please empty your brain below

The biggest change for me has been that I no longer carry around my A to Z with me, as the map will quickly tell me where I am, and give me directions to get where I am going.
I agree that IPhone battery life is woeful, as is that of the IPad from which I am sending this. Yet of all the communication devices I have this is the one that I use the most. Combining as it does the functionality of a smart phone and that of a laptop
Aside from the (excellent) content, I raised an eyebrow when you revealed you actually "ran" for a train. Doubtless you will be downloading a heart monitor app for your new phone.

Life used be nicely defined: read a book, make a phone call, go the shop. Now it seems to be turning into a kind of soup where you can do all those things in one place, just not as well and with far less satisfaction.
May I be first to say, it sounds like you should have got an Android. It would have at least solved your text size problem - have a search for 'mobile safari text reflow'
I guessed!
I love my iPad, but won't be investing in a smart phone until I have to (when there is no more choice). For me the iPad is a nice half way between a heavy laptop and a teeny tiny phone. I have few apps, though, mostly because I don't see the point, but also because I can never remember my itunes store password!
Keyboard - learn to trust it. Speed up, and it will be more accurate. Sounds silly, but it's true.

dg writes: Maybe. But I keep hitting delete instead of M, which really doesn't help matters.
because I prefer to listen to a random playlist

At the top of any list in the music app there's a Shuffle option which plays that list in random order. To play the whole library, choose the Shuffle option in the All Songs list (which you can get to from the More tab, or by choosing All Artists or All Albums).

Alternatively, just press "play" on the task switcher/lock screen/headphones while nothing's cued up and it'll start playing random songs from your library.

I was disturbed to discover how many apps I thought I'd turned off were still running in the background

With a few exceptions, iPhone apps do not run in the background. The task switcher thingy is really just a list of recently used apps, and they'll either be frozen or have already been killed by the OS to free memory. You only need to manually quit apps when they go haywire.
yeah, sounds like you should get an iPad. bigger keyboard, better navigation for doing internet-based things!

dg writes: Too big. Does not fit in pocket :)

on a serious note, i find that with Wi-Fi on the tube as you sit on a train and get 30 seconds at each station, it's possible to:

- refresh twitter
- send an iMessage

but it's not possible to:

- read a webpage
- check email

without having to go back to the Virgin splash screen and hitting 'ok' on that screen. annoying, isn't it? but i suspect they've configured it that way on purpose.
iPhone keyboard. Don't hit the letter you want with the tip of your finger, otherwise the ball of your finger will hit the key below it first. Go for the letter you want with the ball. #hardlearnedlesson.
A to Z London app is excellent and should be perfect for you. It can locate and track you so you will always know where on the map you are.
Got myself an iphone 5 as a Christmas present to myself. It's extremely useful, particularly as I'm currently working in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia (office and my temporary villa are wi-fi'd). Top apps in use are my e-mail and messages. Facebook and Linkedin are more important here than at home. I've been keeping my family updated on london travel using the Live Trains app (my son commutes to school in Holland Park). Google Maps are excellent for finding my way around here, as the "you are here" moves with me very accurately and has a lot of map information and I can show it to the taxi drivers who invariably only speak Bengali and Arabic as to where I am going (street name are in english/arabic). Translate app is good, but a bit of a novelty. I loaded three videos before I came for the flights and they only took half the memory space. I also have flight stats app, which again has been useful to check if people actually need to get to the airport or if there are delays.
To edit the text more easily on an iPhone/iPad just keep your finger pressed onto the text you typed. A magnifying glass will appear, zooming in on the area that you have pressed. You can now move the finger to more accurately position the cursor at the point you want.
I got a smartphone because that's all my service provider could offer when my old phone died. It's not been bad, apart from battery life and its occasional habit of going on strike (failing to recognise either the wifi 3 feet away or the Vodaphone mast 100 yards away).
I have used it to check on train running (very good), Borisbike availability (a bit clunky, and tends not to keep up with the situation on the ground), navigating a strange city (very good), and emailing when abroad - oh, and keeping up with diamond geezer when away from home.
'Only' twenty apps? I've had my iPad nearly a year and I've just counted how many I've got - eleven!

I've never used an iPhone, but my Android phone's touch screen keyboard is just as much of a pain; they are so imprecise. I miss my N95 and its scope for single thumb T9 dexterity so much.
If you want to be able to use a touch keyboard with only one thumb then I can recommend you try Swype (Android only). You need to go to beta.swype.com to download it, but they clearly explain how to install it.

The way it works is you just swipe your finger over all the letters in the word you want. Much quicker and easier to do with just one hand.
The magic for me has been the TuneIn radio app. I can now listen to the Today programme's 8.10 interview while walking to work.

