New Apple Lust Objects for 2010 and onward

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.

yeah caek in my time in HK I had excellent 3G service, despite a population density 10x anywhere in the US and everyone around me having 3G data plans...

I honestly do think that there are probably planning/permit issues - getting SF or Manhattan up to speed would likely not even exceed their ad budget, and would be far more effective at squashing word-of-mouth complaining than just sitting on their monopoly. I mean, AT&T had to know since day 1 that their exclusivity wasn't going to last.

San Francisco Neighborhood Antenna-Free Union (SNAFU)

die

ew

Don't get why people care about talking and surfing at the same time. What situation demands it? How are you even doing it, speakerphone?! I assume I have this, but I don't know for sure because in the three years I've had an iphone I've never needed to try. (NB yes ok tethering I guess)

To me visual voicemail would be a bigger differentiator (over here o2 have it, but I don't think orange/tmob/voda do) - maybe sprint and verizon have infrastructure in place for this tho?

Without talk and surf your phone won't ring if you get a call when using data, which is the worst one for me.

Also how can you look up a great calamari place while chatting about where to go for dinner as the ad instructed me to?

haha! Oh but I was being thick and hadn't thought about surfing meaning you couldn't receive calls - I can see why that'd be a problem.

You can receive calls when you surf - it pops up and you answer it. You just can't look up directions or something while you are talking, which can be frustrating.

chart for UKers to compare deals on the 4S:

http://regmedia.co.uk/2011/10/10/iphone_1.png

By using my phone number as the reference number, I just figured out my tracking number on the UPS site. It's left Hong Kong!

gonna have to soldier on with the old 3g, not that i'm particularly upset

was thinking about getting an iPhone finally but good grief are those monthly plans in the USA expensive, with two-year contracts to boot; just hard for me to accepting spending like $1000 a year to have a phone + like 250 megs of data a month. Mostly I'm a cheapskate when it comes to monthly / recurring costs; with an upfront bill I can budget better, but monthly fees are deceptive to me. Plus two year contracts are horrible: how am I supposed to know now whether I'll still want the same plan in 2 years? I don't know where I'll be living in 2 years, or what my financial situation will be like.

pretty stoked though about the cheapass walmart/t-mobile plans pre-announced last week, though: 100 minutes of talk a month & unlimited data & texting for $30 a month, without contract. yeah I'll be stuck with some android phone but I don't really care I think: iPhone is gorgeous but until we get European-like plan prices here, they're off the table for me.

I have a 3g iPad 2 & was playing around with the idea of getting a SkypeIn # to take occasional calls on the iPad but since it doesn't fit in my pocket it's not as good as what I'd like.

I just chunk it into my "reoccurring costs" budgeting with my water/electric/cable bills.

just found this out about Mail in Lion:

The favorites bar in Mail is keyboard-accessible (just like Safari). Press command 1 to go to the first favorite, command 2 for the second, etc.

HALLELEJUAH

or however you spell "FUCK YES"

my contract is €10/month for 500GB + 9c/texts + 9c/min for calls to germany, europe and the usa /braggin

500gb?! on a phone?

Paying 10 quid/month here for 250 mins, unlimited text, unlimited data. Seems OK to me.

yeah that t-mobile plan is the first I've seen that's even ~sorta~ up to Euro standards

hoping that this'll be a big winner & force the competition down, b/c while it's fine to charge a fuckload for the iPhone, it's dumb on any phone to pay so much per month.

Hey Max there is a new iPhone coming out (nov2011 i think?) that will be prepay

yeah i did the math out on it, itd cost about the same as just sticking w/ at&t. and id have to use at&t anyway.

lol 500mb not gb

so when i ordered my 4s an option for the data plan was 4GB + Mobile Hotspot. Whats up w/ that?

Paying 10 quid/month here for 250 mins, unlimited text, unlimited data. Seems OK to me.

'kinell, what plan is that?

Three has a sim only plan that's like that except 3000 texts

giffgaff payg (sim only, yep). I think three is more like 15 quid, but maybe 300 mins.

so, not that anyone cares, but after my girlfriend has decided she wants to switch to an iphone i think were going to open a family plan--

For two iPhones on the cheapest family plans:

Verizon - $159.98/month ($79.99 per person) for 2GB of data/month (per person)
Sprint - $149.99/month ($75.00 per person) for unlimited data

given that verizon has proven it works well w/ the iphone and supposedly has the best infrastructure for 4G (for whenever LTE comes around), and given that i dont use much more than 1GB of data a month let alone two, i feel like verizon is worth the extra $5

You know the 4S doesn't do LTE, yeah?

yes. id rather be locked in to what i assume will be in two years a cheaper contract on the best 4g network than want to switch again

ah cool

(i havent signed up yet in case anyone wants to talk me out of it)

(i am bad at decision-making)

So, supposedly this new AppleCare+ plan has to be purchased at the same time as the phone, but that wasn't made completely clear. I called Apple since my phone obviously isn't here yet but I'd still want the newer plan, since it covers accidental damage. They are currently hammering out the details, but it sounds like there will be a brief period where people who preordered will be able to still get it.

so applecare+ only covers the iphone and not e.g. my MBP?

afaik applecare+ is going to be for iPhones only, at this time

£60 seems like a good deal for two years' insurance but otoh I don't know much about insurance

is the iphone covered on your home contents insurance?

for MBP you need applecare++ iirc

applecare NT & NT+ coming next year obv

So, supposedly this new AppleCare+ plan has to be purchased at the same time as the phone, but that wasn't made completely clear.

whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat

Pretty rough considering normal applecare can be had at any time in the first year, although I suppose you could drop your phone and THEN buy applecare+.

This is the first one to cover accidental damage iirc so i guess that's it

Cozen: my house insurance covered my phone, yeh

oh damn

http://www.macrumors.com/2011/10/11/sprint-iphone-4s-to-be-sim-unlocked-verizon-after-60-days/

I wld go with sprint because it seems like the 'indie choice' ya mean but

Kind of hope that puts some pressure on AT&T, but who knows? Verizon/Sprint are doing it because they're trying to live up to this "world phone" label and cdma support is virtually nil outside the US, right?

yeah, i think at&t is less likely to change since they actually have a chance of getting some money out of int'l travelers, verizon and sprint werent getting any at all so its like "whatever, might as well"

xp you get cdma in aruba and baghdad i think, so verizon already had that market sewn up.

should i upgrade to lion everyone?

HI DERE

tbh I have no idea how Lion is doing stability-wise ATM; I've held off upgrading and it hasn't caused me any noticeable problems, the anecdotal stuff I've read seems to be split on whether it's a good idea or not and my wife's new MBP has Lion on it already and has zero issues. My gut call is "no, unless it has something you really need".

i kinda wanna get in on icloud

but also like, i'm a little worried about mail.app cuz i use that app so hard, and in ways that i'm probably not supposed to (like it's basically like a huge searchable database of everything in my life)

ah, I don't use the mail app at all so I can't really advise sensibly there

my friend complains a lot about the finder in lion, u notice anything weird with it?

I haven't played extensively with my wife's machine, so no.

lol really I just wanted to say hi, someone who is more knowledgeable should feel free to jump in at any time...

my friend complains a lot about the finder in lion, u notice anything weird with it?

they completely fucked up the icon view in finder.. if you sort by date modified, it creates these groups of like "less than a day ago", "more than 30 days ago" that are a single line of files you have to scroll horizontally. i just want a big ass list of icons sorted by date!!

hi xp