Lets talk about the Iphone 5

[Mr Bean]

Engadget Review
Gizmodo Review
USA Today Review
Bloomberg Review
So who here is upgrading or finally getting a Iphone for the first time?

This switch is going to jump my bill by 40$ a month since I'm one of the last Verizon unlimited customers and I was just informed by letter than as of the end of this year I would automatically be switched to the 2 gigs per month plan so to keep up with my five gigs a month usage I had to swap to the 6 gig plan for an extra 40$ a month for zero benefits. Tethering is still an extra 20$ a month, bloody bastards.

But I've wanted to be on the 4G network for awhile now so I'm buying my first Apple product since... ever. I've used them for forever but never owned one myself just fixing them for various business clients.

Anyone else buying one of the first time or upgrading?

[Borgholio]

Not touching the Iphone 5...not impressed with it. I'm sticking with my Galaxy Note.

Iphone 5 is just another incremental upgrade. The biggest high-points are the larger screen (longer really, not any wider), and 4g speed...both of which Droids have had for years.

[Col. Crackpot]

Engadget Review
Gizmodo Review
USA Today Review
Bloomberg Review
So who here is upgrading or finally getting a Iphone for the first time?

This switch is going to jump my bill by 40$ a month since I'm one of the last Verizon unlimited customers and I was just informed by letter than as of the end of this year I would automatically be switched to the 2 gigs per month plan so to keep up with my five gigs a month usage I had to swap to the 6 gig plan for an extra 40$ a month for zero benefits. Tethering is still an extra 20$ a month, bloody bastards.

But I've wanted to be on the 4G network for awhile now so I'm buying my first Apple product since... ever. I've used them for forever but never owned one myself just fixing them for various business clients.

Anyone else buying one of the first time or upgrading?

five gigs a month on one phone? Jesus Fuck, what are you downloading, the entire Brazzers database?

[Mr Bean]

five gigs a month on one phone? Jesus Fuck, what are you downloading, the entire Brazzers database?

I run Pandora about 6 hours a day while working which is 40 megs an hour, time six hours times five days a week, add another four hours, time four weeks thats 1.36 gigs a month from Pandora alone. Also I don't keep my photos on my phone only videos so they get instantly dumped in my photobucket and online drive around, figure another five hundred megs a month. (I take lots of documentation photos)

So we are at 1.86 gigs a month without even touching the internet. At 720P any Youtube I watch is 37.2 megs per five minutes, with about 20mb per minute for a Netflix or other streaming website. I don't watch much but I do watch some, so lets assume two hours a month (Fai) another 480 megs right there so we are up to 2.3 gigs.

Now we add in the fact that my phone is used as a pdf dumping ground for documents to review, these average about 20-50 megs and I look at least three of them a week, as many as ten so another 500 megs I'm averaging a month from that. I could cut my usage down here but I'm so used to tabbing through these documents quickly on my Droid.

So we are up to 2.8 gigs without a single second of internet browsing which can vary widely depending on what I'm work at on and with. But my phone is my time filler. Two megs a minute, two hours a week, eight hours a month or 960 megs

So 3.7 gigs a month. My usage per the nice people at Verizon is over the last eight hours between 2.5 gigs to 4.7 gigs a month. There is no four or five gig plan only the six gig plan or the two gig plan.

[Stark]

Not touching the Iphone 5...not impressed with it. I'm sticking with my Galaxy Note.

Iphone 5 is just another incremental upgrade. The biggest high-points are the larger screen (longer really, not any wider), and 4g speed...both of which Droids have had for years.

Thread hijacked by first post, Bean must be proud.

I guess I'll end up with a 5, if only because by dinosaur of a device would probably explode if I updated it to iOS6. But most of my use has changed from the phone to a tablet, so I'm not sure I really give a shit what my phone does/doesn't do in the end.

[JLTucker]

Bean, do you not have wifi at work?

[Mr Bean]

Thread hijacked by first post, Bean must be proud.

I am, it's a proud moment for the entire family.

I guess I'll end up with a 5, if only because by dinosaur of a device would probably explode if I updated it to iOS6. But most of my use has changed from the phone to a tablet, so I'm not sure I really give a shit what my phone does/doesn't do in the end.

