iPhone Advice

[Evey]

Hi, everyone!

My parents are kicking me off their family plan from Verizon (I suppose it's time...I am 24, lol!), and I'm looking for advice about at&t's service and about the iPhone.

I heard that the unlimited data plan will no longer be available starting Tuesday, so I want to make a decision before then so that I can get it.

Do any of you have an iPhone? Please tell me everything about it! What arethe pros and cons? I'm concerned about the price--how much do you pay for your plan each month (if you don't mind me asking)?

Thank you!

Kathy

 

[BethM]

I got my iPhone last October. I used to talk trash on iPhone, but now I don't know what I would do without it!

I think voice plans might vary in price from region to region, I am not sure about that. I have the unlimited plan, which is an extra $30 per month on top of the voice plan. That won't be available any more, the top data plan will be $25 per month. This will have a cap of 2gb per month, with a buy-up option for heavy data users. I use the internet and such on mine all the time, but the data usage stats showing on my phone are about 12 gb. If that is lifetime, then I guess I average a bit under 2gb per month.

There are not many wifi hotspots in my city, but if they are available where you are, that will reduce the data traffic on your plan. (If you have wifi at home, you can switch to that when you're home, too.)
I love all the apps, and carrying the internet around with me. The thing I like the least is the battery life, but I'm hoping OS 4.0 will help that a bit. Oh, and not being able to view websites that use Flash, but I think a lot of websites are under pressure to reduce their Flash usage due to complaints from iPhone and iPad users.

I personally haven't had much trouble with AT&T's service, (other than data being slow sometimes), and I've been with them since 2001 (they were Cingular then). I used to get a lot of dropped calls when my husband had Verizon and I had AT&T, but I don't think we've had one since he joined my plan.

as much as I love my iPhone, if you're interested in smart phones I'd suggest also checking out some of the phones out now that run the Droid platform. You'll still have to get a data plan, but there might be more flexibility to compare prices between providers.
Also, you should ask people where you live how they feel about the providers they use: I think coverage can vary from region to region. I am in Kansas City, home to Sprint. Most people here HATE Sprint, as their prices here are very high if you don't get a discount through your job, and coverage is very very bad here. On the other hand, my best friend in San Francisco has Sprint, they have excellent coverage and more competitive rates out there.


I know several other iPhone users are on RO, hopefully they'll chime in, too.

 

[Zella]

Well, I must say that I absolutely LOVE my phone. Yes... there are some things that's annoying, but all in all I'll keep it happily.
Yes, it will be unavailable, but the 2 GB a month is pretty good... I've used only 4 gb in the year and a half I've had it. And the 2 gb is actually cheaper by $5 then the unlimited.
I pay $88 for mine (part of that is due to an employee discount... ask ATT if they offer one to you!)
It's $40 for the cheapest plan (450 min, which I hardly use)
Used to be $30 for the unlimited data... but $25 now for biggest amount of the capped. And honestly, if you have wi-fi that you can hop onto (using the phone) then you don't use a lot of data. This includes email, youtube, safari, google maps... etc.
I pay $20 for unlimited texts... but this also goes down to $5 for people who use it less.
There's TONS more options you can choose from (of course you pay more, but oh well).
I also have probably easily more then 100 apps I've downloaded and either trashed, played/ finished then trashed, or use often. A huge amount of variety, and I tend to download free to $.99 ones.

The competition (droid) I've used before, and honestly didn't like it. PITA. The user interface is no fun. At least the iPhone is quite simple once you get used to it. Typing can be fun (sarcastic) but it's actually pretty easy. Even if you hit the worng letter, the phone will fix it. Use a new/strange word enough (couple dozen times) and the phone will learn it. I write gpa for grandpa, gma for grandma, and gparents for both, and my phone often will pop it up as a suggestion. This can go the wrong way too... my phone right now is hooked on 'mr' instead of 'me' (ARRGGHH!!)

It's a pretty hardy phone... I've dropped it near a dozen times on concrete and cement... a few SMALL dings, and still works great. The touch screen on mine is old, so sometimes it acts like I didn't touch anything, sometimes supersensitive, but that's expected on any touch.

The range is so-so. I usually have great reception in cities, but where I am now it's going nuts. I guess find an ATT friend and have them see how you're house is reception wise. But you can drop in and out of edge/3G and sometimes bad signal can be fixed by just dropping off 3G (no jokes).

The texting is a blast. I LOVE it. It's like yahoo or msn chat. There's a list of people who you have any texts from or sent to (you can delete these easily too). Click on a person, and it opens a chat screen. You're texts are on the right and green, theirs on the left and white. It pops up in little bubbles. I have texts from MONTHS ago (well over 12,000) and I still was using hardly any space for them. The only issue I have is that if you text multiple times in a 15 minute time span, it won't give you exact times for every one... it'll just give a new time every 15 min. I though I was ok with it, but there are some instances it's frustrating.