(which also enables me to look in the eye all the people who tell me they drive to work because they "like to be able to listen to the radio". As a loyal public transport user, this had always been a frustrating weakness in my armoury of arguments)
Long live Blackberry Curve, proper keyboard equals long battry life!
And TfL live bus info is great
trainsofthought: I listen to the radio on the way to work using my iPod's built in FM radio, thus saving me the cost of streaming data. It's called broadcast for a reason...

I can second the joys of the swipey-keyboard thing that's available on Android devices. My otherwise terrible Sony Ericsson had it, as does my new Google Nexus 4. I do still miss being able to compose a text without looking, which is only really possible with physical buttons, and rediscovered the joys of it when my phone was recently away being repaired.
I couldn't agree more!
Seeing as I've been back in the country for nearly 8 months now I thought it about time to get a sim for my 6 y/o filp phone, as the kids school at least expects everyone to be text available, All I want to do is make a few calls and texts, so actually ended up with a downgrade on what I had before, unless I pay to get it unlocked. :(
Lots of useful tips above re iPhone, many of which I was going to put here but others have beaten me to it (i.e. apps really aren't running in the background; Virgin Media's ridiculous splash screen that makes Tube Wifi unusable; shuffling your music is well easy) etc.

Fundamentally the "life-changing" aspect of the iPhone for me is largely maps and camera (I never was in the habit of carrying a standalone version of the latter with me), plus BusMapper - great for live departure boards as well as directions - and the long-standing staples like UK Train Times (the original version at £4.99, worth every penny compared to the new-ish, free, but rubbish official NRES one) and Tube Exits.
With regards to battery life, this article on HuffPost, I found really helpful and I no longer have iPhone 5 battery drain.

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/10/09/iphone-5-battery-life_n_1948534.html#slide=1617672
I agree the battery life on iPhones/iPods really is woeful (and as the device gets older, it may well get worse). You can get gadgets that extend the battery life from Amazon; however, these don't tend to be cheap.

Some useful apps that you may like if you don't have them already include Oyster Info and London Transport. Flickr have also released a new app too, and Tweetbot is a good Twitter app if you're not keen on Apple's native one.

By the way, did you pay out £400+ for a brand new PAYG iPhone, or did you bite the bullet and go on a pay-monthly contract?
I think the Virgin Media splash page only shows up the first time you use the Internet on each 'session' underground. It's a pain then, and I often find the subsequent dwell time at each station is insufficient to, say, open a forum webpage and sign into it as well, but I can often download an email, although to be fair that seems to be harder now - maybe more of us are using the WiFi now.
Frequent(ish)ly used apps: obviously email, text, phone, and web; but also weather (Met Office), calculator, Goggle map, camera, Bus London, tube map, Oyster info (as I am on PAYG plus NR goldcard), Skyscanner and BA (to check flight info), Amazon, bank app (to check balances and make payments boefore I forget), barcode scanner (for price checking), ESPNcricinfo and ESPN football, National Trust, English Heritage and OpenHouse, Night Sky (really excellent to be able to identify stars, planets, satellites), BBC News and Sport, Twitter, LinkedIn, radio (I prefer The Radio to TuneIn as it seems to cut out less as I walk through low-reception areas; have no yet defected to the iPlayer Radio app), Podcasts, iTorch, and a few games (if you don't like say Angry Birds, Sonic Jump was free at Christmas and is quite fun; my son likes Fifa).

Life-changing? Perhaps not, but very handy (as the Germans would agree).
Best thing - being able to look info/facts up when a question pops into your head miles from your computer or a library; plus, Kindle app!!
You're using it just right for you, I suspect. Your penultimate paragraph is exactly the sort of key benefit that is so useful and would make going back so hard.

For me the three killer apps are (i) looking quick stuff up on t'internet much quicker (ii) maps and (iii) listening to BBC iPlayer in bed.
It's sounding like you're not on a mac. For me, the transparent syncing between laptop and phone of addresses, events, notes and so on is one of the best parts.

Google maps.

Bus Checker,

Sleep Cycle.

iNethack.
I have both iPhone and iPad and use them in very different ways. Since buying the iPad nine months after the phone, my phone usage has shrunk to a small core of genuinely 'mobile' apps. (iPad is wi-fi only and rarely leaves the flat.)

A definite +1 for the Bus Checker recommendation. It's like having a Countdown screen in your pocket/hand for every bus stop in London - including the ones that don't actually have screens. Incredibly useful at times.
It takes time. You've now got a great camera in your possession, which can identify where stuff was taken when you upload it. Just be careful using it from home! Read some magazines for ideas. One thing you might like is the History Pin: http://www.historypin.com/map/#!/geo:51.530627,-0.028353/zoom:16/
Thanks for the tips and suggestions, everyone!

