Marty McFly
Well-Known Member
It's iPhone 4. Not iPhone 4g.
Yesterday, I got the last 4G iPhone in Vegas
- Thread starter Hearsky
- Start date
TheMulletMutilator
Member
Apple is definitely losing the battle because the Android OS is by far the best and you currently have to go through AT&T to get an iPhone. That will change apparently down the road when Verizon is rumored to get a future iPhone. But as far as cost, you can't beat Sprint when comparing what you get. No data cap like AT&T and Verizon. Unlimited Mobile to Mobile minutes to any service provider. Oh and 4G which is on the way to the SLC area this fall. Realistically you could also get hotspot which makes your phone a 4G modem(when 4G is available to SLC, 3G as of now) and connect up to 8 wifi devices with broadband speeds. Not to mention that you can take video in HD(720P) and also have an 8 MP camera on the back and a 1.3 on the front for video conferencing and or skype(which is also free). Hotspot does cost you 30 bucks additional if you want to go through Sprint to get it but you can get rid of your current ISP if you feel like it. There is also a way you can DL an app to get hotspot for free(though Sprint can't be too happy about that). The only really bad thing I have heard about Sprint is their Customer Service. Anyway, just a heads up for some of you. If you do go for the Evo then good luck getting it. The Best Buy I went to on launch date to get it at had me all set up to get one on the second shipment, except the idiot put my CC expiration date in the computer wrong so I had to wait a couple of weeks to actually get my evo.
I wouldn't say "upset." It's more along the lines of it's difficult to feel like you're really on the cutting edge of smartphones when it seems as if you possess the exact same phone as everyone around you. The present cult-like aspects of the Apple crowd don't improve my perception of this uniformity.
Or I could just get a different phone that's functionally identical (lets be clear, the iphone's capabilities are hardly unique at this point) and isn't exactly the same as every other phone I see in my everyday life.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
You can install the free WiFi tethering app for now, true. But Android 2.2 (aka Froyo) is due to be released anytime now for the Evo and it has a WiFi hotspot app built in. Also, SLC was rumored to be launching 4G as early as today, and you can already get 4G in may areas from Ogden to south of Provo. Turn your 4G on and you may be surprised...
EDIT: I just checked and 4G is now on the Sprint coverage maps for SLC, so it may have launched today.
The iPhone's capabilities were never really unique. Pretty much all of the functionality of the iPhone (and plenty more than that) was available on other devices before the iPhone launched.
It's Apple that is announcing all these great new features that have been available on every other smartphone all along (multitasking is a current example, copy and paste and MMS before that).
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TheMulletMutilator
Member
Thanks Salty. I really need to check out if 4 G is up and running. I'll get back to you and tell you the results.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
It's been hit and miss for me. Some places I have it, some I don't...
CONAN
Well-Known Member
I understand. Not a big deal to me as I just go with what works for me best. If that's what everyone is using then fine. If that's what no one is using then fine. But for some folks that's a big deal so I understand.
I brought that up because I'm starting to run into that issue with my iphone. I don't know how long I've had it but I was unique with it for awhile within my group of people I'm with everyday. But recently more of the group has gotten iphones or new people have come in with iphones. So I had a guy with his text tone going off and I kept checking my phone. I finally went in and changed the tone. Took a few days to get used to but ok now.
But I don't see this as being a problem unique to the iphone.
I think the iPhone is quickly getting to the place (if it's not there already) that the Motorola Razor was at about 2-3 years ago: the most ubiquitous phone on the market.
Salty's right, fwiw, about iphone features. I remember when I first got mine and it didn't do picture messaging I was pretty livid.
CONAN
Well-Known Member
You didn't know that before you got it? That's a pretty big feature to not know about but maybe you just assumed you had it (rightfully so). I knew about it and was ok with it and it got fixed anyway.
Look, people can chirp all they want but the bottom line is you should go with what works best for you. I've had nothing but awesomeness from my iphone since I got it so why mess with that? Clearly that would be a bad decision. But if another phone works better for you than go for it. I don't understand the whole "My phone is better than your phone" debate. Clearly very childish.
