Of iPhones, and Such

Box

My cell phone contract with Sprint runs up soon, and I want to leave them. Sprint is pretty awful. I know none of the big boys in the cell phone game are great, but Sprint is just awful. Being the young, susceptible to fancy gadgets lad I am, I am looking to go to AT&T and get an iPhone.

I know all of it's downsides: No 3G, only 8gigs of space, etc. I am okay with that, I think. I've been doing some soul searching and some research, and have decided both will be okay with me. UNLESS, a new model comes out at Macworld next month.

Now, I would just wait and see how that plays out, but I'll need to go sign up for AT&T before then, and don't want to have to buy/switch phones when/if a new model does come out.

So, I guess what I'm looking to ask is, do yous guys think a new model of the iPhone will come out at MWSF'08? I don't want to be THAT guy that is always waiting for the next upgrade. That guy lives in hell.

That_Guy

I have heard rumors, but that is all they were. Just keep in mind that you are going to be signing a 2 year contract. Be sure you know what you want before getting it.

GrimDog420

on a related iphone note:

I purchased my wife an iphone for xmas and i am planning on getting a win mobile phone. Does anyone know how much the cheapest family plan costs with 1 iphone and 1 non-iphone? I cant find this info anywhere on at&t's site.

Box

Hey, a side note to this question: I have a buddy that works at the apple store, and with his discount, I can get $60 off. I think he might just be working seasonal, too, so that adds to the ticking "buy now or not" clock.

bash

GrimDog420 wrote: »

on a related iphone note:

I purchased my wife an iphone for xmas and i am planning on getting a win mobile phone. Does anyone know how much the cheapest family plan costs with 1 iphone and 1 non-iphone? I cant find this info anywhere on at&t's site.

IIRC it is $80 before taxes and stuff. The base level F&F plan is $59.99, the iPhone data plan is $20 on top of that. This method will get you one non-iPhone and one iPhone. If you're going to get a data phone you're also going to need a data plan for your line, AT&T does not share the iPhone data plan over two devices, even if one of them is not an iPhone. Adding a data plan for your non-iPhone (for unlimited data) is like $30. I believe it's called the "PDA Personal Max" plan and you can add it onto an existing voice line. It's hard as hell to find a clear view of AT&T's data plans which is good for them but shitty for everyone else.

I am currently set up with the F&F plan with an iPhone data line. I also got an additional 200 message for the non-iPhone on my plan. I recently bumped up to the 1500 minute plan because I got hit with ridiculous minute overage rates. AT&T charges 45¢ a minute for overages. I think it pays to grab more minutes than you expect to use so if you do use a lot one month you won't get dicked over on your bill (45¢ a minute is asinine) and if you use less you accrue them as rollover minutes so you can use them down the road.

As for buying an iPhone and being limited by EDGE: it can be slow sometimes but it is not horrible. For checking and sending e-mail I haven't found EDGE to be much of a problem. Even relatively large HTML e-mails (bacon) load quick enough to read them, if you switch messages once you've seen a portion of the mail it stops loading the rest of the images. For web browsing EDGE can be kind of rough due to the sluggish speed and high latency. That being said, bookmark the full RSS feed for sites for browsing them on the run. I've done this for most of the sites I visit regularly. The feed opens through a reader hosted on Apple's .Mac service (you don't need to be a .Mac subscriber to use it) and is functional enough. Loading feeds rather than whole sites is pretty speedy even over EDGE. If more forums *cough*vBulletin*cough* would sport mobile-friendly templates I would do more foruming on my iPhone. These forums aren't unusable on the iPhone but not very friendly for a small screen and/or slow connection.

Browsing over WiFi is as fast as you would expect it to be. One thing I've found using EV-DO phones is they tend to have shitty browsers that don't really make good use of their available bandwidth. A 1Mbps network connection isn't very useful if you've got a half-ass browser accessing it, the same goes for e-mail. An iPhone that supported HSDPA would be sweet but until then WiFi is pretty nice. I learned recently that if you have AT&T DSL (one of their higher rate packages) you get unlimited access to AT&T WiFi hotspots. I happen to have such an AT&T DSL line so I can browse on WiFi at the local B&N and a few other places I've found. Obviously there's also free WiFi in coffee shops and the like. I recently got to use that Starbucks iTunes store at the Starbucks in Cupertino (De Anza and Steven's Creek) and it is pretty cool. It gives you access to their WiFi for iTunes but you still have to pay for non-iTunes access. I didn't buy anything because I find most of that music absolutely awful but I think it is a cool feature.

Shooter Mcgavin

My buddy quit his job and just lives off of his iPhone now. They are THAT awesome.

Randall_Flagg

there is no way I am going to be buying an iphone when I know that the android is right around the corner

Big Dookie

Eh, Sprint's not that bad. EVDO Rev. A is pretty awesome (you don't even need Wi-Fi anymore if you have it), and their data plans are very reasonable. Their phone lineup hasn't been stellar for the last few years, but it's getting better. The improved HTC Touch that they just released in November is a pretty sweet little phone. Sprint has their drawbacks, but they a lot going for them as well.

