Best Smart Phone set up for SUP?

[PonoBill]

You're out of touch in this point.

Consistently.

[johnysmoke]

I've had a Galaxy S5 for almost 2 years now, still runs like a top. Hasn't started to slow down or bog down with updates.  Can take long leisurely baths with it no case, and don't need to worry about dropping it in the tub. Wouldn't expose it to salt water, but would probably do okay with a rinse afterwards. Haven't needed to sync it with anything, back everything up via the SD card and Google apps. I'm done with the iPhone, always seem to die a few years in.

[SupPadre]

Do you have a waterproof case for it? If so which one?

I use Optrix for my 6s. It allows you to use your iPhone as an underwater camera and has been bulletproof so far.

[SUPflorida]

Bill, your statement about the I-cloud opened my eyes to what has come into being since my last phone upgrade....Data Usage is the cash cow and this new phone seems to consume constant data to do pretty much everything...all of the things that were done internally in the  4S without the cloud. As you said even to access my own bought and paid for music I have to consume Data. Everything is loaded in the cloud instead of just playing it off my internal phone content. I'm sure it was disclosed/buried somewhere in the um-teen pages of the agreement, but it makes me feel worked.

How does the Android system work? is it as data intensive as the Apple? I can return the I-phone within 14 days for $30...but I don't want to jump out of the frying pan and into the fire.

[PonoBill]

You can opt out of cloud consumption for lots of stuff, and I do. I store my music, pictures and video on my phone and opt out of most other storage on the cloud. That isn't to say that cloud storage is a bad idea, but I don't live in just one place, and phone service is spotty in the hinterlands. Apple's music services have gone from great to strangely bad. No idea why, but even the interface design has degraded. But if you wade through the stuff a little you can turn off the crap you don't want. I think the complexity of what they are trying to do has invaded the interface.

I signed up for iTunes match (sounded like a great idea) and bailed almost immediately. It takes some work to get your music back unless you have a backup to restore from.

Apple Music is different, kind of a Beat plus iTunes with some twists. It's mostly for streaming like Spotify, but a lot of the content is curated, meaning there's a human DJ somewhere picking music. Good for out of touch people like me. It's ten bucks a month or fifteen for a family plan, which seems like a lot, but I used to spend much more than that every month on CDs. The best part for me is that you can store music on your phone--up to the full capacity of your phone, so you don't get the crappy response of iTunes Match (Match also lets you store songs you listen to, but only once you've played them). I turned it on, turned it off, and now I've turned it on again because I'm a little tired of my same old stuff. I have a huge music collection, but apple has 30 million titles. That's more than me by about 29.99 million.

I'm playing around with copying my library to Google Music which is free, and seems a lot better designed than Apple's crazy mess. Of course Amazon has their own library system and Amazon Echo, which I like, doesn't play well with others.

[SuppaTime]

Everything is loaded in the cloud instead of just playing it off my internal phone content. I'm sure it was disclosed/buried somewhere in the um-teen pages of the agreement, but it makes me feel worked.

How does the Android system work? is it as data intensive as the Apple?

The cloud is not designed to replace local storage, it is to facilitate sharing of data between devices through sync'ing. At least that is how Amazon, Google, and DropBox approach it. I would think Apple would also. They are well aware, through their cellular provider partners, that while providers would like users to purchase cellular bandwidth, realistically it puts a strain on the cellular network if everyone is streaming music to their phones. Of course if your phone is only streaming over WiFi, it is not an issue.

I have been debating for a while what cloud service to use, if any. It very likely will not be Apple, mostly because I need to support movement of data between Apple devices (pads and phones), an Android device, and a PC. Apple's iCloud does not support Android (not directly at least). And it is the most expensive.

Another subtlety is whether one is storing media for sharing (music, videos, photos) or documents. The latter falls more under "on-line backup" which is slightly different than sharing. On-line backup often provides encryption for storing, for instance, tax returns or other personal information. It also is seemlessly integrated into a computer's OS so it looks like your hard drive. A lot of people like CrashPlan for auto-backup. Right now I use an external drive to backup the PC, but have no backup for the mobile devices. The whole thing is a mess. I think I am going to go with Google though.

One other thing to pay attention to, is how hard is to get all your data off and transferred to somewhere else if you decide to stop using the cloud storage provider?

Wikipedia has a nice comparison of cloud back-up options: Cloud Storage Comparisons