See I can't see plunking down money for a tablet for another two or three years until some one has a tablet just yet. Not because there is anything wrong with them, in fact for such earlier hardware without a decade of refinement behind it tablets have been impressive in how well put together they are, but I'm waiting until society starts catching up and they get into students hands from the first day of class.

Bean, do you not have wifi at work?

Only in the company offices, if I'm in JPMorgans offices to tear into the Directors laptop because he #$%#$% it and they need data pulled off it, they are not going to let me on their private network. Most of these Corporate parks don't have public Wi-Fi, open up a Wi-Fi sniffer and you'll see 17 networks all password protected which does me zero good.

[Executor32]

Not touching the Iphone 5...not impressed with it. I'm sticking with my Galaxy Note.

Iphone 5 is just another incremental upgrade. The biggest high-points are the larger screen (longer really, not any wider), and 4g speed...both of which Droids have had for years.

Let's also not forget the fact that you can't use data at all while in a phone call, something that AFAIK every LTE-capable Android phone can do when connected to LTE. I don't know if it's because of the new single-chip radio design or if it's just a software thing they can fix later, but it seems like a rather glaring omission to me. Hell, I remember when 'Surf and talk at the same time!' was one of Apple's marketing bullet-points.

[Starglider]

Any purchase from this vile company is directly supporting the biggest patent system abuser in history. Did you miss the fact that Apple is now pushing for $3B damages from Samsung as well as a total US ban on all their products? Apple's many many transgressions against customer rights, fair competition, free innovation and the IT industry in general surpass those of Microsoft, Sony and Intel combined. At this point I will never purchase an Apple product even if they managed to take the price/performance lead (which doesn't look likely anyway).

[Phantasee]

My 3GS is dying, physically failing at this point. Tempted to update to iOS 6 to play around until I look at a new phone lat October or early November. I'm going to decide when I actually get my hands on a 5. The aluminium back is very tempting, it's one feature I've always really liked in phones (my first phone was a Moto SLVR), and the glass 4s didn't impress me.

However, I'm very particular about size. I don't like the size of the bigger phones out there right now, and even the Galaxy-sized ones (no pun intended) are too wide for my taste. So for the 5 it's about the length, whether it feels right to me.

I'm okay with moving up to a 4S (would be cheaper anyway), but if the 5 feels right I'll move up to that.

My one thing about capacity is pretty much negated these days by WiFi syncing and cloud storage, the 16GB model is sufficient for me now. Not looking forward to buying adapters for all my existing accessories, but I have misplaced just about all my cables and I need to pick up a dozen more anyway, so I guess I can wait until I see Lightning cables on DX or something.

Not a fan of the new maps app, though. Thinking of not updating my iPad just yet, because I use the maps app heavily on it for just looking at places. Lack of good directions would bother me on my phone, but I can work with paper maps until Apple fixes it, so not a deal breaker for me.

The rest of the features just seem pretty blah to me, I'm sure they'll be nice to have but I'm not especially hungry for them, I just want something in good condition and some snappiness to it. I'm getting tired of Messages crashing all the time on me, but it was the Phone app messing up a few times that has sealed the deal for me. I can't tolerate that kind of failure on my phone. I'm certain newer hardware is the answer to my woes.

Found out the Canadian Apple retail stores aren't selling unlocked iPhones in store anymore, which is a bummer, but the're still available online.

[Dalton]

Phant, I just upped my 3GS to iOS6 and it runs pretty sweet. Decided to get a 5 since my phone is also falling apart piece by piece, with several cracks in the case and a wonky home button. So far I'm liking what I'm seeing, but this is coming from someone with 3 year old tech. All in all though I think iOS6 may be a little more exciting than the iPhone 5.

[Phantasee]

So I updated it early this morning per your suggestion, and I've been playing with it a little. I'm glad safari has that full screen feature now, it was on my wish list for ages.

I like the privacy features, it's not just location data anymore, but permission is needed for photos, contacts, etc.

PS if you're on iOS 6, go to Settings->General->About->Advertising and switch the limiter on.