DeathPrawn

Despite the EDGE slowness, I love my iPhone more than any other phone I've had. Safari is fantastic, the large screen is great for movies, and the shitty included headphones beat the normal shitty iPod headphones by a longshot because of the play/pause/next song controls (plus, it's always fun to make people think you're absolutely nuts when you appear to be talking to no one while wearing iPod headphones). Yeah, EDGE can be horrifically slow, but it's perfectly fine for e-mail or Google Maps, which are mostly what I use it for.

The 3rd party software scene right now is also pretty amazing, too. Here's what I do with hacked software on a regular basis:
- Scrobble to Last.FM (MobileScrobbler)
- Take pictures, then send them to Flickr (iFlicker, Pushr)
- Instant Message (Apollo)
- Remotely connect to my linux box to do whatever (MobileTerminal + ssh)
- Keep a to-do list (MobileToDo) (why didn't Apple include this to begin with?!)
- Play games (ScummVM, among others)
- View PDF files without having to e-mail them to myself (Apache or Lighttpd)

GrimDog420

bash wrote: »

GrimDog420 wrote: »

on a related iphone note:

I purchased my wife an iphone for xmas and i am planning on getting a win mobile phone. Does anyone know how much the cheapest family plan costs with 1 iphone and 1 non-iphone? I cant find this info anywhere on at&t's site.

IIRC it is $80 before taxes and stuff. The base level F&F plan is $59.99, the iPhone data plan is $20 on top of that. This method will get you one non-iPhone and one iPhone. If you're going to get a data phone you're also going to need a data plan for your line, AT&T does not share the iPhone data plan over two devices, even if one of them is not an iPhone. Adding a data plan for your non-iPhone (for unlimited data) is like $30. I believe it's called the "PDA Personal Max" plan and you can add it onto an existing voice line. It's hard as hell to find a clear view of AT&T's data plans which is good for them but shitty for everyone else.

I am currently set up with the F&F plan with an iPhone data line. I also got an additional 200 message for the non-iPhone on my plan. I recently bumped up to the 1500 minute plan because I got hit with ridiculous minute overage rates. AT&T charges 45¢ a minute for overages. I think it pays to grab more minutes than you expect to use so if you do use a lot one month you won't get dicked over on your bill (45¢ a minute is asinine) and if you use less you accrue them as rollover minutes so you can use them down the road.

As for buying an iPhone and being limited by EDGE: it can be slow sometimes but it is not horrible. For checking and sending e-mail I haven't found EDGE to be much of a problem. Even relatively large HTML e-mails (bacon) load quick enough to read them, if you switch messages once you've seen a portion of the mail it stops loading the rest of the images. For web browsing EDGE can be kind of rough due to the sluggish speed and high latency. That being said, bookmark the full RSS feed for sites for browsing them on the run. I've done this for most of the sites I visit regularly. The feed opens through a reader hosted on Apple's .Mac service (you don't need to be a .Mac subscriber to use it) and is functional enough. Loading feeds rather than whole sites is pretty speedy even over EDGE. If more forums *cough*vBulletin*cough* would sport mobile-friendly templates I would do more foruming on my iPhone. These forums aren't unusable on the iPhone but not very friendly for a small screen and/or slow connection.

Browsing over WiFi is as fast as you would expect it to be. One thing I've found using EV-DO phones is they tend to have shitty browsers that don't really make good use of their available bandwidth. A 1Mbps network connection isn't very useful if you've got a half-ass browser accessing it, the same goes for e-mail. An iPhone that supported HSDPA would be sweet but until then WiFi is pretty nice. I learned recently that if you have AT&T DSL (one of their higher rate packages) you get unlimited access to AT&T WiFi hotspots. I happen to have such an AT&T DSL line so I can browse on WiFi at the local B&N and a few other places I've found. Obviously there's also free WiFi in coffee shops and the like. I recently got to use that Starbucks iTunes store at the Starbucks in Cupertino (De Anza and Steven's Creek) and it is pretty cool. It gives you access to their WiFi for iTunes but you still have to pay for non-iTunes access. I didn't buy anything because I find most of that music absolutely awful but I think it is a cool feature.

Thanks for the info. I dont need more than the basic friends and family plan. My wife and I barely scratch 200 minutes a month peak times. With unlimited data on I am more likely to email. I am a professional mobile software engineer and have been working on win mobile stuff as of late, hence me getting the win mobile phone. But, if the iphone sdk turns out to be pretty sweet, i will dump my win mobile phone and pick up the next gen (3g) iphone.

Ronen

Randall_Flagg wrote: »

there is no way I am going to be buying an iphone when I know that the android is right around the corner

If by "right around the corner" you mean "at least 8-12 months away from a viable, usable product" you're absolutely correct.