Well, I've jabbered long enough. All in all, I love my phone. It's spendy, but I hope I can cut down on my data plan and texting costs soon (lol) to make it more affordable. There are programs out there to text through for free, so I'm going to start checking them out. These phones aren't for everyone, but if you can, try one from a friend or at the store.

I hope this helps!

~Zella

 

[missyscove]

I have had my 3G iPhone for about 2 years now and I love it. I pay around $85 /month. I have the lowest number of minutes plan, I think it's like 450 a month, plus astronomical nights and weekends... I never even come close to using them all up. I also have 1500 texts a month. There's an unlimited option, but I haven't needed that many.

Cornell has some kind of agreement with at&t that gives me a 5% student discount as well. It's not much, but hey it's something.

I didn't know they were changing the data plan, but I generally use only about 50mb of data a month. (I just looked this up so I could adjust an international plan accordingly for while I'm in Europe)

 

[Luluznewz]

okay i'm really upset they are changing the unlimited data plan...I didn't know.

I have an unlimited data plan and I use it! Maybe not the minutes but everything else...Does that mean I'm going to have to switch?

Also, I really like my iphone. I've had many other phones and it is so obviously the best. It has great features which I actually do use. The apps are so easy to download and use. With the help of all the apps you can basically create the exact phone you want!

As a note, you might not like the touch screen keyboard when you first get it. I resisted getting an iphone because I wanted real buttons, but you get used to it quickly.

 

[Evey]

Thank you, all, for responding!

It is my understanding that if you already have a plan with unlimited data, they cannot change it until your contract is up. That's why I'm frantically trying to decide if I really want an iPhone before tomorrow. Actually, I know I want an iPhone, but I don't know if I can pay around $100 a month :/

Thanks again!

Kathy

 

[BethM]

Luluznewz wrote:

okay i'm really upset they are changing the unlimited data plan...I didn't know.

I have an unlimited data plan and I use it! Maybe not the minutes but everything else...Does that mean I'm going to have to switch?

Jessica, you will be allowed to keep your unlimited plan for the time being. However, if you decide you want the tethering option, you will have to switch to the new plan. Also, I expect you will have to switch when your contract is up.

AT&T might change this later on, but for now you will be able to keep your unlimited data plan (just don't sign up for tethering).

 

[kirbyultra]

Ok, I may get some flack for this, but I am so fed up with my iPhone that the only reason I still use it is because I paid $600 for it and can't justify leaving it after less than a year.

I think that with so many other phones of similar caliber and convenience as well as market of apps, here's much more to consider than just the iPhone. A year or two ago the whole Apple iPhone platform was revolutionary.

My problem with the iPhone is the same problem I have with just about all Apple products -- it's terribly limited in what you can customize and Apple restricts you into this box of what you can do. Sure you get your pick of a lot of apps but the really good ones are usually at a small fee. The stability of the iPhone is ehhh at best. My phone is not jailbroken. I do have a lot of push notifications (sort of a live update from apps like facebook and email...) and as a result the phone starts to choke. I am a really heavy data user and it seems like the 3GS fails to keep up with me. Standard apps like Mail and Text slow down to a ridiculous crawl. Sometimes it will sound off a new mail alert but when I try to open the mail, it won't open and there's no rhyme or reason to it. The camera never loads consistently (sometimes it's fast and sometimes it takes 15 seconds for the camera to initialize). The camera app OFTEN crashes the entire system and I have to reboot the phone. I don't even have that many apps (about 3 pages) so I don't understand why it can't even handle its native apps. I've restored and restored and restored the phone to factory settings with no luck. Seems like every couple of months I'll inevitably have to reload my phone to factory settings to get it to power on and work normally again.

My next gripe is purely AT&T. I kid you not when I say 98% of my phone calls drop. I'm in NYC, it's a high density user area so I guess that's what could be the problem but for a wireless phone network in a major metro area, it's a huge disappointment. I almost ALWAYS have to call my friends back or give up and just txt them instead. 3G data is so spotty and slow in some places that it's not even worth trying. Not a fan! My voicemail stopped working in March (message waiting indicator stopped working) and I didn't know -- I just thought people finally caught on and emailed me instead when I missed their calls. After many phone calls with Apple and AT&T they still cannot fix it. I've resorted to telling everyone I know to not bother leaving me VM.

My next phone, I can almost guarantee, will not be an Apple product of any kind. If I can get away with it, I most certainly will not remain an AT&T customer. The Droid or a Blackberry could be a very comparable alternative, and I might go over to Verizon as the coverage is solid in NYC.