📱 The phone

What it is

The iFruit is a real device, not a menu. It is an item in your inventory with a number, a battery, a passcode, a wallpaper and its own contacts, texts, photos and notes. If you drop it, whoever picks it up holds your phone with everything on it. If you buy a second one, both are yours and you choose which to use. Your number lives on a SIM that a phone shop can move between handsets, and a lost or stolen phone can be locked, wiped or reported from any other handset you own.

Press M to open the phone you are carrying (or /phone). The first time a new handset boots it walks you through setup: language, a passcode if you want one, a wallpaper and a name for the device. After that you land on a lock screen with the time, the date, your notifications and the weather, and swipe up or enter your code to reach the home screen.

Everything that used to be a chat command has an app: calls and voicemail, messages and group chats, contacts, FaceTime, the Fleeca bank, maps and Find My, Snapmatic, notes, the clock with alarms that fire, weather, mail, calendar, wallet, a music player, Health, Snacc food delivery, Ryde, TapThat bar orders, Dynasty 8 property, Bawsaq, Lifeinvader and Bleeter, and the App Store for Underground racing, Pulse, Market and the games.

How to start

You need a handset and a contract.

A handset is $200 from any 24/7 or from a mobile store. A bare 24/7 phone becomes your device the first time you open it and gets a fresh number. Without a contract it shows "No service" and cannot call or text, though the offline apps (notes, calculator, camera, games) still work.

A contract comes from a mobile store, such as the ones in Rockford Hills, downtown Los Santos and Sandy Shores. Press E at the counter. Pick a provider (LS Mobile, Maze Mobile or iFruit Mobile; they differ in coverage across the map), a plan and a term.

Mobile store, Los Santos392.70, -831.80

Contracts, handsets, SIM transfers and selling a handset to someone

Mobile store, Sandy Shores1936.40, 3822.20

Contracts, handsets and SIM transfers in Blaine County

Terms are rolling (cancel any time), 3 months (8 percent off, $75 to leave early) or 6 months (14 percent off, $140 to leave early). Activation is $25 and the first month is paid at the counter. If you have no handset the store sells you one in the same flow. The monthly bill is taken from your bank automatically; you can see it coming in the bank panel's direct debit list.

Chargers ($25) and power banks ($75) are on the same shelves. A phone drains slowly in your pocket, faster while open, on a call or with the torch on, and charges at two and a half percent a minute in a running vehicle or a powered property.

Mobile PhoneTool0 kg

A smartphone for communication

Phone ChargerTool0.2 kg

USB fast charger. Plugs into most modern vehicles and wall sockets.

Step by step

1. Boot and set up

   Open the new handset with M. Setup asks for a language, a passcode (skip if you must, but set one later), a wallpaper and a device name such as "Dana's iFruit". The name is what you see in Find My and the device chooser.

2. Learn the shell

   Swipe down from the status bar for the control centre: torch, airplane mode, ringer (ring, vibrate, silent), brightness, do not disturb, light or dark theme and the music mini-player. The status bar shows signal bars for your provider, the battery and a moon while do not disturb is on. Badges on the app tiles count unread messages, missed calls, unread mail and today's events. Folders and a four-app dock are yours to arrange.

3. Add contacts and send a text

   Contacts, plus, name and number. A contact can have a photo, a note, a favourite star, a speed dial and its own ringtone. Messages, new message, pick a contact or type a number. You can attach a photo from Snapmatic, your current location or a contact card. Sent, delivered and read states show under each bubble.

4. Make a call

   Phone app, keypad or a contact, or /call 2131024215 from chat. An incoming call rings whether the phone is open or not; answer with the on-screen button or /pickup (also /p), hang up with /hangup (also /h). Missed calls go to Recents and voicemails to the Voicemail tab of the Phone app. FaceTime works the same way with video, answered or declined with /ft answer or /ft decline.

5. Start a group chat

   Messages, "New group", give it a name and add people by tapping contacts or typing numbers. There is no member limit. The thread menu lets you add people, rename the group, see members and leave. Sender names show on every message and system lines record who joined or left.

6. Bank from your pocket

   The Fleeca app lists every account with balances, the last ten transactions across them, a Pay sheet that accepts a saved payee or a routing and account number with confirmation of payee, a Request sheet, and an ATM button that sets a waypoint to the nearest machine. Set a Fleeca PIN in Settings so the app asks for it before it opens; see Banking and finance.

