What tasks do you use your smart phone for?

[lonestar6]

A few weeks ago a colleague challenged me on the value of smart phones. In their opinion a phone was for talking, all the gadgets on the smart phone were a waste. From this debate, I came to realize how many things I no longer (or rarely) carry because of the versatility of my smart phone. It left me wondering what things other folks use their smart phones for?

During the debate I said I use my smart phone to replace all kinds of things and they said like what and I produced the following list:
1. Account Tracking (Insurance, Bank etc)
2. Address Book
3. Alarm Clock
4. Archive docs
5. Barcode scanner
6. Bible
7. Calculator
8. Calendar
9. Camera
10. Conversions (distance, volume, currency, temperature, etc)
11. Crib Sheets
12. Dictionary
13. eBook Reader
14. Email
15. Exercise Tracker
16. Flash Light
17. Games (multiple)
18. GPS
19. Internet access
20. Language Translation
21. Level
22. Map
23. Mind Maps
24. Movie Schedules
25. MP3 Player
26. Newspaper
27. Note Taking
28. Phone
29. Photo Album
30. Ruler
31. Shopping
32. Simple computing
33. Stock Quotes
34. Stop Watch
35. Text
36. Thesaurus
37. Timer
38. To Do Lists
39. Videos
40. Weather Forecast
41. Weight Tracker
42. WiFi signal analyzer

[nukediver]

Haha! I just had a similar conversation with a good friend. She still didn't agree on their value, at least not until she needed to know today's NJ Transit holiday schedule, which I of course was able to look up for her :-)

[TavaPeak]

#43 Humility. I use my smart phone to get my keester kicked at Scrabble by my best friend, who is a math whiz.

[RickH]

Whenever I'm in this discussion with a non-smartphone user, the first thing to do is to alter the initial premise. The device is not a phone that does other stuff. It's an ultra-portable, internet connected, computer that can also be used as a phone. Then the answer to your original question is: anything I would have only been able to do at my desk, or maybe the coffee shop if they have Wifi and I had the forethought to lug along a laptop. Plus those things that are uniquely mobile, like GPS tracking of cycling. Of course, if the other person doesn't use a computer then the discussion is doomed and is over before it gets started.

[dorayme]

In addition to many of the above I have used mine for:

44. Child edutainer
45. Fiber Arts notebook
46. Mobile patterns (PDF)
47. Payment kiosk (receiving payment via square)
48. Price checker
49. Spell checker, I'm a horrible speller
50. Mirror/Compact
51. Cycling computer
52. Chore Organizer/agenda
53. Electronic gift card payment

And I'm a relative newbie to smart phones. Now if It would just charge itself from the sun and with an internal generator from my movement it would be perfect.

[barefoot]

I like that your list is alphabetized ( well, 1-42). Me, I am trying to be less "connected". I have a dumbphone which I rarely use, but I do use my nook tablet and ipad2 daily. It is so tempting to spend hours and hours with my nose to the screen, just checking into whatever pops into my mind. Mostly, it is a big waste of time, like watching TV. It is a hard habit ( addiction) to break though.

[lonestar6]

It is numbered and alphabetical. Microsoft word sort function; I cannot take credit for thinking up the list alphabetically

[Lani]

I use a travel app called TripIt. I actually have several trips in the next 9 months for which I've started making plans, and TripIt lets me take airline receipt/itinerary info I get via email from the airlines, forward them via email to the app (I think I mail it to an address like "plans@tripit.com") so I don't have to worry about transposing ticket numbers or anything. Plus, you can email your itinerary to a friend who has TripIt on THEIR phone, and your itinerary will show up on their TripIt app! I'm going on a Disney cruise in February, and doing a bit of coordinating this way because I'm going with three other friends (and leaving hubby at home), and when we get back to Florida from the cruise, we're also running a Disney half-marathon... so there's all kinds of registration and itinerary info that we're keeping track of... and we're all doing it in TripIt.