Smart Phone Tips Archives - Rick's Daily Tips

Q&A: Will the battery in my phone charge faster if it’s turned off?

Posted on March 21, 2020

Question from Dorenda J.: Hi Rick! I have a question about charging my phone.

I lead walking tours through the streets of my historic home town and I only have a few minutes here and there when I can plug my iPhone in for a quick charge.

Someone told me my phone will charge faster if I turn it off before I plug it in. Is that true?

Rick’s answer: Yes it is true, Dorenda. The innards of your iPhone consist of some pretty sophisticated electronic devices, including a CPU, some memory chips and multiple send/receive radios. [Read more…]

How to turn your old smart phone into a metal detector

Posted on March 13, 2020

We Americans love upgrading to a new smart phone at every opportunity, and most of us have several of them stuffed in a drawer somewhere.

If you’re like me, you probably hate having a perfectly good portable computer (that’s really what a smart phone is) doing nothing more than gathering dust.

I’ve written several posts in the past explaining how to give an old smart phone a new life by turning it into something useful (like a wireless security camera), and I have another such tip for you today. [Read more…]

Q&A: How much faster is 4G LTE than 2G?

Posted on March 10, 2020

Question from Roberta L.: I closed my T-Mobile account yesterday and bought a Straight Talk phone because I wasn’t happy with the service I was getting from T-Mobile.

So far the Straight Talk service seems to be a lot better in my neck of the woods.

When I bought the new phone I also bought one of the cards for Straight Talk’s $35 plan.

Now I’m thinking that might have been a mistake because when I put the Straight Talk app on my new phone it said the first 3GB of data I use will be “high speed” 4G LTE but after that it’ll switch to 2G speed.

What exactly does that mean? Is there a huge difference in the speeds of 4G LTE and 2G? I do a lot of video streaming and I’m pretty sure I’ll use more than 3GB every month.

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

How to charge your Apple devices with any standard microUSB charger

Posted on March 2, 2020

Note: The links in this post are affiliate links.

Have you ever needed to charge your iPhone, iPad or iPod only to discover that you forgot to bring your lightning cable or charger with you?

If so, you’ll be glad to know there’s a simple way to charge all of your lightning compatible Apple devices using a standard wall or car charger. [Read more…]

Here’s a very simple way to reduce your phone’s monthly data usage

Posted on February 24, 2020

Do you have a smartphone? If so, it probably has dozens of apps installed on it.

Some of those apps were likely installed manually by you, but most of them probably came pre-installed on your phone from the factory.

Most of your phone’s installed apps have one thing in common: They’re constantly sending data to and receiving data from remote servers located in various parts of the world.

This isn’t usually a problem for most users, but if you happen to have a cellular contract with a limited data plan it can be a huge problem for you! [Read more…]