Normal for newly installed Ulster Bank app to take up over 250Mb?

Thanks both.

Maybe it's a compressed download, then?

Whatever, where we live it means either find the money for a newer smartphone, or do without just about everything bar food, medicine and the motor expenses that enable buying them. Clothes, tools etc, travelling to relatives, the internet itself, probably... ;:-(

Yes, 'taken over' was the wrong expression (must have got mixed up with some other problem we're dealing with!).

I had been sort of expecting it would apply to credit cards as well (having read through the EU directive link and wondered why Ulster Bank was only informing us thus far about debit cards). We've now had emails explaining the credit card side of it.

Thank you for your thoughts Jim. Apologies for disappearing - just been flat out dealing with one thing after another (hence the verbiage catching up!).

I really have reduced the apps as much as possible (the latest cull was to make room for the Covid Tracker last year), and they're all essential to me. While between computers for 4 years, my phone had to do everything (for both of us, Husband being a Doro man). I've now managed to get a new laptop, but for various reasons the times I can have it on are quite limited. I have (for instance) no apps of organisations (find it quicker and more functional to just go to their websites anyway). And have never used games or video entertainment in any device (just not enough hours in the day, not that our internet's up to video streaming). None of my apps will work from the SD card (I have them removable, for photos). No dedicated phone app for photo editing either (unless you count Image Size, which is only 40mb). I'm quite minimalist anyway, and even more so with devices (got my first computer in the mid 1980s when the thing was to keep software as compact as possible, and the mindset never went away!).

But I was wondering if we meant exactly the same thing by 'apps'. I'd just hastily counted the apps showing in my apps tray, and half of them are things like Phone, Contacts, Settings, Android stuff, Messaging, Camera, Downloads, one browser and so on; were you including those? Some I can't get rid of, like Google Now launcher (I'm never in the right environment for voice activated things to work). It won't uninstall or disable. I do have Nova Launcher, initially to stop Google Now taking half the home screen and getting unintentionally launched (though it's also useful in other ways). The Voice Search app appeared uninvited at some point, too. Getting a new phone is actually the least dramatic option for me (especially with lack of support for Android 6.1 creeping up).

This bank app business isn't really any big deal for me. Trouble is, this kind of thing brings up an old hobby horse of mine (the more someone really needs what the internet can do, the more likely they are to be in an area with poor infrastructure, and usually without the budget to get round it). It's really about all the other people who've found themselves on the wrong side of one digital divide after another. I'm luckier than many over-70s in being used to tech stuff. And knowing something of how it basically still works under the interfaces is much easier than trying to remember random-looking lists of unexplained do's and don'ts!

It's not the the digital divides in themselves I get annoyed about (they're a kind of law of nature I suppose). It's the way companies and influential city people tend to either be unaware of them, or to gloss over them. Just one instance was figures Eircom released of how many customers had broadband, and how many of us still "preferred" dialup. (And I'm not into conspiracy theories, but it seems very convenient in some quarters to see all pensioners as technophobes).

Similarly (nearly finished, I promise!), the 2G switch in my phone was an asset. While looking for anything else to try re our voice call quality, I stumbled on something I'd never heard of, and network providers don't talk about; many were removing the 2G/GSM capability from all the phones on their network, to 'encourage' customers onto their then newish 4G networks (cutting off voice calls for swathes of customers only 2G could reach). Our calls and messaging could already be quite difficult (e.g, sometimes emergency calls only indoors, and only plain text SMS messaging possible), and I stumbled on a network forum discussion between users whose voice calls had suddenly stopped working, causing big problems for farmers etc. After a lot of time and effort spent sharing settings, aerial setups etc to try, someone managed to find out that their provider had cut off 2G, without telling anyone. (The language in this Aussie forum, got even more entertaining!). A search found it happening in several countries, and the 2G-only switch included in the specs of my husband's then new Doro was missing (as was the setting to turn off the internet). Buying my new phone being next, I asked our provider whether they ever cut off the 2G. Nobody seemed to know, but eventually a way to find out emerged; the tech department examining individual phone models. In my shortlist of 8 including just about all their makes except Apple, only the 2 Motorolas had their 2G switches intact (the only company I know of holding out against that industry pressure).

The J Stands for Jay; I was lucky about that as well. It was classed as a budget phone (though towards the higher end of that band), but a bonus was finding that they'd also resisted the industry pressure to preinstall the usual crowd of apps, sticking to the essentials and leaving it to the user to decide what futher software they needed (even e,g. someting to compose text with). So only a fraction of the usual time spent on configuring!

Yes, 128GB seems about right to me these days. (I was just a little surprised that Ulster Bank's app couldn't have been made smaller).

Future proofing is another mindset that didn't go away (starting when it meant stretching the budget a little to get the AT-compatible with the 20MB hard disk!).

I've been homing in on a model in the odd spare moment; just need to check a few things in the complete specs (and wait till various other jobs are out of the way, so I can check it out promptly after delivery).

I'm used to these big leaps, with budget, geography etc holding things back. All my devices have become dinosaurs by the time I upgrade from them (it's been like time travel sometimes!). Not so much with this upgrade (same OS, and probably even manufacturer). The jump in speed won't be any less wonderful, though!