By way of context, I get my phone service for free through my work. On my first day they literally presented me with a menu that had some basic information about phones like size and weight and told me to pick. I think my options at the time were a couple different Blackberry models, a Palm Treo, and the iPhone. Frankly, I sort of assumed that photo messaging wasn't going to be an issue given that I'd been using it for years on significantly less "high tech" phones. I picked the iPhone 3G which was new at the time. Given that my other option was to purchase my own phone and plan I decided that one feature wasn't worth the entire cost of a plan.
This was a couple years ago now. Newbies have HTC and droid options that didn't exist when I started. I'm probably going to transition to one of those in September when I'm eligible for another phone.
CONAN
Well-Known Member
It's cool when work pays for it. My wife's work pays for hers but can't be iphone because email on iphone isn't as secure as say blackberry. But we have iphones and itouches aplenty in our family so it makes more sense for all of us to be on the same device. Especially when it comes to syncing everything up via itunes. Very handy for everyone's separate tastes and needs. So she has two phones.
The tech nerds at her work need to get on the ball, too.
But to the point of features, I've always accepted that working with Apple products that sometimes the features aren't always what I want them to be but that it happens eventually. Apple's track record with me has been awesome so I don't mind being patient to an extent.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
How do you know what phone works "best" for you if you never try any other phone?
Most people that have iPhones love them and think they work best for them. Those same people are always happy when Apple adds some feature that other smartphones have had all along- like the multitasking in the latest upgrade. Yet, there isn't a single feature on the iPhone 4 that isn't available on other smartphones. Smartphones that you don't have to jailbreak to get working the way you want.
To each their own, but I just find it funny when someone tells me the iPhone works best for them, and then a few months later they're all excited to get some basic feature that they could have had all along on any other smartphone.
I bet all the people talking about how great their iPhone is will be pretty excited if they get Flash support in a year or 2. And I'll be wondering why they didn't get a different phone if they wanted Flash support since all the other smartphones on the market have it already. Just like I did with stereo audio through bluetooth, copy and paste, MMS, multitasking, and so on...
CONAN
Well-Known Member
If it's not broke, don't fix it.
It was a big jump going from my combination of cell phone and PDA to a smartphone. But moving from smartphone to smartphone from there isn't as big a deal. At least not for me and my needs. And I really don't think it's a big deal for 99% of the users out there. I'm definitely not going to jiz in my pants like some nerds do over this stuff. There's not some huge need out there my iphone isn't fulfilling and my life sucks if I don't have it now. It's not that big a deal and that is something I find funny is when nerds make the differences out to be a bigger deal then they are. Those differences matter to like 1% of the population out there . . . clearly.
I basically use my phone to make phone calls (weird, I know) with a little bit of texting mixed in. I also make the majority of my phone calls to one number, my wife's phone.
I've had phones with internet capability and cameras, but I've never used those features, even when doing so wouldn't have cost me anything more than I was already paying.
Anyway, all that said just to say that I've been a Sprint customer for about 9 years now. I've had to call customer service about 7-8 times, and each and every time they take care of my issue, usually crediting my account without me having to ask. I've heard so much about Sprint's bad customer service, but over a nine year period I haven't had a single bad experience. My guess is that some people want Sprint to fix things that aren't Sprint's fault, like going over minutes or using services that weren't part of your plan or were limited and you exceeded the limit. If you're angry because everytime you exceede your limit Sprint won't credit your account to make up for it I have no sympathy for you.
I pay for a plan that provides me with way more time than I typically use (I have a family plan for my wife and I with 1500 anytime minutes and unlimited data and text. She uses about 400-600 minutes and I use about 100-200). I think that if I had a plan with 800 minutes and every third month or so I went over and got pissed at a service rep from Sprint when they wouldn't credit my account I could go around saying that their customer service sucked, but really it would be me who sucked. And that's what I think about most people who complain about Sprint's customer service.
I've had phones with internet capability and cameras, but I've never used those features, even when doing so wouldn't have cost me anything more than I was already paying.
Anyway, all that said just to say that I've been a Sprint customer for about 9 years now. I've had to call customer service about 7-8 times, and each and every time they take care of my issue, usually crediting my account without me having to ask. I've heard so much about Sprint's bad customer service, but over a nine year period I haven't had a single bad experience. My guess is that some people want Sprint to fix things that aren't Sprint's fault, like going over minutes or using services that weren't part of your plan or were limited and you exceeded the limit. If you're angry because everytime you exceede your limit Sprint won't credit your account to make up for it I have no sympathy for you.
