Second phone for travel?

diablo

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I've never owned a mobile phone until fairly recently, and now use it mainly for taking photos, checking emails, etc., while on holiday.

I'm now thinking I need to leave this "main" phone at home and take a second phone on holiday in case the main phone is lost or stolen.

Does anyone else use a second phone like this, and if so, do you have the bare minimum on the "second" phone in terms of contacts, apps, etc?

Or am I being paranoid?!
 
Yeah that's super paranoid :LOL:

Just make sure the phone is backed up. These days you can restore an iphone in its entirety from the cloud just by logging in to your account and synching it, so even if you lost it you could be back up and running in a couple of hours.
 
Maybe not my best idea then....
 
I tried to implement this same philosophy with my wife, she was furious that I took another woman away on holiday :D

In all seriousness I have 1 phone, it's an iPhone and it's backed up to Apple's iCloud service. If it gets lost or stolen, I get a new one, add my iCloud details and then get all my apps, photos, contacts restored as part of the setup process.
 
Yes, I've been looking at what to do if your phone is lost or stolen. It obviously helps if you know your Apple id and password, but you can lock and wipe your phone if necessary at https://www.icloud.com/find/

The /find/ lets you into the find devices section without having to have a passkey (which would be sent to your phone!)

(I'm putting this here in case others don't know and so I can refer to this thread if my phone goes missing!)

I'm a compete idiot because I've been paying for additional storage for a few months now, but when I actually logged into iCloud, none of my photos were there because I hadn't set up sync.

Maybe Wayne's right. I should only be trusted with a camera, not a phone.
 
It is almost impossible to break into an iPhone when it is turned off and hasn't had the password put in.

Back it up and enjoy yourself. I lost my phone a few years back and when I got home it was a installed from a backup on the day I lost it, and I still had all my photos.

Also if you have family members with you who also have iPhone, you can share your location all the time with them. I've had one time where my wife left her phone at a restaurant and it was on the floor facedown against a black floor. When we arrived at the restaurant they couldn't find it but I showed them on the map where it was and they got it in the end.
 
I don't want to be patronising and aware this will come across like it.... but HOW!?!?! :D

Just never needed one I suppose :) My wife has a phone so everybody just calls her. It's brilliant.

So many times I've been asked for my mobile number over the years, and when I say I don't have one, people think I'm lying.

In 2019, I did need a smart phone to take part in a scientific study and so I borrowed one from my daughter. That's the first time I actually needed one. At reception, they asked for my phone number and I didn't know it or how to get it so just handed the phone over for the guy to find it in contacts or wherever :) He thought I was simple.

More recently, I bought one from Music Magpie, but like I say, I use it mostly for photos, checking emails, health apps and now banking as a lot of banks want you to download their app to get the sign up bonus ;)

But it's still not a big part of my life. A few months ago, I was talking to my neighbour after going for a walk (I take the phone to count steps). I said I would show him a photo I took, pulled out my phone, and he said: "WAIT! You have a phone?!"

So I'm well-known for not having one. Or using the one I now have. Just phone the wife...
 
In light of recent events.... is my second phone idea still a bad idea?
 
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I don't want to be patronising and aware this will come across like it.... but HOW!?!?! :D
My 60 year old dad has refused not only to buy a smartphone but to have the internet at all, he still uses a very simple pay as you go mobile. His 83 year old mother meanwhile has an iPad, uses online banking and buys a lot from Amazon and eBay.

Actually gets along in life just fine like that, he sold his house and bought a small flat and ditched his skilled manual job early (carpenter), so when he was working/trading never really hard cause to use the internet for business or work.

I can't comprehend doing the same, but if he needs a train ticket he goes to the ticket office at a quiet time and asks the chap at the ticket office to find him the cheapest ticket, if he needs to pay money into the bank he goes to the post office near his house, he buys DVD or Bluray boxsets for pennies at charity shops (which he enjoys searching for).

He's got absolutely no interest whatsoever in getting the internet. TMI territory now, but the one time I did buy him a cheap second hand desktop and hook him up to the internet he ditched it because he was watching too much porn :ROFLMAO:. On the odd occasion that he does want to use the internet to find out more information about something he'll pop to the library for an hour or two.

I should probably caveat that he lives in a flat smack back in the middle of a thriving (relative) city centre with plenty of amenities, I suppose it would be a completely different story if he didn't.
 
Instead of trading in old iPhones for next to nothing…

I buy the latest iPhone and keep the old one as a hot spare. However I’ve noticed you now have to watch the spare iPhone doesn’t go obsolete…

Only iPhones 11-15 currently get iOS updates.

Without updates you can’t run the latest apps:

I read Apple typically supports phones for six years - so iPhone 11 probably won't be supported after iOS 19 (2025).

Given what you say about apps, would an iPhone 11 still be a good buy as a second phone (presumably it will work with most apps well beyond iOS19) or would say a 13 Pro be an even better investment (esp for camera)?
 
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My 60 year old dad has refused not only to buy a smartphone but to have the internet at all, he still uses a very simple pay as you go mobile. His 83 year old mother meanwhile has an iPad, uses online banking and buys a lot from Amazon and eBay.

Actually gets along in life just fine like that, he sold his house and bought a small flat and ditched his skilled manual job early (carpenter), so when he was working/trading never really hard cause to use the internet for business or work.

I can't comprehend doing the same, but if he needs a train ticket he goes to the ticket office at a quiet time and asks the chap at the ticket office to find him the cheapest ticket, if he needs to pay money into the bank he goes to the post office near his house, he buys DVD or Bluray boxsets for pennies at charity shops (which he enjoys searching for).

He's got absolutely no interest whatsoever in getting the internet. TMI territory now, but the one time I did buy him a cheap second hand desktop and hook him up to the internet he ditched it because he was watching too much porn :ROFLMAO:. On the odd occasion that he does want to use the internet to find out more information about something he'll pop to the library for an hour or two.

I should probably caveat that he lives in a flat smack back in the middle of a thriving (relative) city centre with plenty of amenities, I suppose it would be a completely different story if he didn't.
I think this is brilliant.

I've been thinking recently that society will either:
  1. Go full on zombie mode, with almost their full focus drawn away from their surroundings.
  2. Realise how problematic being constantly connected actually is to your personal well-being, physical & mental health, and society as a whole.
There doesn't seem to be a healthy middle ground. With the likes of social media seemingly governed by the US's first amendment for freedom of speech, and it doesn't matter if that speech is fact or fiction, it causes real problems within society.

We're heading down the path to Idiocracy. Well worth a watch if you haven't seen it - just to see what happens in the not too distant future.
 
I don't think it matters now. As long as there is something to replace us in the near future humanity can go down the zombie route to oblivion. Artificial intelligence increases as human intelligence decreases. We are at the last step of our own evolution. We will last for millions of years. Just not in this current form. It's just sad that it seems our whole evolution has existed just to get us to the point of zombifying our lives and utilising a single brain cell. I suppose everything ultimately heads to the lowest point of energy and what can be less energetic than the current brain usage of the future generations :p
 
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