google and getting around

[goji]

My Thai SIM card goes in my smart phone and my home SIM card has often been installed in a small light Nokia phone, just in case anyone needs to contact me.

However, since most of the people who would contact me in an emergency have Skype, What's App, We Chat & e-mail, there is no longer any real need to put my home SIM in a second phone. Also no risk of incoming calls when I'm enjoying the nightlife.

[arsenal]

Wechat is an absolutely fabulous app. Incredibly user friendly but capable of messaging, picture sending, location sending, video calls and voice calls. One week after you start using it you'll be asking people for their Wechat address rather than their phone number and be irritated if they don't have one.

If the bars started using it as a marketing tool it could give them a whole new lease of life. The possibilities are endless.

[colmx]

Isn't WeChat simply a Chinese knock off of WhasApp or Line?
Both are surely more popular amongst Thai boys than WeChat... with the advantage that most people in farangland also have WhatsApp

[christianpfc]

For such IT related questions as the OP, it's best to ask friends. Thus, the matter of question is at hand (i.e. your friend can operate your phone or your computer) and it's much faster. I have a few friends who are less experienced in software and mobile phones than I am, and I can often solve their problems in minutes. Probably faster than the OP typed his post, and without all the off-topic responses!

(Of course this doesn't work if you have no friends, or don't want them to know where and how you spend your holiday.)

Googlemaps is a boon! In Thailand, they have street view, so you can virtually walk from Ambience hotel to Tuk-Com and around Tuk-com where you will see the massage shops.

To use googe maps offline, either move around in that area while you have data access, so the map is in the cache, or use offline maps (not available for some countries or areas). AFAIK, street view, satellite view, and navigation are not available in offline maps.

I pray each night for taxis to appear in Pattaya.

There are taxis in Pattaya, they just don't use the meter. But elsewhere (Chiang Mai), people reported Uber works fine. Anyway, without a specific location (name or better address in Thai), taxi won't help you.

[cdnmatt]

What the fuck is WeChat?

Really? I already have WhatsApp, Skype, Line, Facebook, LinkedIn phone, e-mail, and others. If I wasn't blind, I would also have Grindr, Hornet, Jack'd, and amore probably.

Is it just me, or am I the only one who thinks we're going a little overkill on all this shit?

[Blacktouch]

You can't beat WhatsApp

[cdnmatt]

Agreed, WhatsApp kicks ass, especially if you're blind. It's pretty much the only messaging app I can actually use, and is what Leo and myself use to communicate mainly.

I can tell Siri things like, "send WhatsApp message to Leo hey honey, good morning, are you ok?", and it works fine. Can't do that with Skype, Line, or other apps. From my testing, only WhatsApp works.

[goji]

Isn't WeChat simply a Chinese knock off of WhasApp or Line?

I have Line for talking to people in Thailand & Japan.
We Chat for Chinese friends.
What's App for "Westerners"
Then Skype manages a mix of people, including cheap overseas calls.

As long as the phone has the storage space, I can use all of them. For functionality, WeChat compares very favourably.

[arsenal]

You can also send money with Wechat (to another addressee) and it takes all of 2 seconds and costs nothing.

[Moses]

WeChat is marvelous: it is universal application "for everything": texting, voice call, videocalls, it is wallet, social network, bloging platform, money transaction btw individuals and for shopping... cons: Chinese govt censorship - you cannot send some messages with censored words and themes, URLs to forbidden sites.