I pay for a plan that provides me with way more time than I typically use (I have a family plan for my wife and I with 1500 anytime minutes and unlimited data and text. She uses about 400-600 minutes and I use about 100-200). I think that if I had a plan with 800 minutes and every third month or so I went over and got pissed at a service rep from Sprint when they wouldn't credit my account I could go around saying that their customer service sucked, but really it would be me who sucked. And that's what I think about most people who complain about Sprint's customer service.
Hearsky
Well-Known Member
I've got two new macbook pros, a macbook, a mac pro, an iPad, three iPhones, two iPod shuffles and more iPods than I care to count. I have NEVER had an Apple product that has let me down. Meanwhile, I go into work and have to deal with crap PC's that are supposedly the latest and greatest. My wife once bought a Dell Laptop and spent more on the phone with India than I care to remember. It's live driving an Acura vs. driving a Chevrolet. Until Apple let's me down, they have my business forever. I am not a techno geek. I just need something that works and I can count on.
TheMulletMutilator
Member
You have been pretty lucky then. I am 1/3 so far and I wasn't calling about overage or anything along those lines. I was calling to activate my phone and it was initially an absolute nightmare. First time was at Best Buy and the agent hung up on us after 20 minutes of holding. The second time was for activation and it was a pure nightmare. I first was directed to India where I could hardly understand the Sprint Agent and then I was transferred to an agent who didn't know what he was doing. The third time I had a pleasant experience though. So anyway, 1/3 in the initial stage getting my account going. Other then that, I love the service and the no data cap restrictions.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
The current #1 in the MSN customer Service Hall of Shame. Is it all people just trying to get credits for things they should be paying for? Here are some examples:
https://moneycentral.msn.com/commun...oter=Show&linktarget=_parent&pagestyle=money1
I have no loyalty to any cell phone company. I've ported my number into and out of all the major companies more times than I could count.
Like Conan said, he's not the guy that wants the latest and greatest phone. Well, I AM that guy. So I have tried them all, several times. And like pretty much everyone else that has tried them all, I can tell you Sprint has by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced, with any company, in any field.
Their prices are great, their product (the actual cell service) is not bad, and right now they have the best phone lineup too. But, their reps break promises left and right with no accountability, they have no problem hanging up on you, if you get transferred there is a good chance you are getting disconnected, the incredible amount of time spent on hold is frustrating, the reps have no idea about anything and often sound like parrots reading the Sprint website verbatum when you ask them a question that the website doesn't adequately explain, and it goes on and on.
I can't imagine anyone actually liking Sprint's customer service. Sprint themselves admits it's horrible and says they are trying to fix it (they even had an ad campaign where the CEO was giving out an email address to get to his office and bypass it altogether, which turned out to just be more of the same but over email instead).
All I can tell you is, if you think Sprint's customer service is great, wait til you finally leave Sprint someday and try anyone else. You'll woner why you put up with it for so long and kick yourself for not knowing what you were missing.
And to Hearsky, I'd put my PC's against your Macs anyday. Your work may have the supposed latest and greatest, but if they aren't working properly then someone obviously screwed something up. And even better is that in 2 or 3 years, when those systems aren't the latest and greatest anymore, you can upgrade the hardware in them and make them the latest and greatest again. Keep in mind though, most companies install all kinds of stuff and configure the computers in a certain way and it usually hurts the performance. They don't want the end users doing certain things, so they have to lock out certain features and load it up will all kinds of bloatware. They also have to configure it to be remotely configured and updated, get most of it's settings and data from a remote server, and even run apps off a remote server on a network with hundreds of other users. In almost all cases, if you take a corporate computer and give an average joe an identical model (that hasn't been configured for corporate use) the average joe's will have a way better performance.
Speaking of working properly, what do you do when you go to a friend's house and they have something you want to put on your iPod/iPhone? Do you hope they have the 3rd party app (iTunes) installed so you can communicate with it? I prefer to just pop mine in and every computer (PC, Linux, and Mac) sees it as a flash drive and I can transfer whatever I want to it. No need to have anything special installed.
