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32 FOUR SEASONS BREEZE | NOVEMBER 2021 THERE'S AN APP FOR THAT! Travels with my Smartphone By Steve Benoff I don't think of myself as a paranoid person. I generally trust people and civic institutions. But I do try to stay away from public Wi- Fi. When I Googled "public Wi-Fi," I got the following statement (along with much else) "You have likely heard of the dangers of using unsecure public Wi-Fi, so you know that hackers are out there snooping. It is pretty easy to hack into a laptop or mobile device that is on a public Wi-Fi connection with no protection. Hackers can read your emails, steal passwords, and even hijack your website log ins." I've made an exception for the Wi-Fi provided in The Lodge, but the signal is so poor I usually turn it off. In fact, by the time you read this, I'll probably have asked my phone to forget The Lodge network. Unless a hacker is targeting you and assuming you have a good password for your own Wi-Fi network, using Wi-Fi at home or at a friend or relative's house is quite safe. So, what do I use instead of public Wi-Fi? Cellular data. Now that's easy for me as I have an unlimited data plan with my carrier. But if you're using data for email and print news rather than watching video, you're not going to use much data. All this occurred to me on a trip to Sedona we took this past July. When we got there, my phone came up with a notice that the hotel Wi-Fi network was available. Wi-Fi isn't an app; it's a function of a smartphone that enables apps to function without using cellular data. But I did use apps on my trip. The first one was Apple Maps to get directions to Sedona. Actually, I could get there without directions, but I still like to know my progress. And sometimes the app will take me on an alternate route to avoid bad traffic. Next, I opened Google Maps and set it to show me a wide view so I could see traffic ahead of me. I've usually relied more on Google than Apple for traffic. But on our way back to Beaumont I found Apple more reliable than Google. Google never showed a slow down when we were stuck in heavy traffic for several minutes. I used Apple's weather app both before and during our trip. July is monsoon season in Arizona, and we had rain or the threat of rain every day we were there. This app (and I'm sure just about all weather apps) has made huge strides in expanding its features. If the Air Quality Index is above normal, the app will show the current AQI on a scale from best to worst. If it's raining, the app will display a graph of projected rainfall within the next hour. And coolest of all, if rain is in the area, you can select a weather map with a time scale which you can move with your finger to see what the projected weather will be along a time frame of several hours. I found this feature quite useful in making outdoor plans in Sedona. At home, we depend on streaming for our movie watching. In Sedona, we've come to depend on Red Box for DVD rentals. The Red Box app shows available DVDs and at which location they can be found. Now that Arco has Top Tier gasoline, I prefer Arco to other brands because of their lower gas prices. So, I used my GasBuddy app to locate what appeared to be the only Arco station in Sedona. I made sure to drain my tank of California gas before filling up at $2.89 a gallon - more than a dollar less than California. Not only is gas cheaper in Arizona, their roads are in much better shape than here. Of course, I used Google multiple times. For example, when I was considering a restaurant, I would Google it to see its menu. If I decided to eat there, I could get directions to it on Google Maps since I had that app on my phone. Or when I wanted prices of a Jeep tour, I used Google to find tour companies and those companies' websites for prices. Could we have vacationed in Sedona without a smartphone? Of course we could have. But having a smartphone and its app made the trip easier and more enjoyable. If you use an app you'd like to share with others, let me know at steve.benoff@ verizon.net.

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