Stay in touch with your iPhone

My advice is that if you already have a smartphone, bring it with you and buy a data plan at your destination. Instead of buying an international plan from your home phone storeI, go through a company based in whatever country you're visiting. You can generally get better rates this way. I alway call the hotel where I am going to stay at and seek their recommendation for the best plan for my needs. This is optimal because they are usually locals and know the area and the service providers best.



ggh July 12th, 2014 Great dumbass question. How can reception be poor AND nonexistent? I will never understand why there is always someone questioning everything, revealing in the process what an idiot he is.

Well, that’s it for today! Be sure to check out all my earlier episodes at techtalker.quickanddirtytips.com. And if you have further questions about this podcast or want to make a suggestion for a future episode, post them on Facebook.com/QDTtechtalker.Until next time, I’m the Tech Talker, keeping technology simple!Passport on keyboard image courtesy of Shutterstock.

With 20+ years of experience in IT, training, and technical trades, it is my desire to share what I've learned with anyone else willing to learn. I strive to do the best job possible in the best manner possible, and with a little humour. Keep in touch: Twitter - Facebook…

So let's say you're traveling and you need to be in constant communication with someone (perhaps you're meeting friends, or need up-to-date information). One thing I will recommend is that you most definitely bring your phone with you. Two summers ago my parents went to Italy and thought they could save money by renting a phone while they were away. They couldn't get the phone to work 90% of the time and it turned out to be a costly, inefficient mess.

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Oddly enough, for the shows that I like the app developer is the same one – Fans.tv. What that means is that the apps are essentially the same in functionality, they just draw content from different places. There’s the requisite aggregated Twitter feed of the cast members, a ‘Check-In’ for fans to make little notes and let the world know they’re watching the show, and then the aggregated feed of people tweeting about the show.  Under the Camera icon you’ll find links to vignettes or clips from the show and links to articles about the show.

Meeting invitations – When you want everyone to be at a specific location at a specific time, you can send out an invitation. Invitations are a good way to see who is attending (those who accepted the invitation) and who is not attending (those who decline the invitation). When creating a new event on your calendar you will need to add invitees to the event. Depending on the calendar service that the others use, you should be able to see who has accepted the invitation and who has not.

I don’t want to leave out the sports fan here, after all sports is the original drama show. The amount of official team apps out there seems to outnumber the official tv show apps by a significant margin, so the franchises are taking apps seriously! Personally, I’m less of a sports fan than the average guy, but I still enjoy a good hockey game or UFC match. Just to show you what’s possibly with a sports app, here’s some info on the official Edmonton Oiler’s hockey app. (As a side note, Canadians shudder every time someone calls it ‘ice hockey’ – it’s just hockey. That other hockey is ‘field hockey’.)

Scott M March 22, 2013 at 11:13 pm "I also think we’ll soon see apps from independent politicians and new political parties, allowing us to give them immediate feedback, and keeping themselves as transparent as possible. It could happen!" If this happens I will be very happy indeed.Thanks for the well written comment.

Your probably just trolling but I’ll bite to give advice to other people. That has far less to do with the iPhone and more to do with the carrier. Either way a text message takes almost no signal to send, in fact a text message can send over the bandwidth of some of the tiniest little information a cell site broadcasts, so if you have even a miniscule signal a text message is a reliable alternative to a call, iMessage goes over data so in spotty areas you might want to disable iMessage. I’ve sent text messages over a -135 RSSI signal in some of the most rural places.

"I also think we’ll soon see apps from independent politicians and new political parties, allowing us to give them immediate feedback, and keeping themselves as transparent as possible. It could happen!" If this happens I will be very happy indeed.Thanks for the well written comment.

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