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In December, I received a mobile data alert from Verizon that we only had 1 GB left on my data plan. This wasn't surprising since I had been commuting via train to downtown Chicago and had spent about an hour each way on YouTube for a week. What WAS surprising was when I checked what had been using the data, Facebook had used more than DOUBLE the amount of data than ALL OTHER APPS COMBINED, including YouTube. I don't check Facebook during the workday either.

There's a per-app setting, (under Settings->Apps->Data Usage->[app] -- on Kit Kat anyway) to "Restrict Background Data" that disables background data on mobile networks for that app. The app can then only use mobile networks for data while running in the foreground (ie: you're actively using it) or when connected via WiFi. It's an OS setting so the app can't ignore it.

... water resistance (a jack can be just as water resistant as a USB port) ...

Case in point. My Kyocera Hydro Vibe (that I bought in 2015) has a headphone jack and is "Certified waterproof for IPX5, and IPX7. Immersible for up to 30 minutes in up to 3.28 feet (1 meter)." Also comes with a user-replaceable battery and FM receiver that works with NextRadio. Sure, it only runs Android 4.4.2 (KitKat) but it does what I need it to using Ting

I had a $200 Qualcomm QCP-1920 from 1998 through 2015 from nTelos (originally PrimeCo in my area) until they sold their local spectrum Sprint and they said my phone wouldn't be supported. I bought a Kyocera Hydro VIBE on sale for about $150 from Ting (which also uses Sprint in my area) in August 2015 and am still using it with them. I'm not a heavy smartphone user and my bills are around $15/month -- which is what I was paying with nTelos/PrimeCo w/o the per-minute costs.

I'm pretty happy with both the phone and Ting and see no need to upgrade the phone or change providers anytime soon. My only complaint is that the phone is running Android 4.3 (Jelly Bean) and there are no updates available. Not sure if I can root it and/or install something else. But... It does have an FM receiver that works with NextRadio, as well as a headphone jack, removable battery, wireless charging, NFC, Bluetooth, and is certified waterproof to 3m for 30min (suck it iPhone).

Should've added it to my other reply, but there's also Ting ( https://ting.com/ ). I have an account with them, and they're pretty reasonable, but the drawback is coverage. Driving between western NY and Boston, MA, for example, is hit and miss. When they spiff up their coverage, I'll probably switch from pre-paid AT&T.

This ridiculous nonsense is exactly why I switched to Ting a few years ago, where you can simply pay for what you use. I don't want to support a company that is living in the past and obviously trying to make things so complicated for its customers in order to take advantage of them. Boo! I now have 5 lines with Ting and most months pay less than what I used to for 1 unlimited line on one of the old school providers. Simple website, simple billing, simple app, no nonsense. If you're interested, here's a $25 credit for you :-D https://z0hn6l4dk7d.ting.com/

My phone company is Canadian (Ting). They are available all over the US and they're extremely cheap.

Are they not available in Canada?

Forgot referral link.

https://ting.com/

I'd maybe recommend Ting for that too. $6/mo. per line, plus whatever bucket size of minutes/texts you use that month. If you use minutes/texts like I do, but no data at all, that's about $26/mo. for two lines before taxes. With these (and even the major carriers now), you have to buy/bring your own phone.

Before I went smartphone, I rarely used texting - 5-10 msgs per month. I probably did better on Net10. It was $30 every 2 months to top up and keep two flip phones going with 300 minutes per 2 months. Used VoIP a lot more for calling at home then.

Problem is Sprint uses the same technology as Verizon.

On the other hand... I use Ting with a CDMA phone (Kyocera Hydro Vibe) and the underlying network is Sprint. However, they also have a roaming agreement with Verizon for out-of-Sprint coverage. Also noting that you can get GSM phones from Ting, which (I believe) uses the T-Mobile network.

I'm not a heavy phone/text/data user so Ting's block pricing works well for me. So far, the coverage seems to be pretty wide and reliable. My monthly bill seems to alternate between $13 and $17 (and change). My highest bill was $24 when I first got my phone and it did a firmware update over the air -- I didn't have WiFi at home at that time.

