Visiting China is a great way to realize just how much you rely on Google
(Android Central)

The moment your plane lands, your phone just became a whole lot less useful. It took me a few moments to realize what was happening. Landing in Shanghai after a 12-hour Air Canada flight, you could forgive me for being a little groggy when I walked into the terminal, hopped on the free Wi-Fi and said `hmm, my connection isn`t working.` Even though I could load androidcentral.com, nothing else on my phone worked. Gmail wouldn`t sync. Hangouts messages to family members saying I had landed were stuck sending. Google Now wouldn`t refresh to show my current location and weather. The Play Store wouldn`t let me update apps. It`s telling that the first half-dozen apps I tried to use after landing were all from Google. The connection speed was fine — it just so happened that the first half-dozen apps I wanted to check immediately upon entering the terminal were Google apps, and they don`t work at all in China. After pulling my brain back together from the long flight, I was obvi...