Randall_Flagg

I'm doubting that "usable" is actually a word

ufo

i highly doubt there will be a new iphone until this summer. however i do not doubt that macworld will maybe bump up the iphone to 16gb like the touch. so i say go for it.

all i know is that its been almost half a year with the iphone and i still love it. its a bit bruised now on the back corner (thanks gravel!) but the screen is still as pristine as day one. edge isnt too bad. hopefully at&t's 3g services are offered in more places when they roll out a new iphone eventually.

Ronen

Randall_Flagg wrote: »

I'm doubting that "usable" is actually a word

us·a·ble [yoo-zuh-buhl]
–adjective
1. available or convenient for use: 2000 square feet of usable office space.
2. capable of being used: That saw is no longer usable.
Also, useable.

As for pertinent iPhone information, waiting for MacWorld isn't a bad idea, friend's discount aside.

The big issue with a 3G iPhone (as Mr. Jobs said himself) is battery life. Look at other 3G phones and look at their battery life with and without 3G transmission on... it's a very noticeable difference.

My previous post was made from my cell phone which has a browser built from the same code as Mobile Safari (Webkit) using EDGE, and it's not so bad. Personally, I turn off automatic image display, so sites that I browse just load placeholder graphics for images and it speeds up the loading process significantly... although I don't know if you can do that with Mobile Safari on the iPhone. If you can, I'd suggest it (you can always tell the browser to load pictures if you need them).

apotheos

I live in Canada with a hacked iPhone, so my experience has a twist: since I only get 5MB of data (it comes with the SMS plan) I have disabled Edge entirely on my phone using a homebrew app. Home, work, my favorite coffee shop: all have wifi. My iPhone sees plenty of use on the internet.

I just don't use Edge.

Works for me.

ROFISH

I have an iPhone, and most of the things said here are true. I've found that HTML email on EDGE is horrendous. Even regular kind where it's just 26kb of email. I really don't know why it's so awful. Regular text mail is great.

EDGE is slow. You'll either get used to it, or find that "for iPhone" sites are better because they don't load crap like Google Adsense. You'll want to turn off Javascript when going to regular sites, but turn on Javascript on "for iPhone" sites. A LOT!

One thing people here don't mention is battery life: For me, it's bad. Maybe I'm used to my simple little phone that only needed to be charged once every other week, but after a day of sitting in class surfing the internet on Wifi, it's done for the day. I usually get a good full day's worth, I've never had it go out on me during the day. But if I had a weekend bender after I spent all Friday in class surfing and I forget to charge my phone, it'll run out of batteries. Generally expect one heavy day and one light day, that's it.

8 gigs is perfect for music. Any more and I tend to have a 'wtf is that song?' like I did with my 4G iPod. Usually when I want to want a TV show or something, iTunes can be set to fill the rest of the available space with TV shows or movies you haven't seen, which is nice.

Dartboy

I have an iPhone and I think it's swell. In regards to EDGE, I've found that the connection speed is entirely dependent on my signal strength. Fortunately, the majority of places I go I tend to get full strength, and as a result I can usually browse normal websites at adequate speeds. I can visit PA / this forum just fine, though I tend to avoid NSF56K threads.

Shogun

I also have an iPhone and I love it. Where I am as long as you have 4 or 5 bars EDGE is not bad at all. But wifi is everywhere these days and that makes up for it as well. Get one you won't be disappointed.

bash

EDGE is tricky with respect to the bandwidth available. It depends partly on your signal strength and partly on your local cell's current usage. A 1900MHz cell has 298 channels with 8 timeslots per channel. EDGE can theoretically use all eight time slots on a channel but in practice no more than 4 are used. The number of timeslots available to an EDGE user is based on the number of active users in a cell, eight time slots and 298 channels is 2,384 simultaneous calls per cell, give or take a few for handoff reservations and stuff. If you're in a super busy cell with a lot of voice traffic your connection is likely to suffer as you'll not end up getting a full four timeslots all the time. The signal quality also affects your bandwidth, based on your signal strength different modulation and coding schemes are chosen. The fastest (needing the strongest signal) is 59.2kb/slot (~236kbps) while the slowest is 8.8kb/slot (~70.4kbps).

In short depending on where you are and where other people are your EDGE speed can vary enormously.

Also, iPhone sites FTW. I've found that a number of major sites have added iPhone-friendly interfaces, Google and Amazon among them. You can also typically use the generalized "mobile" portion of a site if it offers one. I wish Gawker and Weblogs would offer some iPhone/mobile friendly templates. I know it would break their half-the-page-is-advertisements layout but I'm stuck browsing their RSS feeds unless I'm on WiFi. If you use Wordpress and want to offer up some mobile friendly goodness there's the very nice iWPhone plugin. I use it on my site and it tends to work really well. I'm trying to figure out a way for it to work properly with wp-cache but other than that I haven't had any trouble with it.

Edit: Solve'd
So if you want to use wp-cache and iWPhone (or WP-Mobile or WP-PDA) follow these instructions for modifying wp-cache-phase1.php. In the list of small browsers make sure you add an entry for the iPhone's user agent

'iPhone'