For bus countdown info I'm using Citymapper, which is free, accurate, and does buses, tubes and rail. Is it really worth another £1.99 for Bus Checker?
@DG - I'd never heard of Citymapper, but have just downloaded. It looks very good! So, no, I don't think you probably need other bus or transport apps.

The only thing missing is Tube carriage boarding/getting off info, so while BusMapper may now be surplus to requirements, Tube Exits remains on my first homescreen.

So we're all learning stuff today... :-)
Bus Checker is quite nice. I used to use nextbuses when I had an iPhone.
I wasn't going to, but it seems almost rude now if I didn't mention my own iPhone//iPad app, which is all about the tube ...

Go and grab a download of www.stationmasterapp.com which tells you so much about the tube network, but mainly:

The carriage AND DOOR position of where best to exit.

3D maps of stations

Accessibility information, where I've counted ALL the steps at every station, Etc .. Go have a look!
dg writes: And then Geoff accidentally republished the same comment 3 more times.

This may help to prove my point about the lack of fine motor control on Apple devices.

Gosh Geoff, you ARE keen to promote the app.... :-)
I am sure Geofftech didn't mean to promote his Stationmaster App three times, it must be an error. However it is really good and fun too. I too shall be joining the fruit people club as from tomorrow hopefully if the Courier turns up, an older model admittedly but my first smartphone. Luckily I have a techy son who will help me if I get in a pickle. The predictive text as on the iPad always amuses me so no doubt I will struggle for a while.
....and my Android has once again decided to reprogramme itself to try to log in to an invalid APN - whatever that means - with no indication as to how to get back to the right one.

It's great when it works, but far too often it does things I don't want it to. This evening I was quietly checking a text ,message during a meeting and accidentally rang someone up in the same room. Whose silly idea was the touch screen?
So much of DG's words ring true for me. Very few apps, fingers too big to type properly on a phone, not entirely convinced by the "world changing" aspect of these phones.

I do like the ability to get live public transport info - very handy indeed even if it can be frustating to know you're not going to make a 20 second connection to the bus :-) I do dip into Twitter and bits and bobs of news. I, too, have yet to turn into a walking phone zombie (thankfully).

The slightly longer dwell times at some Victoria Line stations does just about give time to connect to wi-fi, find the landing page and then load up the travel app and check bus departures. Elsewhere, if on a train, it is very unhelpful to have the landing page every time you connect.
I knew as soon as I saw the topic for today there would be plenty of comments. As someone still living in the world of a basic Nokia I've read nothing to make me change to a smartphone; I'm particularly interested in the fact you don't use many apps as living overseas one of the reasons I haven't joined everyone else in the modern world is the lack of interesting apps available. As a transport geek the transport apps all sound interesting but all they really amount to is the typical London obsession of how to save a couple of minutes on your journey.
I waited till the IPhone 4 came out before taking the plunge as it did everything I wanted from a phone.

As others have mentioned I also bought the IPad 2 for home and bedroom use.

Could not be without either now given how useful the are. Even use then to control my smart tv amongst other things.

Apart of the obvious my most useful app is being about to remote record Sky +. Very useful when out and about or even just being up stairs.
On typing... do you turn your phone so it's 'horizontal'? when I do this on my Android phone the keyboard becomes substantially larger.

Sorry if I'm teaching my Grandmother to suck eggs! :)
It's interesting to see how these phones have become so indispensable to some people, to the point they can't seem to go five minutes without getting them out to see what's new on them.
Apps? I kind of like the idea of a 'Where Am I?' app.
The phone owner simply gets the phone out, and presses a key which makes the screen light up.
Geez, it would be so damn good if the ten nearest people would then all turn and say "Hey [insert word of choice], you're in a f*****g theatre"
My old Nokia used to go for up to 2 weeks on a charge, but it only did phone calls.

Then my Blackberry lasted about 5-6 days, including receiving emails and texts, but with a fairly poor screen display and an almost unusable browser.

And my iPhones (original, then 3 then 4) all last about 2 days between charges, but I use them for browsing, music, video as well as email and phone.

It was a shock to begin with, but as there are so many places to charge them, it hasn't really been much of an issue.

I also use it as my sole alarm clock and conveniently let it recharge overnight.
I got hooked on Flipboard. One simple app that covers the entire internet... or at least the more easily digestible bits. So I'd suggest you give that a try if you haven't yet.

Here in Seattle we have 'One Bus Away' but it is quite unreliable.

Google Earth is fun...










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