I use Ting, which considers all of your data to be data. Tethering or not tethering is up to you. If you hit 26 GB, though, it may not be ideal for you. Rate chart

Tmobile does too for most of their plans. The only plan they separate it on is their unlimited plan. Their unlimited plan has a cap on the amount of tethering data but the rest of their plans the plan cap can be used for any combination of tethering up to 100% tethering data without a problem.

I use Ting, which considers all of your data to be data. Tethering or not tethering is up to you. If you hit 26 GB, though, it may not be ideal for you. Rate chart

I know that Ting Wireless sells them online. . .

Me, I refuse to pay the Bleeding Edge Tax. I'm currently upgrading the family's Galaxy S3s to Galaxy S5's . . it's all about balancing capability with cost. . .

very big. it's how nearly all cellular customers get their devices.

carriers sign "exclusive" deals to funnel customers looking for a particular phone to them (example: iphone was initially an at&t exclusive).

they also use the opportunity to offer a "discount" in exchange to locking customers in for two years. it's not really a discount, you pay for it, and then some, via the inflated monthly charges.

and networks aren't necessarily compatible with one another. elsewhere in the world there is only gsm so its relatively simple to switch carriers. here there is cdma (verizon, us cellular, sprint) and gsm (at&t, tmobile). gsm has little, if any, coverage in rural parts of the country while cdma covers most of it. so it's not like a good one-third of us have much of a choice on carrier... even in hicksville sprint doesn't provide local phone numbers as their native network is actually pretty small focused on larger cities, only verizon (and us cellular in their much smaller native coverage area) does.

resellers are trying to change things, but even then most of them lock you into their devices in some way, and they still operate at the whim of the major carriers. but if ting ever got access to verizon's network (their cdma coverage uses sprint.. voice roams but data doesn't).. it would be game over for the status quo.

here, we are locked into verizon via a grandfathered alltel plan. if we switch plans or switch carriers, our bill goes up at least 60 dollars a month for a similar plan. so we have no choice. try as you may, verizon, but FUCK YOU we aren't dumping our quota and throttle-free unlimited data plan. EVER. we do not care that it only works in two states (otherwise we 'roam'), we never go anywhere else anyway.

Who do I go to next when they start pulling this type of shit on me?

Ting

Growth is technical progress.

People today are more wealthy than people 10 or 20 or 50 years ago. The median family spends less on food, Cars have more features, yet only reflect a purchase price of 56% of the purchaser's income in the median case. We've gone from extremely-expensive computers with 4MB EDO RAM and 33MHz CPUs to having high-speed, multi-gigabyte RAM, 64GB storage devices in our pockets as a simple fact of life. Communication is ubiquitous with cell phones and high-speed Internet.

Clothing is cheaper; people today have about 50% increased access to more and better healthcare than people of the 90s; and we spend nearly half our money on luxuries.

Automation won't just put us into caves and cages to be fed a nutritious gruel by robotic keepers; it will make the Tesla Model S the household car of the lower-middle class, while the poors make do with that currently-$45,000 Model 3. It will place more electronic gadgets into everyone's hands. It will dramatically increase the access to healthcare, while lowering the cost of complex tests and treatments. $800 ceramic-on-ceramic fillings--the best remediation you can get for dental caries--will become the standard, even among the poor, because they cost $20.

The poor will not simply be shoveled off into the corner. They'll work, hard, and live beneath the rest of us, as they do today. They'll work and they'll live as well-off middle-class families live today. Their hard-earned money will buy them the sorts of $2,000 appliances I purchase for myself, because that $1,897 double-oven stove only costs $350 in the world of the future (well, there's inflation, but the poors have that much more money, too, so whatever).

