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Jennifer's iPod Touch - To Buy Or Not To Buy
I ALMOST purchased an iPHONE yesterday! Yes, you read that right!
I do LOVE my Pink Katana II, but the SPRINT Sero fair and flexible plan is (IMHO)awesome but does not give me enough minutes. I run out of anytime minutes each month. I have unlimited nights and weekends but these are not helpful for work. If I could stay within my minutes I would have a glorious $30 phone bill for 500 minutes, with unlimited text, data, mobile to mobile and nights and weekend calls too. But I am now paying, on average, $100 a month because of over-usage on minutes. When I inquired about increasing my minutes the options were not so positive. My bill would jump to $100.00 and I would not get unlimited texts. So I started thinking that it is a good time as any to upgrade to a smartphone.
I had a chance, not too long ago, to try out a Palm Centro and the Blackberry flip phone. Neither one did much for me so they are not in the running. On Saturday, while out and about, I decided to head over to Walmart to check out the iphones on a whim. I soon realized that I do not know enough to own and appreciate one of these little charmers. What am I thinking? I have only posted 3 blogs and am just learning how to remove unwanted applications so what am I doing thinking about an iphone! Luckily my two children were with me and immediately brought me back to reality! They had already begun negotiations for the covetted Touch!
I also realized that help was minimal and probably marginal to a novice like me--this could only go one way! BADLY!
I decided that I was not ready for this step in "Apple" Picking, yet!
I was going to buy the smaller one-but a little voice keeps saying "don't waste your money, you will be sorry". What would I possibly need all that space for?
I have decided that I am not ready, but would like some input into what it is I should know about the iPhone before making the trek into NYC to the Apple Store on 14th Street to purchase my very own iPhone.
Please share any tips, hints or needed info to help me prepare for this next step. I still have much to learn about the touch, navigating iTunes and discovering all the glorious things my Touch can do.
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But their variety on phones is just not enough, and I wanted the ability to switch a sim card and change phones to suit my mood or need at the moment without worrying about contracts, so I switched to T-Mobile. They do wind up costing my a bit more per month, but not extremely so.
Now, I have T-Mobile service and all of my phones are from AT&T. I have a Tilt and 2 iPhones. Since I got the iPhone, the Tilt has been in a drawer, unused. T-Mobile's My Fav's keeps me from going anywhere near the limit of my minutes, once you consider that incoming and outgoing calls to the 5 numbers you call most (Husband, Wife, Mother, Kids, Boss, etc.) eat up most people's minutes.
Unlocking an iPhone can be marginally scary, but is really quite simple, and there are serveral good walkthroughs online with easy to follow steps - easy enough that I did it myself, and I couldn't be happier. If you run into trouble, let me know - I'll help you with it.
I wouldn't have considered an iPhone before the App Store - there were too many things that I did on my WM phones that the iPhone could not do - but all that changed with the App Store. Now, I can read books, play games, catch a TV episode I missed, or a series I'm getting into, rent a movie, have threaded SMS, and I even recently found out how to add Swirly MMS, so I have picture mail back! I can Email, or text to my heart's content, surf much easier than from any other phone I have owned, and there are a zillion website out there to look at to help me find new and exciting apps for work or play.
My personal recommendation: Check out Craigslist for a 2G iPhone in a 16G capacity. They can be found for about 200-250, depending on where you live. The 2G iPhones will still work with most accessories out there, like speakers and chargers, and the newer 3G phones do not. You will need a headphone adapter for their recessed port, but they can be had for about $5 each, and are easy and cheap enough to keep several around.
Once your phone is unlocked, T-Mobile will help you set up the phone to get internet, if you can't find a guide online to do it, and although T-Mo does have 3G in some areas, you'll usually wind up with Edge - not super, but certainly ok. And it has WiFI for at home or work to make some things quicker.
I never thought there would really be a single device that I would be happy with, but nothing that has come out in the last year has made me curious enough to even think of ditching the iPhone.
You can even try out T-Mo's month to month service that is prepaid with no contract, and try it out for a month or 2 before deciding to make the committment to their service or to AT&T's.
i believe that apple will be coming out with a new one come june. i just thought i would throw this out there. Also i would get the biggest size available. you dont think you need it but trust me. if fills up FAST
A parent of one of my students works for AT&T, he too says buy the one with the most space. I was not listening when he told me about all the capabillities the new iphone will have, but I do remember being quite surprised.
I just don't understand teh need for so much space. I have no ability to download movies unless I buy/rent them from iTunes and that won't happen. What else takes up large amounts of space? I also have the touch so I am just not sure what I would need all that space for.
Again I will say I am too new to all this to fully grasp the concept, I just know that the iphone is one cool little device. One day I will have my very own.
Thansk for all the suggestions and thoughts. I will be sure to keep researching this.
While I will agree with you that it may seem silly to spend the extra $100 on extra space that you don’t think you will end up using, trust me it will pay off. I did the same thing and ended up getting the 8gig original iPhone instead of the 16gig one. Now I really regret. I didn’t think that I would ever buy movies and I didn’t think that I would have any were near as much music as I have not. But that all changed. It started out that my family would take car trips so I would rent a movie to watch in order to pass time. Then I realized that if I were to buy movies on iTunes it would cost less and I could watch them on the TV with this cable. (You can find it online (this is a link to Amazon) or at the apple store, it is the Apple Composite AV Cable, they do not currently have them on the Apple Store Online) When I came to this realization that I could save a TON of money in the long run I started to buy movies. Also the applications are AMAZAING. Only problem... they take up space, and trust me you start to get a lot of them fast. Also the iPhone makes buying music convenient with the mobile iTunes store so this made my music collection grow... so before I knew it I was having to sort through my library every other weekend so that I would have enough space for what I wanted on my phone. I HIGHLY RECOMAND THAT YOU GET THE BIGGEST SIZE AVAILABLE! YOU WILL THANK ME LATER!
Here is what I have told everyone. If you haven't used an iPhone yet, you have nothing to miss. However, once you use it, you can probably say you will live by it!
I know for one thing. I have used my laptop less for email and surfing purposes due to all the application available in the appstore that will give or grant you access to all the information you need at (literally) at the palm of your hands.
Of course, there are other things that will require a laptop but overall the iPhone is already being deemed as a mini notebook/pc due to it's capabilities and of course the contribution of applications available.
Understandably, you have an iTouch which only gives you half the fun. It's like watching an HD movie without a surround sound system. Nevertheless, i can rest assure you that there are some disappointments you will probably encounter but with every disappointment there is always good things. Right now for me, there are more good things than disappointments.
Very well stated! I will have to say that I was once very happy with my hacked black jack. I didn't need an iPhone! Then I used one, then bought one. Now I live by it. I very rarely use my desktop or laptop for email anymore. All of my accounts are on my iPhone and that is how I email. I also had no more use for an iPod. I sold my 80gig iPod and use my phone exclusively. Yes, not as much space, but I can change out music anytime I want. If you carefully choose your apps, this thing can make you very productive too. I say BUY!
i agree, thats a very good summery of things