Someday all the Apple fans will wake up and realize they have been getting taken to the cleaners all this time. Freedom to use your device however you want is better than the locked down, walled garden that Apple restricts their users too.
https://moneycentral.msn.com/commun...oter=Show&linktarget=_parent&pagestyle=money1
I have no loyalty to any cell phone company. I've ported my number into and out of all the major companies more times than I could count.
Like Conan said, he's not the guy that wants the latest and greatest phone. Well, I AM that guy. So I have tried them all, several times. And like pretty much everyone else that has tried them all, I can tell you Sprint has by far the worst customer service I have ever experienced, with any company, in any field.
Their prices are great, their product (the actual cell service) is not bad, and right now they have the best phone lineup too. But, their reps break promises left and right with no accountability, they have no problem hanging up on you, if you get transferred there is a good chance you are getting disconnected, the incredible amount of time spent on hold is frustrating, the reps have no idea about anything and often sound like parrots reading the Sprint website verbatum when you ask them a question that the website doesn't adequately explain, and it goes on and on.
I can't imagine anyone actually liking Sprint's customer service. Sprint themselves admits it's horrible and says they are trying to fix it (they even had an ad campaign where the CEO was giving out an email address to get to his office and bypass it altogether, which turned out to just be more of the same but over email instead).
All I can tell you is, if you think Sprint's customer service is great, wait til you finally leave Sprint someday and try anyone else. You'll woner why you put up with it for so long and kick yourself for not knowing what you were missing.
And to Hearsky, I'd put my PC's against your Macs anyday. Your work may have the supposed latest and greatest, but if they aren't working properly then someone obviously screwed something up. And even better is that in 2 or 3 years, when those systems aren't the latest and greatest anymore, you can upgrade the hardware in them and make them the latest and greatest again. Keep in mind though, most companies install all kinds of stuff and configure the computers in a certain way and it usually hurts the performance. They don't want the end users doing certain things, so they have to lock out certain features and load it up will all kinds of bloatware. They also have to configure it to be remotely configured and updated, get most of it's settings and data from a remote server, and even run apps off a remote server on a network with hundreds of other users. In almost all cases, if you take a corporate computer and give an average joe an identical model (that hasn't been configured for corporate use) the average joe's will have a way better performance.
Speaking of working properly, what do you do when you go to a friend's house and they have something you want to put on your iPod/iPhone? Do you hope they have the 3rd party app (iTunes) installed so you can communicate with it? I prefer to just pop mine in and every computer (PC, Linux, and Mac) sees it as a flash drive and I can transfer whatever I want to it. No need to have anything special installed.
Someday all the Apple fans will wake up and realize they have been getting taken to the cleaners all this time. Freedom to use your device however you want is better than the locked down, walled garden that Apple restricts their users too.
CONAN
Well-Known Member
I've never had this happen. Sounds like something that would be important to some segments of society . . . like uber-nerds.
Geez, I had no idea there was some wonderful, secret world out there I was missing out on.
SaltyDawg
Well-Known Member
I know it seems ridiculous, but yes, thers is a lot you are missing out on, lol.I've never had this happen. Sounds like something that would be important to some segments of society . . . like uber-nerds.
Geez, I had no idea there was some wonderful, secret world out there I was missing out on.
Like I said, all the iPhone users say something like this and then get all happy when they get their next update (which only includes features that everyone else has been enjoying all along).
Someday you'll get Flash (which most web pages on the internet have been using for years- so much for the real internet and not the "kind of, sort of" internet) and you'll be glad to have it and wont be able to go without it once you've got used to it. Or you'll get 4G and uncapped data and think it's great. Or even the ability to use your phone as a flash drive so you can have docs and important files with you everywhere. Seriously, if there wasn't something out there that you would probably love to have, then Apple would never update the OS. And since Apple never adds any features that you can't already get on other phones, that should tell you that you may very well like something else even better.
Imagine if your first car was a Chevy Malibu and you never drove anything else because it got you from point A to point B without any problems. Imagine that someone then tries to tell you how much better the Cadillac is- which also happens to be cheaper.
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