Luxury. Technical progress brings luxury down to the people. There was a time rags were made of old clothes because cloth cost more than 90% of the population could afford; people wore one or two sets of simple clothing--nothing fancy and expensive, because frills and pleats increased fabric use--and many were haphazardly dressed in the poor's last-season fashion, tacky and out-of-style, handed down to the rabble because it simply won't do in noble social circles. Now we all have 10 days's worth of fancy clothing, coats, hats, a million pairs of shoes... things that would have cost us 15 years's salary--and, the fancy stuff with all the pockets and pleats we use today, 40 or 60 years's salary--back then.

Remember when a cell phone cost $4,000 in 1983? In 2015 that's over $9,000; two hours per week of talk would cost you $550/month. Not everyone can afford that; yet poor people buy a $60 feature phone or spend $170 on a used iPhone, and $60/month for unlimited talk and text plus 3GB data. I use under 500MB of data, so I spend $33/month and just get Ting.

How many rich people luxuries do you use now? How much of the stuff you're using is a much-more-advanced version of something that was available to people who could spend 3 times the median income on it 25 years ago? Your cell phone is comparable to a multi-million-dollar supercomputer in 1985. Microwaves were an invention of the air force, because a million-dollar radar emitter in a fighter jet pumps out a lot of microwaves, and they put a door in the cockpit where you can slide in a tray of food and then have yourself a hot meal; your microwave probably cost $70.

Do you really think people will just roll over and eat the slop the robots pour down their throats? We'll do what we've always done: Get richer. We'll take all the luxuries of the rich and then complain they've found new toys we can't afford.

. . . the success of this program will depend on the models sold, and the price. I already see refurbed Samsung S3's, S4's, and S5's for a reasonable price. If they stay competitive with the market, and I'm thinking Refurbed S6's at a ~$350. price point, this could be successful. But they're going to have to leverage some added value: say, a decent warranty and perhaps the latest build of Android to differentiate themselves from the existing refurbished markets. . .

I mean, a soap bar phone would possibly save me $60/year; but only because I elected for $5/month of additional data plan. The unlimited talk/text is still $55/mo.

Ting says 1 line, 2100 minutes, 4800 texts, no data (at all) is $52/month, plus 1.9 cents per additional minute, 1/4 cents per additional text, and $10 per GB of data; versus T-Mobile 1 line, unlimited voice, unlimited texts, unlimited non-4G data, $55/month.

I guess I can tailor Ting to 100 minutes, 1000 texts, and no data for $14. At my usage level I'd get probably a $30/month bill.

Ting (owned by TUCOWS) is another great contender. For CDMA, they use the Sprint network with better roaming agreements than Virgin Mobile. For GSM, they use T-Mobile's network.

They're also pay-as-you-go but with finer-grained control than Consumer Cellular had when I compared the two and one doesn't have to choose pricing tiers - pricing really is pay-as-you-go, with a bare minimum of $6/mo for each device.

I wonder how much of this is actual consumer demand for listening to ads and the same songs every hour to avoid data overages vs. FM radio's last desperate gasp to remain relevant now that streaming is offering an alternative?

My Kyocera Hydro Vibe (Android) has an FM tuner and I use the free app NextRadio to listen to live radio, usually NPR, at work where streaming isn't available. My provider is Ting so I also don't want to burn data minutes by streaming. The app supports an ad-free basic mode, selecting stations by frequency and uses zilch data or an enhanced mode that displays album art for the current song/album playing on the local radio stations, station selection by tile and (reportedly) uses very little data. Small banner ads are displayed at the bottom of the screen in enhanced mode.

NextRadio
Supported Devices

Tucows really is the nicest internet company out there today. And there isn't a single /. member who didn't benefit from their download site years ago. Every comment so far has completely missed the part where Tucows is making so much money doing other things it is choosing to provide the download site gratis going forward. I signed up for Ting in 2013 and have been saving $100 mo. on my cell service ever since. As icing on the cake their web site is easy to use, shows me pertinent information and they have actual live people to talk to if you have a problem. Ting was doing Google Fi before Google. They are also doing fiber internet. Google has gotten a lot of good ideas from Tucows. If you are a business in need of creating an internet presence and no clue where to start Tucows is definitely the right place.

