New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

I have the early Verizon plan w/ unlimited data, 450 minutes, 250 txts and I spend about 97/mo. I don't think I've ever used close to a gig.

if all was equal id switch with verizon but thats an extra $480 over two years so that i can get better service.

sprint would be an extra $240 for better service, but who knows how well their 3g network will be able to handle all the iphones

i suppose the argument to switch to verizon now is that they have the best 4G service and i want to be locked in at these rates when the LTE iphone drops

Just under halfway through the month and I've used.... Good lord! 1.43MB!

how often do people here go over 200MB? i can apparently get that + free weekend calls for €15/month

whoa the two major networks here are selling the 4S unlocked, so you get the contract discount but you can still put in another sim when overseas (which was the reason i was planning to buy from apple)

My usage last year seems to have often gone over 500MB/month, this year it's down to 50 on average. Probably 'cause I used to use Spotify at work over 3G, now I use the work wifi.

Guess I'm working from home next Friday to wait for my phone delivery.

a $200 credit on the 4 makes the upgrade much more sensible (there is no way I am not getting the largest GB possible when I do eventually upgrade)

So many gee bees

so nobody has really strong feelings about verizon sprint or att im guessing

I only know AT&T, which is mostly reliable in Boston

I JUST WANT SOMEONE TO MAKE THIS DECISION FOR ME

I've been on the same network since 1997 (Cellular One -> Cingular -> AT&T) so my answer is "stick with AT&T because they're really all the same"

I switched to Verizon shortly after they got the iphone 4 and have been happy. I think there was once I wish I could surf and talk at the same time but I can deal with once every six months or so. I had AT&T before that but not the iphone; the number of dropped calls and dead spots every time I went to NYC is what made me switch, because it looked for a while that I'd end up moving there. Now that I'm in Dallas (the home of AT&T) I realize I could have stayed with them, but I've had no problems with Verizon since arriving here so I don't need to switch back.

I don't like Verizon, for no particular reason, and Sprint is kind of a toss-up for me and I'm already on AT&T... so I stuck there for now.

yeah see i am in NYC and i am not a huge fan of the dropped calls thing

I'd go to whichever network has more of your friends/family on it

^^Good call on that. My whole family is on Verizon which is definitely a plus.

My whole family is on Verizon, so that's crucial, and I'm in NY and Verizon reception is totally fine.

yeah but it costs $1m a month

i think i might just move to vermont and go off the grid instead of making a decision

A couple bucks more and I've never had a dropped call.

$480 bucks more

I've been on AT&T since the first gen iPhone, and I have almost never had the dropped call problem that others seem to have. By "almost never," let's call it once every . . . 25 calls, maybe?

max don't go off the grid, move to europe. phones work here!

I wouldn't call "1 in 25" "almost never!"

I'm really bad with money, Max, so I hardly noticed. I spent that much on 7" singles last month. It's a problem.

Yeah but I don't actually talk on the phone that much, so the frequency feels even lower.

max move to africa they generally have p good reception there

no joke, it's p astounding

just take a quick walk to a spot higher up w/better reception, no biggie

http://www.sensesofcinema.com/wp-content/uploads/images/06/38/wind_will_carry_us.jpg

AT&T sucks so much in Manhattan. I've been trying to work out Sprint v. Verizon for my gf. Seems like Sprint is worse than Verizon for reception, don't know by how much.

Check yr with employer, your bank/credit union, the school you went to, your grand mason, etc. if you dig a bit, you're probably in some organization that'll get you ~15% off your cell phone bill.

brian lam has convinced me to hold off till the end of the month and see how sprint's network deals with the iphone traffic

http://thewirecutter.com/2011/10/a-guide-should-you-get-an-iphone-4s/

Here is how it will work: really awesome for a few days, then incredibly overburdened until they pool enough cash from selling iPhones to expand

I think I'm moving over to verizon; on AT&T in the bay area and there are too many places where there is just no data reception, never mind the terrible phone reception. Verizon might be a little bit cheaper but at least I still get a corporate discount.

or rather, verizon might be a little bit more expensive

Guys quick important questions: is it smarter to buy 4S in 16gb instead of 32gb since you can store stuff via le cloud? Does cloud work only with wifi or with 3G too?

works with 3g. if you won't need all your stuff offline and you get good reception ...

Sweet thanks!

I bought the max size iphone 3gs but I don't think I've ever used more than half of the storage

yeah i dont really know what youd need more than 16GB for, especially if you can sync your phone every night

I listen to podcasts and iTunes U 6-8 hours a day at work so my 32gb 3GS is always full. I guess I could manage them better

Max, Verizon is a horrible company. Sprint said they had 4g before it was even available to carriers so that's a little suspicious but I bet they would have the best deal but maybe worst coverage. AT&T depends where you are.

if you stream audio 8 hours a day you might use a fair bit of data. think about yr data plan when considering 16 vs 32.

yeah im kind of operating under the assumption that theyre all horrible. my research indicates that sprint has better cov'g than AT&T in NYC. theoretically at&t has the fastest top speeds but... you need a signal.

i feel better deciding to wait and see what the reviews are like. its horrible, the way cell phones work in this country, i cant believe i have to sign a two-year, $2000 contract for this shit

and ya you could totally manage your podcasts better, an hour-long podcast should be what like 75mb? at most?

it's america's fault for being so big

well also for not regulating/investing in infrastructure

yeah - I hate my cell phone bill as much as everyone else, but logistically, america is a huge country and the population density is just not very high for like 90% of the country. even in places where it is high, I think city zoning laws prevent cell phone companies from erecting as many towers as they would like to. it's been what, 4-5 years now and SF and manhattan still have shitty 3G. I'm sure that AT&T is aware that if they'd deliver good coverage to these two places 95% of whinging about AT&T would go away online, but they haven't. so why?

unless there are planning issues with masts, there is no technical reason why sf or manhattan couldn't have a working GSM network.

my guess:

1) iphone monopoly for longer than any other country (presumably because there's only one gsm carrier in the US and iphone was gsm only for the first 4? years, but also because the US was the first country they launched in, and apple didn't realise how much influence they could exert over carriers to stop them pulling their usual shit, which is not a mistake they made elsewhere in the world)

2) and fewer networks than most places now the monopoly has been broken

= no competition for most of the time the only mass market smartphone has been around, and even now unusually dysfunctional competition by international standards

= why would at&t bother improving infrastructure? 1/25 calls dropped is good enough to make billions of $.

A friend was explaining about a nice trendy community where they had a covenant to not allow cell towers, and everyone who lives there complains of horrible reception. Yeeeeah.