It is very ironic, but up until a few months ago I did not own a smart phone. Well, that is not completely true. I did have a few smart phones, but they were all for testing my mobile apps and weren't actually linked to a phone plan, and thus could not make calls. Mostly my lack of a phone was due to me being frugal, aka cheap. I did have a prepaid cell phone, but I rarely knew where it was, or had it charged so in all practicality I did not have a cell phone and there were aspects about it that were nice. Particularly not having to feel guilty when I was tapping at my phone instead of paying attention to the people around me. (I went out to dinner tonight with my family and my sister and father were guilty of this, but I forgave them because they were playing my new Open Face Chinese Poker game which is really fun, and pretty addicting.)
So now I have a phone. I got a Samsung Galaxy Note 2, which is gigantic, it is practically a tablet, and is often called a phablet. I chose it because it has a huge battery removable/replacable battery that easily lasts all day and sometimes two, it has a micro sd card slot, and a decent camera. The stylus is kind of cool too. I like it for the most part, but I cannot use it one-handed at all, and I think the camera on my husbands iPhone 5 is better even though on paper they should be the same.
The most exciting new thing I discovered and have used since getting my phone is podcasts. I didn't really understand what podcasts were all about or when would be a good time to listen to them, but now I find them great to listen to while folding laundry, cleaning the house, or when driving in the car.
Whenever I talked to my sister, she would say, "I heard a story on NPR..." It made me want to listen to NPR, but since I rarely drive very far I was rarely able to catch more than parts of shows. But NPR has podcasts of all their shows. I particularly like the Planet Money podcasts, and the TED Radio hour. I have also listened to the Startup Success Podcast and Freakonomics Radio and I can use the podcast app (BeyondPod) to easily download the girls storynory.com stories. It is all pretty cool.