Ting uses Sprint's CDMA network so only Sprint phones will work as Sprint will not authorize a Verizon phone on their network. Ting makes it easy to check if your phone is compatible.

I second the Ting recommendation. You can set up alerts and based on your preferences the alert can simply tell you when you are reaching a limit or completely disable the feature (data in this case) before you exceed the limit. If you are determined to stay below 2GB then Ting's pricing should also please. I have two lines and rarely pay over $50 a month. And if you use a referral link you get a $25 credit to apply to a phone or service. You pay for your own phone but if you have a Sprint or T-Mobile compatible device already then you should be able to use it on Ting.

If you're that picky about your carriers and contracts, I wonder how the hell you own a cell phone.

There are a lot of features on that device that I have no interest in running, never had any interest in running, and will never have any interest in whatsoever, and yet there it is, sucking my battery dry.

*some* of us don't do cellphone contracts... In case you didn't know, theres all sorts of no-contract cellphone providers, where you actually pay ONLY for what you actually *use*, like http://ting.com/

And if you don't like the bloatware on your phone, chances are quite good you can root it, and remove that crap.... It isn't that hard..

I'm averaging less than $50 month for two lines at Ting.

Mistake one - it only works on a single browser

...simply open https://web.whatsapp.com/ in your Google Chrome browser...

WTF!?!?!? There is Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Mozilla Firefox, Opera, Internet Explorer. All those with large user bases. I am not even counting the small browsers. And they chose to release only for Google Chrome? What year is this, 1995?

I opened it in Chromium on Xubuntu 14.04, and it still doesn't fucking work. I reserve my swearing for the most egregious cases of malice or incompetence, and this is one of them. I come in with a browser that's recompiled Chrome and they turn me away because I don't have Chrome.

Now as for your other points, some of them appear weak. I want to help make your argument against WhatsApp stronger and even more F-bomb worthy.

If you just have a dumb phone or another platform, you can't use the web client.

<sarcasm>
Of course you can. All you have to do is buy WhatsApp Enabler for $45.
</sarcasm>

Its even worse, imagine that office full of metal that behaves like a Faraday cage, or that office in a bad location sitting on the shadow of 3G coverage.

Then put your office's WPA key into your phone.

Have a dead phone and you're travelling on a train with WIFI and want to use the web client, you can't!

What device would you be carrying with which you expect to use a web application over Wi-Fi? Or do "normal" people still carry laptops?

One thing Google has continuously failed miserably at is customer service. Unless they are going to invest some time/money/energy in improving their track record in this regard their wireless plans had better be dirt cheap/free. You already have Republic Wireless and FreedomPop sitting at that level. And I switched to Ting two years ago despite them being on the Sprint network because they have great rates for all but the most voracious data consumers and the best customer service of any company I have ever done business with. Next month they'll be adding the T-Mobile network to their offerings and they just started offering Internet in a couple of locations. I'll be watching to see if Google gets the customer service aspect down.

One thing Google has continuously failed miserably at is customer service. Unless they are going to invest some time/money/energy in improving their track record in this regard their wireless plans had better be dirt cheap/free. You already have Republic Wireless and FreedomPop sitting at that level. And I switched to Ting two years ago despite them being on the Sprint network because they have great rates for all but the most voracious data consumers and the best customer service of any company I have ever done business with. Next month they'll be adding the T-Mobile network to their offerings and they just started offering Internet in a couple of locations. I'll be watching to see if Google gets the customer service aspect down.

One thing Google has continuously failed miserably at is customer service. Unless they are going to invest some time/money/energy in improving their track record in this regard their wireless plans had better be dirt cheap/free. You already have Republic Wireless and FreedomPop sitting at that level. And I switched to Ting two years ago despite them being on the Sprint network because they have great rates for all but the most voracious data consumers and the best customer service of any company I have ever done business with. Next month they'll be adding the T-Mobile network to their offerings and they just started offering Internet in a couple of locations. I'll be watching to see if Google gets the customer service aspect down.

