A New Phone For My Wife
When Karen, bless her, suffers at the hand of technology I suffer too. I've suffered by proxy with her HTC Tattoo for 18 months now. What a terrible, terrible phone. Towards the end it wouldn't ever let her call people and she's been nagging me for ages now saying "I need an iPhone".
It wasn't until her contract expired and she mentioned she'd been in to a phone shop that I paid much attention. "Do. Not. Go. In. To. A. Phone. Shop" I told her. Instead I promised I'd look in to it.
First thing I did (which Karen neglected to do) was work out the full cost of buying an iPhone on a 2 year contract. As any geek would do I made a spread-sheet:
| Provider | Upfront Cost (1) | Monthly Cost (2) | Contract Length (3) | Combined Cost (1+(2*3)) GBP |
| Three | 69 | 35 | 24 | 909 |
| Three | 149 | 30 | 24 | 869 |
| Vodafone | 0 | 45 | 24 | 1080 |
| Vodafone | 139 | 35 | 24 | 979 |
| O2 | 100 | 48 | 24 | 1252 |
| O2 | 203 | 38 | 24 | 1115 |
It's when I showed her this she accepted buying on contract isn't the cheapest way to go. Instead I bought Rockall an iPhone 4 direct from Apple and will reduce Karen's tariff to the lowest one on offer. Over 2 years this works out considerably cheaper.
The new iPhone arrived on our 5th wedding anniversary last week thus saving even more money as I passed it off as her present.
So far she loves it. It's everything her Android phone wasn't. The fact she has picked it up straight away is testament to Apple's design brilliance.
The only trouble now is that I'm jealous. My one regret in buying an Android phone is that it isn't an iPhone. As with Karen's Android mine has a bug that makes it virtually unusable at times. Why, oh why, didn't I just buy an iPhone - which is what I plan on doing when the iPhone 5 comes out.
I leave you with a couple of instragram shots from Karen's new phone:
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Jake I did the same thing - brought my wife an iPhone 4 and she loves it.
For me the camera works so well in comparison to my Galaxy S Android phone.
The only good point in having an Android phone is being able to test my mobile Flex apps easily - especially with 4.5 coming out soon.
Have you seen this service - http://postagramapp.com/ for printing the instagram pictures as postcards?
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The camera on my HTC Hero is a joke. I don't even try to use it.
I saw postagram but assumed it was US-only. Just checked and they ship to UK, so I ordered a couple. Thanks for the nudge.
I'm excited to see how Flex 4.5 works with mobile apps. I'm guessing you're using the Burrito beta already? Is it as good as it looks?
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You didn't factor in tesco I think they have an option that's makes the iPhone even cheaper.
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I'm curious what bug is in your current phone that makes it "unusable at times".
What I've found is that Android phones work great, as long as you always buy the high end of phone, and never ever buy the cheap option.
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It's not the Android OS, as far as I can tell. It's do with trackball. It gets "stuck" and thinks it's being scrolled to the right all the time. Every now and then it also registers a press/click. You can probably imagine how annoying this is. Like I say - when it happens - which is daily - the phone becomes unusable. There have been times I've been very, very close to stamping repeatedly on it...
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Just a word of warning re: Instagram. Make sure you also save the unfiltered photos. You might regret making your photos "vintage" a few years from now.
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Good point. Is it an option in Instagram to save unfiltered too? Or are you suggesting you use the normal camera and use instagram later on to "process" the existing photos?
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I came to the same conclusion. When I got my iPhone 4, shortly after it came out, I bought it direct from apple and switched my contract to an O2 sim only tariff.
The prices were touch and go at 18 months, but cheaper at 2 years. The sim tariff only tied me in for 12 months, so a bit more flexable and I won't be paying the extra I would have done if I forgot to switch contracts after the initial period was up. Something I always forget to do.
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Patience: http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/04/20/reuters-iphone-5
http://www.codestore.net/store.nsf/unid/BLOG-20090603?OpenDocument#DOC_E7AF1922
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Agree with Patience. And may I add:
-don't fall for incrementalism. Remember the iPod? Sure you do. Same product, incremental refinements to get you to buy again and again and again.
-don't fall for keeping up with the Jones's. My very un-trendy, behind the curve, penny-pinching advice: decide what you need to get the job done at a minimum, find the cheapest option, find a coupon, buy it on sale and smile when your friends talk about their $90 data plans and $200 phones. (I've got a $8 phone with pay-go service that runs me about $120 a YEAR because all I need a phone to do is make phone calls). :-)
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Look at tesco mobile as well. Use same network as O2 but cheaper IIRC.
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Karen's photos of the little girls are so sweet. The phone problems are why I don't have a smart phone (my little Nokia with monthly ATT prepaid plan came out of Noah's ark). Also don't have
i-Pod/i-Pad/Android/Blackberry-Crackberry/PalmPilot etc. etc. (only desktop & Lenovo Netbook which give me more than enough aggravation & frustration to last a lifetime. At least my car has heated seats & HD radio so am not completely Victorian.......Jonathan just got a new i-Phone & it don't work properly (repeatedly drops calls).
From sunny Florida - Cousin Pam.
ps: I know several people who've purchased i-Phones on Craigslist then get their own simcards/contracts etc. at a phone store.
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