Smart Phone Tips Archives - Page 50 of 65

How to backup or restore your iPhone, iPad or iPod Touch with iCloud

Posted on September 15, 2015

If you have an Phone, iPad or iPod Touch you probably have tons of apps, photos, music and other files on your device(s).

Making regular backups will ensure that you’ll be able to easily restore all of those precious items if something should ever happen to your device.

You have several options when deciding how to back up your iOS device, but my preferred method by far is backing up to your iCloud account. If you’d like to use iCloud to store your backups as well, here’s how to do it: [Read more…]

Q&A: Why won’t my LG G3 phone connect to the Internet?

Posted on September 8, 2015

Question from Gina: Hi Rick. I need help!!! I have an LG G3 phone with 4G-LTE. For the last few days I’ve been unable to connect to the Internet over the Sprint network.

The phone gives me an error message stating that it’s unable to connect to the network. I can make and receive phone calls just fine and I can use the Internet with Wi-Fi. It just won’t connect to the Sprint network.

I’ve checked all the settings and nothing seems to be set incorrectly. Can you tell me how to fix this?

Rick’s answer: [Read more…]

Verizon customers: Be prepared to pay full price for a new phone after August 13

Posted on August 10, 2015

Many of are used to upgrading to a new mobile phone every couple of years and receiving the new phone either for free or at a greatly reduced price. But if you are a Verizon customer, that perk is about to come to an end.

The major cell carriers have traditionally offered their customers a selection of subsidized phones in exchange for having them sign on to two year contracts. If a customer subsequently canceled their contract before the two years was up, they would have to pay for the phone by coughing up a huge Early Termination Fee. [Read more…]

T-Mobile ‘Simple Choice’ customers can use their phones anywhere in North America for no extra charge.

Posted on July 13, 2015

Beginning July 15, all T-Mobile customers who have a “Simple Choice” plan will be able to use their phones to make voice calls, send and receive texts and use their 4G LTE data anywhere in North America with no roaming charges.

The need to pay expensive roaming charges after crossing the border into Mexico or Canada has always been a major issue for cellular customers who travel between the U.S. and our two neighboring countries. But after the 15th, that issue will no longer exist for “Simple Choice” customers. [Read more…]

Step-by-step instructions for performing a factory reset on dozens of popular smart phones

Posted on July 5, 2015

Today’s smart phones are actually small, but powerful hand-held computers that are subject to all the annoyances and dangers that can afflict their larger cousins like laptops and desktop PCs.

Indeed, phones often become bloated with unnecessary apps and corrupted files. And unfortunately, they can even become infected with malware.

Fantastic apps like Lookout Mobile Security and Clean Master can help keep your phone free of malware, bloatware and other junk, but phones can still occasionally get so messed up and unstable that they become virtually unusable. And in extreme instances, they even lock up completely.

When situations like these arise, the best (and sometimes only) option is to simply do a factory reset on the phone and start over from scratch. But what if you don’t know how to do a factory reset on your particular phone? [Read more…]