It turns out you guessed correctly. We do in fact wear a lot of pants without pockets, which we'd have to throw out.

I don't think I own a pair of pants, shorts, or a swimsuit without pockets. Where do you put your keys and wallet when you're out? Do you carry a purse or something? Regardless, put your phone where you put your keys/wallet and so forth, and consider discovering the magic of pockets.

What should I have said to make my intent clearer?

Many of the questions you posed seemed like they had obvious answers (especially the hands/carrying down the stairs thing). Sometimes trolls act deliberately obtuse to try to goad people. Unfortunately, the presence of these people means that the possibility lurks in the back of one's mind. I prefer to presume people are asking in good faith.

Landline: Varies from Frontier. The actual monthly price depends on how many outgoing long-distance calls we make. (Local, toll-free, and incoming calls are unmetered.) Flip phone: $5/mo each from Virgin Mobile, which includes 20 minutes per month that roll over. When I priced Virgin's smartphone offering a couple years ago (2013, not 1995 as you mention), smartphone service started at $35/mo.

Like I said, look at ting rates, and realize there is no contract or commitment, and you are only billed for the amount you use each month (no stupid estimates, overages, or gimmicks). Note that everyone sharing the account pulls from the same bucket. There's no nonsense like rollover minutes or whatever. 1,000 text messages in a month costs $5. If you use Google Voice like I do, then that's $0 for text messages.

Presumably you already have internet at home, so you associate your smartphone with your WiFi and it automatically routes packets through that when in range. Our three smartphones together use less than 500 MB of mobile data a month, so that's $12 per month on Ting total for the whole family. You can set limits in the Ting control panel to prevent lines from using too much; however, this really isn't a concern... mobile browsing, IM, email, etc don't really add up to much. Streaming music *will* for example.

Used smartphones are inexpensive. Once you have one you will find it indispensable to have instant ubiquitous internet access, email, and easy text input.

Which cable company in which area?

Cox in the Midwest. Netflix costs $8.55/month anywhere in the US. We got a free cable modem from Cox, but even a high end DOCSIS 3 modem costs under $100. You are getting gouged if you are agreeing to pay $8/month to rent a modem. Buy a modem on Amazon and put the monthly savings toward your Ting bill.

It turns out you guessed correctly. We do in fact wear a lot of pants without pockets, which we'd have to throw out.

I don't think I own a pair of pants, shorts, or a swimsuit without pockets. Where do you put your keys and wallet when you're out? Do you carry a purse or something? Regardless, put your phone where you put your keys/wallet and so forth, and consider discovering the magic of pockets.

What should I have said to make my intent clearer?

Many of the questions you posed seemed like they had obvious answers (especially the hands/carrying down the stairs thing). Sometimes trolls act deliberately obtuse to try to goad people. Unfortunately, the presence of these people means that the possibility lurks in the back of one's mind. I prefer to presume people are asking in good faith.

Landline: Varies from Frontier. The actual monthly price depends on how many outgoing long-distance calls we make. (Local, toll-free, and incoming calls are unmetered.) Flip phone: $5/mo each from Virgin Mobile, which includes 20 minutes per month that roll over. When I priced Virgin's smartphone offering a couple years ago (2013, not 1995 as you mention), smartphone service started at $35/mo.

Like I said, look at ting rates, and realize there is no contract or commitment, and you are only billed for the amount you use each month (no stupid estimates, overages, or gimmicks). Note that everyone sharing the account pulls from the same bucket. There's no nonsense like rollover minutes or whatever. 1,000 text messages in a month costs $5. If you use Google Voice like I do, then that's $0 for text messages.

Presumably you already have internet at home, so you associate your smartphone with your WiFi and it automatically routes packets through that when in range. Our three smartphones together use less than 500 MB of mobile data a month, so that's $12 per month on Ting total for the whole family. You can set limits in the Ting control panel to prevent lines from using too much; however, this really isn't a concern... mobile browsing, IM, email, etc don't really add up to much. Streaming music *will* for example.

