My first smart phone.

Now maps is showing traffic.

I don't know if this is new or what, but it didn't show up a few days ago. Now some streets are colored per traffic speed green for fast, yellow for slow, red for very slow and red with black for stopped.

I've yet to determine its accuracy. Most of the time I can't look at it while driving. If I look at it when I'm stopped by red and black traffic, it just does me no good anyway.

But this could help a lot in deciding my route home. The problem is the phone is too slow and the screen too small. Still, I can spend a few minutes checking before heading out, if I ahve the patience to do so.

The question is: how does Google determine traffic speed? My guess is by gathering speed and position from any Android phone on the move, possibly just when it's running maps. Get an average from many users and you have a traffic conditions report anywhere you care to get one.

FWIW it takes owning and using a smart phone to appreciate what they can do. I may now either get one of my own or, more likely, get a tablet with a cell-network based internet connection when I replace the Nexus. It's about even, as I'd use the phone mostly for the itnernet connectivity. We'll see.

Yep, Nareed, you are correct. Just like the Iphone, it gathers traffic data from other Iphone users on the route using their location technology and the GPS on their phone to determine path and speed.

On major highways where there's a large sample size it works extremely well; on side streets and areas less travelled, it can be spotty. A path that shows red could be just that because of a long red light or because a couple of people are just parked on the side of the road. But it works really well for me on freeways.

My car comes equipped with Sirius XM traffic; doesn't work down here in Niagara but works wonders in Toronto. During rush hour, it kept on offering alternate routes to save time.

Quote: boymimbo

On major highways where there's a large sample size it works extremely well; on side streets and areas less travelled, it can be spotty.

Thus far it tends not to show some streets with heavy traffic. Like the street my office is in. At times there are as many as 100 cars just on one side in the block where I'm at. it's not a major street, but it connects two mayor routes with the freeway. Transit is heavy.

Yesterday it would have done me no good. Everything went to hell due to a rainstorm. It took me almost 2 hours to traverse about 7 miles home. This at 9 pm, which shoudl by no means be a bad traffic time...

Quote:

A path that shows red could be just that because of a long red light or because a couple of people are just parked on the side of the road.

I thougth about that. I suppose GPS is precise enough to see whether a phone is on a street or a house or restaurant. So it won't show a massive traffic jam in front of every office building in existence. But what of phones left in cars or people waiting in their cars? That could screw up everything.

For now it works best if I check traffic on my PC before heading home. The phone is just too slow with the app, and the carrier tends to ahve spotty connections lately.

Yesterday I unkowingly took aprt in a Google Maps experiment.

I checked it a few minutes before leaving and saw the major avenue in route A showing red-and-black. The two avenues in route B looked all green with some yellow and a small red segment. I showed this to a coworker, call him R, who lives close to me and uses the same general routes.

I took route B, and the traffic was as shown by Maps. But on the streets where maps doesn't show traffic conditions, I found heavy traffic. meanwhile my coworker took route A and ran into traffic as predicted.

Then my phone rang and it was R asking "Are you about to turn left and are next to a police car?" He was right behind me.

So much for beating the traffic through clever use of technology.

I exchanged my phone :D

The Experia was really terrible. With only 1 GB internal RAM, it was a major pain to be able to update isntalled apps (long, technical story).

Now, this co-worker was issued an Alcatel phone, which is pretty crummy. He bought a much better one and transferred his number. I asked him "What did you do with the old brick?" He still had it and he let me have it :)

Ok, I said it was pretty crummy. it is, but it's also much better than the old one. For straters it has 2 GB internal RAM, and it runs faster. It's lighter, too. I'm keeping the old one for an alarm clock.

I must say, I had no idea law enforcement has
no way to get info off an Iphone. They say
there are 100 million of them out there. Yet
every single time on a TV show, like NCIS or some
of the others, a captured cell phone is always
a treasure trove of info for them. They use
this tactic in almost every show to some extent.

When you figure that at least half the people
involved probably have an Iphone, I have never
heard once on a TV show that they couldn't
get info. I wonder if the writers even know that
an Iphone can't be cracked.

Quote: Nareed

I'll be getting a Sony Experia with an older Android (4.1) and with a whooping 512 MB on-board, plus a 4 GB SD card. In other words, it doesn't seem like much.

Electronics are much cheaper in the USA. I paid less than $20 for the phone with the following specifications.

Android™ 4.4 KitKat®
Type Smart Phone
Technology CDMA*
Processor 1.2 GHz Dual-Core Processor
Frequencies CDMA 850/1900MHz*
Data Transmission 1xRTT, EVDO*
Total Internal Memory 1.79 GB
MicroSD® Memory Slot 4 GB included, supports up to 32 GB memory card
Network 3G Network*,**
Wi-Fi® Connectivity 802.11 b/g/n
Bluetooth® Version 4.0
Wireless Storage Share files with your computer via Wi-Fi®.
GPS S-GPS for Enhanced Location Accuracy

Quote: Pacomartin

Electronics are much cheaper in the USA. I paid less than $20 for the phone with the following specifications.

Any contracts or minimum use involved? Time charges?

I like the 'throwaway' phones. Voice and text. Ten cents a minute, I think.
No camera, nothing but a plain old cell phone.

Quote: Fleastiff

I like the 'throwaway' phones. .

It's all I've used for 10 years. I had a phone on
my wife's contract but never used it. So now I
buy a years worth of time for 40 bucks, and
400 minutes, and at the end of the year I
usually have 200 min left. That's how much
I don't use a cell phone. I find them to be
an incredible pain in the ass, except for
emergencies. I've hated talking on the phone
all my life, a lot of men are that way.

Quote: Fleastiff

Any contracts or minimum use involved? Time charges?

I like the 'throwaway' phones. Voice and text. Ten cents a minute, I think.
No camera, nothing but a plain old cell phone.

I bought it to play music, use as remote control, for weather apps, to check accounts easily like credit card, an alarm clock and for GPS.

The box said that the price of the phone was subsidized and I should not purchase the phone unless I intended to activate it on net10wireless (a Carlos Slim company) for a minimum of $180 a year for 2400 minutes. But I put Google Voice on it so I could talk and text for free when I had wi-fi. After a few weeks, I added a plan like EB talks about for $30 a year that gives me 240 minutes of cell time (or 480 texts). So I use the free wifi calling and the cell phone app.

Page Plus Cellular has a plan for $144 a year that gives me 3000 minutes AND 3000 texts over the course of a year.