The Beanster Blog

Coming to iOS11 is a neat feature called Emergency SOS. It is found in its own sub-menu under Settings. Basically, this feature lets you quickly call Emergency Services or your Emergency Contacts. You invoke it by pressing the sleep/wake (power button) rapidly 5x. Don't forget to fill in your Medical ID & Emergency Contact/s (in Health app) so those first responders (police, fire, medics, etc) have some basic information to work with. As an added bonus, invoking the Emergency SOS screen also disables Touch ID temporarily and the device will remain locked until you input your password. Useful if you are confronted by a bad guy (bad cops?). Make sure you have a strong password (an alphanumeric password is better than a simple 4 digit pin), set your phone to lock immediately, and Erase data after 10 failed password attempts as well.

A few weeks ago I purchased a Moto E4 Plus it was a very affordable and capable device but unfortunately, the South East Asia version lacked NFC. Since I will be moving to a place where there would be support for Android Pay I figured I should at least get a device with both Fingerprint and NFC capability. Yesterday I got a Moto Z Play which has NFC. Deleted and packed off the E4 Plus for sale. I got a lot of freebies, a Moto Mod compatible flip case, and a Moto Mod Incipio battery pack. All for 19,999 Php -- a very good deal! The Z Play originally came with Android 6 Marshmallow, but I was able to update it to 7 Nougat and I read that Motorola/Lenovo (oh ya, Lenovo bought Motorola from Google) will be upgrading it to 8 Oreo as well. Hope that pans out!

Nostalgia aside, I thought the Nokia 3310 (at Php 3,000) is a bit overpriced for what it offers and for a spare phone at that. So, I purchased an even cheaper dumber phone. The Nokia 105 Dual SIM is just Php 850 yes less than Php 1,000. It's super basic you can't even sync contacts to it or change the date format, but at least now I have a super cheap phone with super long battery life for emergencies. No fear of data charges since it doesn't even have GPRS. I think this would be a good mobile to deploy to staff/offices that don't need more than basic features. Oh and it has a torch.

Since Microsoft has given up on Windows Mobile, I guess it is time to reset and get rid of my Lumia 650 Dual SIM as well. It was fun while it lasted. Devices Control Erase Device Device Deleted

Release notes here

I noticed something as I was fixing my mom's Netflix subscription. She had recently done the 1-month free trial using her iPhone. Meaning her subscription would be coursed thru Apple iTunes or AppStore. Netflix Philippines pricing direct from their website. 370Php, 460Php, 550Php Since I already pay for Netflix, I was surprised that the prices were not the same! Apple charges extra on top of Netflix's fees. BAD APPLE. If you subscribe via Apple, you pay 19Php, 29Php, 39Php extra on top of Netflix's monthly fee. I canceled her trial subscription using iTunes prior to the end of the trial date and then went to Netflix.com to restart her trial direct with the streaming service. For most people, it would be more convenient to subscribe via Apple but I don't believe we should pay more if we can get it for less. Here is Netflix's help page on canceling iTunes billing: How do I cancel iTunes billing for Netflix?  https://help.netflix.com/en/node/27460