Used smartphones are inexpensive. Once you have one you will find it indispensable to have instant ubiquitous internet access, email, and easy text input.

Which cable company in which area?

Cox in the Midwest. Netflix costs $8.55/month anywhere in the US. We got a free cable modem from Cox, but even a high end DOCSIS 3 modem costs under $100. You are getting gouged if you are agreeing to pay $8/month to rent a modem. Buy a modem on Amazon and put the monthly savings toward your Ting bill.

When you're carrying something upstairs or downstairs with both hands, how do you carry the phone as well?

Well, my family doesn't lounge around the house in the nude. In many circumstances I am carrying my phone in a pocket. Pockets are an ideal solution for carrying keys, wallets, phones, etc, and they also allow you to free your hands for necessary tasks. I would be more likely to miss a phone call on a landline because I would have to hear the ring on the other side of the house, travel to another room to answer it before the person hangs up, etc. Conversely, I am rarely more than 2 meters from my smartphone at any point during the day... I reach down into my pocket, look at the number, and decide whether to answer or to send the caller to "fuck you voicemail" (i.e. voicemail that picks up in under 4 rings, implicitly letting the caller know you have rejected their call).

To preempt your next predictable objection: if your phone falls out of your pocket on a regular basis or your pants lack pockets, then get different pants. If your family lounges in the nude, then change that policy for sanity's sake.

I have a flip phone that I use for occasional calls out of the house. I tried texting with T9 and found it slower and more painful than voice.

Yes, that is painful. Don't do that. Get a smartphone... typing is far better on a smartphone. It's not like smartphones are expensive if you are willing to take a hand-me-down from a friend, buy a used phone off eBay, or pick up a previous generation phone from Walmart or something like that.

Until you're away from home and public Wi-Fi. Or until you need to call your ISP to troubleshoot why the Internet is not working.

Now I'm trying to decide if you're trolling. Go to ting.com and look at the rates they charge. Our family's total monthly bill from Ting for three smartphones with data plans is $44 plus tax. What is your family paying for your landline and your flip phone plans?

Phone calls or Skyping are scheduled affairs.

Unless you're, say, trying to get a ride from a family member on Sunday, when public transit has the day off.

No, even then. We send each other a text message or an IM. You send them a text, IM, or email because they have their phones with them or within earshot. They are more likely to respond to a text, IM, or email because you can do that even when they can't speak on the phone and would otherwise send you to voicemail they might not listen to for hours or a day. Conversely, they will receive a notification of these text-based messages' delivery within seconds.

And trouble calls to your ISP aren't scheduled; prepare to pay dearly to your carrier to hear "Your call is important to us and will be answered in the order it was received" for half an hour.

Um, okay? I refer you once again to ting.com for an example of what competitive cell phone rates are these days. Other providers offer similar rates if you are savvy enough not to be exploited. It's not 1995 anymore.

If your kid is old enough to be home alone, they are old enough to have an inexpensive cell phone.

I'm not sure what you mean by "inexpensive", and I don't know anything about the law where you live, but where I live, there are a few years between the age at which a child is old enough to be home alone and the age at which a child is old enough to have a job to earn the money to pay for a cell phone. I must be missing something fundamental.

$6/month is the marginal cost for a kid's cell line on Ting... I said this in my last post. The fundamental aspect you

Tucows (ting) is my phone company and I couldn't be happier.

My shameless referral link.

Try them. Seriously.

Seems like Ting will cost you about $49 a month with 2GB data (1.5c per GB after that). Looks reasonable to me.

Of course, whether it services your area is another issue.

Provided the applications you want to use are ported to Chrome OS as packaged apps. I don't think all apps that I use regularly are ported, but then I'm in a minority because I do software development on my laptop. Would I need to rewrite my apps in JavaScript to develop the overall logic on a Chromebook and then port them back to the target platform on a desktop computer? I was under the impression that developing in anything but JavaScript required SSH.

That's true, but the list of offline-capable Chrome apps is quite long: https://chrome.google.com/webs...