Haven't seen how the Facebook integration works yet. Not a fan of it to be honest, the twitter integration has been a pain in the ass on our family iPad, even after signing out and deleting an account from settings the notifications keep popping up for my sister's account, her friends that have borrowed it while over, and I don't want to sign out via settings every time on Facebook to keep my mom from creeping my Facebook. (She doesn't care about boundaries and is obsessed with me getting a girlfriend and married ASAP).

Haven't updated the iPad still.

[Spoonist]

[Phantasee]

Man Maps is so garbage I can't believe they actually released this. Wonder if google maps works through safari?

[Borgholio]

Let's also not forget the fact that you can't use data at all while in a phone call, something that AFAIK every LTE-capable Android phone can do when connected to LTE. I don't know if it's because of the new single-chip radio design or if it's just a software thing they can fix later, but it seems like a rather glaring omission to me. Hell, I remember when 'Surf and talk at the same time!' was one of Apple's marketing bullet-points.

Is that STILL a problem with the Verizon network? Jeez...

[Executor32]

CDMA data during a call still isn't possible on any Verizon phone that I know of. LTE data, on the other hand, works just fine during calls, though you obviously have to have LTE coverage at your location. I have direct experience with it on my Galaxy Nexus, but as far as I know every 4G LTE Android phone on Verizon can do it, too. It may be because they all use separate radio chipsets for CDMA and LTE, but I'm not sure.

[Phantasee]

I rarely need to use data while on a call since I'm usually using that phone to talk, so I don't quite understand why it's such a big deal.

Anyway I have discovered it is possible to tweet from the notification screen. This is not going to help. #TheRoadTo20kTweets

[Dalton]

Post to FB too, Phant. I'm in trouble.

[Stark]

Phant, is os6 the same as 5 performance wise, or does it roll it back a bit? I didn't bother upgrading my phone because 5 nearly crippled it, lol.

[Phantasee]

Mine has been more stable, feels snappier. Messages hasn't crashed today, even though I've been texting a dozen girls trying to get a date for tomorrow night. Twitter hasn't crashed either, and Facebook only once, and that was the first time I opened it after the update.

I don't know how much is due to ios 6 and how much from essentially restoring the phone. Let me get back to you in a week?

Edit: tho messages seems to have had some sort of bug fix, because it used to crash every iMessage from certain people, but not all.

[Phantasee]

Post to FB too, Phant. I'm in trouble.

I'm a lot more considerate of the people I call my friends, than of the people I call followers.

[chitoryu12]

Ehhhhhh.

I've had an iPhone 4 since about mid 2011, and it's perfectly fine for me even though the software is at least a month or two out of date. I really just don't see a point in upgrading to the iPhone 5 at this point, since it'll likely suffer from some teething problems (remember the iPhone 4's antenna issue?) and it'll be some time before I have a need to upgrade.

The iPhone 4 does everything a smartphone in 2012 needs to do.

[Phantasee]

Nobody needs the latest and greatest phone. I need to replace mine because it's falling apart, not because I need to be the cool kid on the block.

Something I said to a friend contemplating whether he needed to get a 5, since he already has a 4S:

It's an appliance. Get yours [in the sense of becoming wealthy] and you can get the nicest fridge, dishwasher, car, phone, whatever you want, as often as you want. Until then, use what you have, get something newer when you need it, and be satisfied your food stays fresh, your plates stay clean, your texts go through, and you can get from Point A to Point B. 

[Skgoa]

Ehhhhhh.

I've had an iPhone 4 since about mid 2011, and it's perfectly fine for me even though the software is at least a month or two out of date. I really just don't see a point in upgrading to the iPhone 5 at this point, since it'll likely suffer from some teething problems (remember the iPhone 4's antenna issue?) and it'll be some time before I have a need to upgrade.

The iPhone 4 does everything a smartphone in 2012 needs to do.

This + in their infinite wisdom Apple have designed a phone that is to long to be carried around comfortably in my pocket.

[Phantasee]

That is my biggest concern: too long to be comfortable. Haven't held one yet, my order will wait until I decide between the 5 and 4S.