"How do you use your smartphone?"
That's a question I have asked, answered and been asked countless times now. In fact, just last month, I explained some of the many ways I use my phone to kill time when I'm waiting in a doctor's office, for a flight or just sitting on the couch at night after a long day of work. And I asked you all how you best kill time with your smartphones.
That said, as much as I like to burn off some stress by racing an unrealistically fast car around the eerily empty streets of Paris, I'm not always trying to kill time.
Actually, more often than not, I find myself using my phone for productivity and communication purposes over entertainment and time wasting. I continually find myself trying to do more and more with my smartphone. I like to push the boundaries of what mobile technology can do and literally take care of as much as physically possible with my pocket-sized PC.
Now that I'm using the Galaxy Note II, which comes with a bevy of software features specific to it, I am quickly adding more and more to the long list of things I use my phone for. Lately, I have been using my phone more for Gmail, versus my laptop or tablets. I've been doing a lot more Web browsing from my Note II than I can ever remember with any other smartphone. And despite having such a crisp, gorgeous display, I haven't even really cracked into gaming on it yet. (Crazy, I know.)
More so than adding more tasks to the plate, however, I have recently noticed that my smartphone usage changes with the wind – almost weekly.
At one time, my phone was used almost solely for communication and social interaction – Twitter, Facebook, SMS and email. Sometimes, I load my phone up with a handful of games and play them nonstop. And later, I find myself Swyping out an entire article straight from my phone.
Lately, with the Note II, when I get bored or have a spare moment, I'm poking and prodding through the software to see if I can discover another neat feature. Although I though I had discovered them all, AllShare Play totally caught me off guard when I accidentally activated it in the middle of a MythBusters episode through Netflix on the Xbox 360 the other day. The picture I was looking at in Gallery magically appeared on my television, and when I finally realized MythBusters was no longer playing, my mind was blown for several minutes until I figured out exactly what happened.
I go from reading daily, long-form articles from Pocket to streaming music from my phone while I read Pocket on my computer instead. And I go from not being able to cram enough mobile gaming into a single day to deleting all of the games from my phone to make room for more productivity applications. Just last night, I caught myself literally doing four things at once: chatting with Evan, doodling in S Note, browsing the Web and watching a YouTube video from Facebook. I'm typically a one-task-at-a-time kind of guy.
Unlike my computer and iPad, which I use exactly the same way … all the time, each and every day. My smartphone usage varies almost by day. I am constantly adding and removing applications and radically changing the way I use them.
I'm curious, readers. Do you all use your smartphone the same way each and every day? Or, like me, do you constantly find yourself changing the way your use your phone? Are you continually looking for new features and abilities? Or do you find a comfort zone and use your phone exactly the same way all the time?