Strictly speaking, you could develop anything in a basic text editor, but I assume you actually want a semi-decent IDE? I don't know of any that aren't javascript-focused on ChromeOS, no.

Which US carrier? Ting quotes me $35/mo for one device and 2 GB/mo.

Sorry, I'm in Denmark, and I know mobile subscriptions vary wildly on either side of the Atlantic. The price you quote is pretty bad, and I assume it limits tethering as well?

I thought the APIs used by most iOS apps were hardcoded to point at iCloud instead of Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive). But then I've never bought an iOS device. Likewise, does Chrome OS allow switching any arbitrary app to use Dropbox or OneDrive instead of Google Drive? Or should people be choosing apps on the basis of which storage provider they support?

I own an iPad, although not by choice. I've had no issues using Google Drive for all my personal stuff, but it's true that device backups etc. are locked to iCloud.

I don't know about ChromeOS, as I don't have a Chromebook yet. I assume the Google apps use Google Drive, and MS apps use OneDrive, but I don't know about other third-party apps.

You can use a Chromebook while offline now, you know.

Provided the applications you want to use are ported to Chrome OS as packaged apps. I don't think all apps that I use regularly are ported, but then I'm in a minority because I do software development on my laptop. Would I need to rewrite my apps in JavaScript to develop the overall logic on a Chromebook and then port them back to the target platform on a desktop computer? I was under the impression that developing in anything but JavaScript required SSH.

And my mobile subscription is $17/month, which includes 3GB data.

Which US carrier? Ting quotes me $35/mo for one device and 2 GB/mo.

So it's pretty much the same situation as with iOS, where you can only install different UIs for the default Safari browser, but nothing's stopping you from installing Google Drive or Dropbox etc. and using them instead of iCloud storage.

I thought the APIs used by most iOS apps were hardcoded to point at iCloud instead of Google Drive, Dropbox, or OneDrive (formerly SkyDrive). But then I've never bought an iOS device. Likewise, does Chrome OS allow switching any arbitrary app to use Dropbox or OneDrive instead of Google Drive? Or should people be choosing apps on the basis of which storage provider they support?

VZW's coverage is the best in the areas where I travel. I have an unlimited plan, with hotspot, through my employer. I use it for work and for play (kids watching videos on Amazon Prime in the car, mostly). If money were no object, I would do this with the other three smartphones and one feature (read: dumb) phone my family uses. However, money is a consideration, so I don't. They are not big users of either voice or data; even a 2 GB plan per device is more than they need. I use Ting (note: referral link) because the usage is pooled across phones and I pay only for what I use. My most recent bill: 1600 minutes of talk, 240 texts, 290 MB of data across the four devices. Total bill $84.35 including everything. The bad news about Ting? Well, phones are full price. The network is Sprint but roaming to Verizon for voice (not data).

(this sound like the great shareware days of the 90s - and we moved on for a reason (tucows et al.))

Millions of people still flock to "shareware" sites like Tucows and Downloads.com (Now a part of the c|net family). If you mean by moving on Tucows main business is now an ISP wholesaler to resellers who need a web presence but don't want to hire an entire web team and running a wildly popular MVNO (Mobile Virtual Network Operator) Ting as well as domain registration and services to help a business build an online presence then yes they've moved on.

To keep this post on topic how is this different than Bluestacks? I've been using it forever to run Android apps on my PC. I've heard people pan it for being buggy but I've never had any problems with it.

It's the phone contract that does it in for me. In an age where I can use Ting as my phone service for an average of $12/mo with no contract, why in the hell would I want to get a two year expensive contract with one of the old phone companies?!

Agreed...Switched to Ting two years ago and haven't regretted it once. I'm saving $100 mo. over my previous carrier for the same two lines and I haven't had to change my usage.

I was curious of Amazon's decision to make the phone an AT&T exclusive. Hopefully for Amazon's sake the exclusionary period was only six months

T-mobile is the one of the best value plans around

Nothing beats Ting.

