What it is
The phone is the one object every character carries. It makes calls and video calls, sends texts and group messages, holds your bank, your map, your taxi, your food order, your house listings, your calendar and your camera, and it is how you dial 911 when something happens to you. It is also a real object in the city: it has a battery, it can be stolen, it can be locked from a distance, and a thief who knows your passcode can spend from it. This page covers buying one and the everyday apps; the The phone guide goes through every app and every security feature.
How to start
Handsets are sold at the mobile phone stores: one in central Los Santos a few blocks east of Legion Square, one in Rockford Hills and one in Sandy Shores. A handset costs $200. In the same shop you take out a contract with one of three carriers (LS Mobile, Maze Mobile and iFruit Mobile, which differ in where their coverage is strongest) on one of three plans:
Plan | Monthly | Data | Good for |
|---|---|---|---|
Basic | $30 | 2 GB | Calls, texts and light use |
Standard | $50 | 10 GB | Most people |
Premium | $80 | Unlimited | Heavy use and business |
Terms are Rolling 30 (cancel any time), 3 month fixed and 6 month fixed, with the fixed terms costing less per month. The bill is a direct debit from your bank; if it goes unpaid the service is suspended until you settle it, and a phone with no contract still works on WiFi where there is some.
Press M to open the phone (or type /phone). The first time, a short setup claims your number and offers a passcode, a wallpaper and a ringtone. Give your number to people in scenes; it is how relationships in the city grow.
Step by step
- Buy the handset and a contract
Walk into a phone store, buy a handset for $200 and pick a carrier, plan and term. Pay from your bank. The contract activates straight away.
- Set the phone up
Press M. Follow the setup: it assigns your number, asks whether you want a passcode (say yes; anyone who finds your phone can open it without one), and lets you pick a wallpaper and tones. The phone Settings app changes all of it later.
- Save your first contacts
Open Contacts and add the people you have met, with their numbers. Names you save are what appear on calls and texts; a number you have not saved shows as just a number.
- Make a call and send a text
The Phone app dials by keypad, from a contact or from recents;
/call <number>does the same from chat. Messages sends texts;/sms <name or number> <message>sends one from chat without opening the phone. Dial 911 for police, fire and EMS and 311 for non-emergencies. - Start a group chat
In Messages tap New group, give it a name and add numbers or tap contacts. Groups have no size limit and are the usual way a crew, a company or a group of friends organises itself. Everyone can add people, and anyone can leave.
- Set a Fleeca PIN
Open Settings and set a PIN for the Fleeca app. It is asked before the banking app opens, so someone who has your passcode but not the PIN cannot pay from your accounts.
- Keep it charged
The battery drains slowly all day and faster while the screen is open or you are on a call. Plug in with a phone charger inside a vehicle with the engine running or a property with power. A dead phone cannot call, and that includes 911.
The apps you will use most
Phone, Messages, FaceTime, Contacts: calls, texts, group chats, video calls and your address book.
Fleeca: your bank in your pocket. Balances, payments to saved payees, standing orders, all behind the app PIN. Money and banking basics explains the accounts.
Maps: live GPS with search. Set a waypoint and follow the line on the minimap.
/gps <place>does the same from chat.Ryde: order a taxi to where you stand. If no player drivers are on shift a driverless RydeAV car comes instead.
TapThat: inside a bar, the live menu. Order drinks and food and pay from your bank; staff on duty make it.
Snacc: food delivery to your door from restaurants that are open.
Dynasty 8: property listings for rent and sale, with waypoints to the door. See Finding a home.
Wallet: your licences, cards and ID in one place.
Mail, Calendar, Notes, Clock, Calculator, Weather: the ordinary tools, and the calendar is where invitations to events land.
Health: your prescriptions with their status and where to collect them, your repeat prescriptions, allergies and recent visits. See Hospitals and medicine.
Lifeinvader and Bleeter: the city's social networks. What you post there is in character and public. On the English server the Lifeinvader app is the real Lifeinvader network, the same one as lifeinvader.roleplayproject.net, with one profile per character; see Lifeinvader.
Snapmatic and Music: the camera and your playlists.
Find My: the map of your own devices, with remote lock, play a sound, report lost and erase.
App Store: Snake, 2048, Pulse (dating), Market (buying and selling between players) and Underground (the racing scene) are installed from here.
Losing your phone
Phones get left in taxis and taken in robberies. What happens next depends on what you set up:
With a passcode, whoever has the handset sees only the lock screen. Five wrong guesses lock it for a minute, and the lockout grows with every further attempt up to an hour.
Open Find My on any other handset you own, even a brand new one with no number yet: it shows where the phone was last seen, can play a sound, can lock it remotely so even you need the passcode, can mark it lost (which shows a notice on the lock screen, optionally with your name, and flags it for the police) and can erase it.
Your number belongs to you, not the handset. Buy a new handset, go to a phone shop and move the number across for $150. Your contacts, messages and contract follow the number.
If the phone turns up, mark it found in Find My and the notice goes away.
Tips
Related commands
/phoneEveryoneOpen your phone.
/callEveryoneMake a phone call.
/smsEveryoneSend an SMS message via command.
/gpsEveryoneSearch for a location and set a waypoint to the best match.
/realestateEveryoneBrowse the Dynasty 8 property listings from your phone.
/pmEveryonePrivate message by game ID or name.
Worked example
Maya Okafor is mugged outside the Vespucci bar and loses her phone along with $40 in cash. Here is how she gets back on the grid.
Ray drives her to the phone store in Rockford Hills the same night. She buys a new handset for $200 and presses M. It has no number yet, but it is hers, so Find My opens and lists both her devices. The old handset shows as last seen on Vespucci Boulevard twenty minutes ago.
She taps Lock on the old phone and sets a fresh six digit passcode, then taps Report lost with "Show my name on the lock screen" ticked. The mugger now holds a phone that says "This phone has been reported lost. Maya Okafor" and will not open.
At the counter she asks for a SIM transfer. $150 later her number, her contract and her contacts are on the new phone, and the old one has no service at all.
She opens the Fleeca app, which asks for her Fleeca PIN, and checks that nothing has left her account. Nothing has: the mugger never got past the lock screen. Messages still has the group chat with Ray and the couple from Legion Square; she texts it to say she is back.
The next morning she walks into the police station and reports the mugging in character. The officer looks up the lost flag on her old handset and takes a statement.
What you see: a working phone with the same number the same night, an untouched bank balance, and an open police case that might come to something if the mugger is caught with the old phone.