.
Mine is already water resistant up to a couple feet. No case needed for a coaster.
I run a real linux on my phone, so I can use it for anything I can use my laptop/desktop/unix for. I think what people forget is that phones are ultimately just computers with a WWAN radio, and the restrictive nature of Android and especially iOS obfuscate that.
postmarketos or do you run it as a vm?
postmarketOS, native, on pinephone. There’s a few mobile devices these days that can run mobile Linux.
I use my smartphone to keep my book open when reading at a table. It does a pretty good job there.
Don’t limit yourself to technical uses.
Could you have made the advertisement just a bit more obvious, maybe?
What exactly are they advertising?
I had initially mentioned the custom keyboard app I was using. I have since edited the post to remove that, since I’m genuinely interested in people’s answers and don’t want them to think this is an ad.
Seriously, people getting their knickers tite over that shit still?