It's not as bad as you think. I spent about $100 to $110 a month with ATT before switching to Ting. (heard about it via Joe Rogan podcast)

Bought a new Sprint Iphone 5 for $500 hundred dollars from eBay.
Sprint SIM card from Best Buy for $20. (got another one free from a Sprint store after telling them I was picking one up for my friend with Sprint service.)
Switched service over to Ting. Now my bill is like $50. NO CONTRACT and you only get billed for what you use! I would have saved $400 alone last year for 4 months because I was travelling abroad.

Save $25 with this referral (and it gets me $25 for hooking you up with an awesome service!)
https://ting.com/r/zpa9dg2n6f6

Switching from ATT to Ting

There are options from most of the carriers. I'm doing the Republic Wireless $10 unlimited talk and text, but with no data. Having a 4G phone with no data sucks, but the price is compelling, and I should be able to add a prorated data plan for the times when I expect I do need it. Having WiFi calls when I'm at a place with no cell reception is also nice. However, counting the phone, my bill is higher than if I had been able to keep my dumbphone on somebody's T-mobile family plan.

Ting is a great choice for Sprint, Airvoice is a great choice for AT&T, PagePlus is decent for Verizon.

One interesting option is FreedomPop, but they seem to be in beta. Earlier versions of FreedomPop phones had poor performance and very poor voice quality, but they're supposedly improving. It would be interesting to see if they go anywhere with that.

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
https://ting.com/rates

If you decide to try it, click this referral link and we'll both get a $25 credit: https://zh0sl12gq05.ting.com/

More:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/....
https://ting.com/rates

If you decide to try it, click this referral link and we'll both get a $25 credit: https://zh0sl12gq05.ting.com/

Smartphones aren't necessarily more expensive than feature phones now; you just have to be willing to shop around and buy one that's either low-end or refurbished/used -- the refurb LG Marquee I bought as my first smartphone in January only cost about $15 more than the Samsung Rant I picked up at Target's Black Friday sale a few years ago.

The one place that you might end up paying more is if you're locked into a provider that charges through the nose for the mere use of a smartphone. I've stuck with no-contract providers for the past decade, so I just switched to Ting (bought my phone from them, in fact) since they don't charge for smartphone use & have low rates overall.

If you're in the US, switch to Ting or some other MVNO.

You have to buy your phone outright, but you and your wife can pool data/SMS/minutes. Your monthly bill goes down if you don't use all of the service you signed up for.
https://ting.com/rates

I'll be switching soon - but for now I'm sticking with a dumb phone and one of Ting's hotspots.

We're improving. Have a look at Ting. The problem is still device portability. You can't even take a prepaid phone from an MVNO that runs on AT&T's network to another prepay MVNO that also runs on AT&T networks.

We went from $140 a month for 2 lines on T-Mobile to ~$50 month for the same 2 lines on Ting. If you are mostly in WiFi rich areas during the day or just don't use a lot of data it is an excellent value. And their customer service is top notch. For anyone who's been on the internet for a while they will know the company since Ting is a TUCOWS endeavor. I'd be happier if they were on a GSM/LTE carrier but I haven't found a better value. I've already recouped the cost of the 2 phones we bought in saving and referral fees ($25 for each referral plus if you use someone's referral code,hint hint..., you also get a $25 signing credit.

Oh, and if you want to save $25 on your phone or service at Ting, use the link below. This has NOTHING to do with me. This is a link from This Week In Computer Hardware with Ryan Shrout on the TWiT network which I also have nothing to do with (other than I subscribe to the podcast).

http://twich.ting.com

That's what I used, ages ago, and I applied it to my cheap little feature-phone (I think I wound up paying $35 for the phone).

Every time people complain about cell phone service and prices and contracts, I feel compelled to post a link to Ting, where you pay for what you use, and the more you use, the less it costs, and it's $6 per phone on the account, with as many phones on the account as you want. Now THAT is a family plan that is fair. I'm saving more than 50% from what I was paying for an "unlimited" plan with Sprint.

Disclaimer: if you use that link and end up signing up, you get a discount and I get a discount.