Yes. It can only get worse: so many people have speakerphone capability on their phones, but don't even know it's there, or how to switch it on. The day they learn how... well it could be bad.

Google Maps + Google Navigation

All the phones have GPS in them now, and apps can retrieve your actual location on the planet. For Google Maps, this is a sudden blessing: hit the GPS button, and the map is instantly centered on you, with a "You Are Here" pinpoint.

Then, Google Navigation. Since the phone now has the same hardware that a dedicated GPS Nav unit has, the phone can now become a GPS unit, and that's what Google Navigation is.

thus no need to spend $200 on a GPS unit with a map update subscription. a smartphone is expensive, but it often saves you money...

Yesterday I suddenly got lost in a rather terrible section of town. The phone got me out of it, just like a dedicated GPS unit would. The difference: I was streaming Spotify at the time. When Google's Navigation voice came on to tell me to turn left, it politely turned the music down, gave the direction ("Turn Left onto Fox Street"), and then turned the music back up.

just like you would want it to

Oh and the phone's GPS unit gets your location really fast. I have an older Tomtom GPS that takes a few minutes to find the satellites when you first switch it on. I always curse at it at that point... "Come ON! In this day and age!" although of course I have no idea what it does and why it takes so long to receive and decode the signals from outer space.

white people problems.
(nsfw language)

Actual screen shot; it's easy to take a screen shot with Ice Cream Sandwich, just just hit the power button and the volume down at the same time.

http://cellar.org/2012/speedtest.png

This is the fastest speed test I've gotten in Verizon 4G LTE territory. The numbers are astounding to me. (I'm not bragging, I'm just talking about the tech!) This is faster than my home internet service, and that's FIBER.

It's so fast that you could outrun your monthly data plan in an hour! (luckily I have a grandfathered unlimited data plan) (NOW I'm bragging)

That is pretty good.

You can control your car from your phone.

The day is coming when you lose your phone they just void your birth certificate, because the phone owns your life.;)

Every cloud has a silver lining:
 

People are being taught to use their speaker phone capability in CPR classes so they don't have to delay/interrupt lifesaving cardiac compressions while communicating with 911 operators to call for an ambulance. :cool:

That covers the good, the bad, and the ugly is waiting around the corner when people discover speakerphone karaoke! :eek:

(You can edit out that last paragraph if your afraid the idea will spread.) ;)

Whut he said.

It occurred to me today that this is not a phone; it's a portable computer that happens to take calls.

Or rather:

To people born before 1995, a "phone" is a device you use to make calls.

To people born after 1995, a "phone" is a highly portable computer, and one of its least interesting apps is the one that can be used to call people.

I describe my iPod touch to people as "an iPhone with everything but the phone".

I've installed the app "where's my droid"

If I lose the phone, I can TXT a certain password to my phone, and it will ring.

I can TXT a different password to my phone, and it will TXT back messages with its latitude and longitude, a Google map link to where it is, and the nearest address to the device.

Even if set on vibrate?

That is awesome!

I set up face unlocking.

I don't usually lock the phone, because most of the time I'm just at home and nobody cares.

But now I'm going into North Philly regularly, so I better get with the program.

So I set it up. You take a picture of your face using the front-facing camera, from a normal arm's reach away; and then when you want to unlock, you look at the phone, and it identifies your face as being the same as it pictured before, and unlocks the phone.

It works great.

Yes, "Where's My Droid" overrides any particular settings at the time, and rings at full volume. Also I have it set to use a "white noise siren" instead of a normal ringtone, so it's unique.

It will also turn on the GPS if you have that turned off. The only thing it can't do is make sure your battery hasn't run out so that it can do all these things.