The apps

Apps you install yourself from the App Store: Underground (street racing, see Underground racing), Pulse (dating), Market (classifieds with photos, offers and saved searches), Snake and 2048. Other apps come with the phone, among them Snacc (food delivery from venues and player kitchens), Ryde (taxis), TapThat (bar orders), Dynasty 8 (property listings and purchase), Bawsaq (stocks) and Bleeter.

Owned devices

Every handset has an owner: the character who bought it or first opened it. That decides what happens when someone else holds it.

• You are the owner. You see everything, and if you carry more than one handset a chooser lists them by name, number, battery and lock state when you press M.

• Someone else has it and there is no passcode. They can swipe up and use it as you would. Texts they send go out from your number. Everything they do is written to a device audit that staff can read with the phone's short id, so a thief is never anonymous to the server.

• Someone else has it and there is a passcode. They see the lock screen, the camera and nothing else. After five wrong codes the phone locks out for a minute, doubling each time up to an hour.

• The police seize it. A locked phone shows an evidence id on its lock screen. With a device warrant approved through the MDC an officer can open it read-only for 24 hours; the owner is told in Find My that it was unlocked under warrant. See Custody and the law.

Autolock is in Settings: immediately, or after 1, 5 or 15 minutes closed. The phone also locks the moment it leaves your inventory.

Find my iFruit, remote lock and wipe

Settings, Find my, or the Devices tab in the Find My app, lists every handset you own with its name, number, battery, and, when it is not in your inventory, where and when it was last seen. Four actions sit under each:

• Play sound rings the handset for fifteen seconds wherever it is, if its holder is online.

• Lock sets remote lock. Whoever holds it drops to the lock screen at once and stays there; you can set a new passcode as part of the lock. The lock lifts when you enter the code on the device or clear it here.

• Wipe moves every text, contact, note, photo, call log, voicemail and installed app off the device after two confirmations. The number, the SIM and the passcode stay. Nothing is destroyed on the server; it is archived and off the handset.

• Report lost puts "This phone has been reported lost" on the lock screen (with your name if you allow it) and flags it to the police, so an officer who recovers it can return it.

The same list appears at the mobile store counter, so you can lock a stolen phone from the shop while buying its replacement.

SIM transfer and selling a handset

Your number is a SIM binding, not the handset. At a mobile store, "Move my number" lists the devices you own; pick the old one and the new handset in your inventory and pay $150. From that moment calls and texts reach the new phone. The old one keeps its texts, contacts and photos (they are device data) but shows "No service" and cannot call or text, whoever holds it.

To sell or give a handset to someone, both of you stand at the store counter and use the ownership transfer. The device becomes theirs; its passcode and Fleeca PIN are cleared and everything else stays. Handing over the item without doing this leaves you the owner, which means you can still lock and wipe it.

Tips

• Give your device a name you will recognise. When you own three handsets and one is at the bottom of a canal, "Work phone" beats "iFruit (2)".

• Airplane mode makes you unreachable without turning anything off: callers get "not in service", texts queue silently and arrive when you switch it back. Useful in a scene where a ringing phone would ruin things.

• Photos taken on a phone belong to that phone. If you lend your handset for a picture, the picture is on your device.

• Use Fleeca's PIN even if you have a passcode. They are separate locks, and the bank one is the one that matters if the passcode is ever guessed.

• The lock screen shows notifications, but tapping one while locked only remembers where you wanted to go; nothing opens until you unlock.

• Alarms fire on the in-game clock. Set one for an event or a shift and it rings with the phone closed.

• Keep a charger in the glovebox. A phone at zero percent is off until it is back above the boot threshold, and you cannot call for help on a dead handset.

• If your number is on a phone you no longer have, move the SIM at a store rather than buying a new contract; contacts who saved your number keep it.

Related commands

Worked example

Related guides

• Banking and finance for the Fleeca app and card PINs

• Underground racing for the racing app

• Custody and the law for seized phones and device warrants

• Hospitals and medicine for prescriptions and the Health app

• Lifeinvader for the social network behind the Lifeinvader app

• Your phone for the short version