This if my first smartphone. I've been waiting years for Verizon to finally get a decent phone, and like most people I had iPhone envy but was never willing to leave my network. I'm glad I waited. Anyway... I thought this might be helpful for people on how to "set up" their phones (and cars).
#1 Tape Deck audio adapter. Had this for my iPod, yes, I'm in the stone age with no bluetooth or whatever people use for wireless integration. I have a car charger, car mount, and tape deck adapter with my car. I get in it, mount it, turn internet radio on, (shoutcast app I downloaded for 4 bucks), navigation if needed, and drive. While driving, the navigation will give me directions through my car speakers, and if I get a phone call, I call and accept it, the navigation and internet radio will stop while the person's voice is coming through my car speakers, and they can hear me absolutely fine. So far 2 people have seen me having a conversation through my car and were very impressed. Personally, I'm amazed. I can talk and drive at the same time now, completely and totally hands free and can turn up the volume and hear the person on level 10 if I wish. Warning : turn down volume when mom calls. Not a good thing to have the car next to you laughing.
#2 Locale. Yes, its buggy, but they are aware and they are working on it. This app has incredible implications. I have it set so that when I'm at work (and a few block radius around work like the other buildings) it goes to silent mode, and changes the background picture to a plain black background, getting rid of any inappropiate backgrounds. Heh.
#3 Google voice. I use this to call all of my friends out of network (I only really talk to 2 people outside of my network consisitently) and I'll use it for, say, calling an 800 customer service # out of network. I also have this for all texts, and the few people I do text often know to text my google voice #. No charge. No wasted minutes. Amazing.
#4 Have a shortcut to automatically give me navigation back home. Got this tip from this forum, long press, add, shortcut, maps, add an address, put that shortcut on your homepage. Perfect. I'm notoriously bad with directions. Almost disfunctional. Now I'm Magellan.
In short, I'm amazed. I can't believe all the stuff I can do with this thing. My friend yelled at me today and told me to stop playing with it. He was right, I put it down, had my lunch, and waited til I got back into the car, then played with it again.
Hope some of these tips help you guys out with your setups. I'm not sure how many peopel are aware of the car setup.
-Wil
#1 Tape Deck audio adapter. Had this for my iPod, yes, I'm in the stone age with no bluetooth or whatever people use for wireless integration. I have a car charger, car mount, and tape deck adapter with my car. I get in it, mount it, turn internet radio on, (shoutcast app I downloaded for 4 bucks), navigation if needed, and drive. While driving, the navigation will give me directions through my car speakers, and if I get a phone call, I call and accept it, the navigation and internet radio will stop while the person's voice is coming through my car speakers, and they can hear me absolutely fine. So far 2 people have seen me having a conversation through my car and were very impressed. Personally, I'm amazed. I can talk and drive at the same time now, completely and totally hands free and can turn up the volume and hear the person on level 10 if I wish. Warning : turn down volume when mom calls. Not a good thing to have the car next to you laughing.
#2 Locale. Yes, its buggy, but they are aware and they are working on it. This app has incredible implications. I have it set so that when I'm at work (and a few block radius around work like the other buildings) it goes to silent mode, and changes the background picture to a plain black background, getting rid of any inappropiate backgrounds. Heh.
#3 Google voice. I use this to call all of my friends out of network (I only really talk to 2 people outside of my network consisitently) and I'll use it for, say, calling an 800 customer service # out of network. I also have this for all texts, and the few people I do text often know to text my google voice #. No charge. No wasted minutes. Amazing.
#4 Have a shortcut to automatically give me navigation back home. Got this tip from this forum, long press, add, shortcut, maps, add an address, put that shortcut on your homepage. Perfect. I'm notoriously bad with directions. Almost disfunctional. Now I'm Magellan.
In short, I'm amazed. I can't believe all the stuff I can do with this thing. My friend yelled at me today and told me to stop playing with it. He was right, I put it down, had my lunch, and waited til I got back into the car, then played with it again.
Hope some of these tips help you guys out with your setups. I'm not sure how many peopel are aware of the car setup.
-Wil
