Look up the word "obsession" in the dictionary, see Owen's picture...
On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 6:18 PM, Owen Densmore <o...@backspaces.net> wrote: > Please keep firing questions as you think of them! > > > God, what an offer! Thanks! > > History: I bought the initial iPhone 2G, first by trying ATT, which failed > due to lack of coverage (and poor service reports) so I bought one on-line > and use pwnage tool to jailbreak/unlock for TMo and european travel. It > just died (after 4 years!). I rather like the iDevice ecology, having > macbooks, macmini, ipad, ipod etc, and have an app that is not yet on > android but has a poor replacement on android. I like that the apps span > ipad/pod/phone too. I'm not a power user, but use phone, web, mail, music, > apps, maps, angry birds, ... at least once a day, no more than an hour, I'd > say. > > I like TMo quite a bit, but am willing to try Vzn, less so ATT .. they > still have poor coverage where I live (Santa Fe). I find that the plans my > friends have are impossibly expensive, > $90/mo, .. while I pay $58/mo. > There are some interesting alternatives such as buy unlocked and use > prepaid plans, but this mainly makes sense on GSM, which here means TMo. > Even with Vzn, I would prefer a "world phone", thus GSM (Italy 1-2 > months/yr). Main negative for TMo is AWS rather than the more standard 3G > etc, and would eliminate iPhone unless Edge was good enough, which I > haven't found to be the case. I've looked at a lot of alternatives: MVNOs, > WiFi "carriers", prepaid, Senior plans (I'm 69) and even cheaper phones + > iPod. > > If I had my choice, I'd buy an unlocked iPhone, 4 or 4s, and use it on ... > hmm, ATT, no, lousy coverage, TMo, no, uses non-compatible broadband. Well > what's left? > > 1 - See if the Vzn iPhone 4s is OK, get the european SIM unlock, and see > if I can avoid $90/mo bills. > > 2 - Suck it up, embrace android, and go with TMo. They seem to have OK > phones. They have brilliant plans, both contract and pre-payed. And are > way less than $90/mo. They've saved my skin more than once with problems > traveling. > > 3 - Buy a prepaid GoPhone ATT SIM and try it on unlocked phone to see if > coverage has improved. Then try ATT + iPhone and see if I can avoid $90/mo > bills. I also prefer their more standard broadband, but not a big deal. > > That sounds like Pogue's great "I Want An IPhone" video, but I really am > open to change. The difficulty is the "gotchas": plans that are really > expensive, having duplicate apps for android and iOS (pad/pod/phone), > phones that I don't trust (yet), mobility (I really find it hard to > understand folks leaving europe out of their plans, but then...), batteries > that die if I forget to turn off x,y,z and kill app a,b,c ... and billions > of cellular issues that I don't really understand as well as I'd like (TMo > about to die? Why do plans cost so much?, WTF w/ AWS?) > > So that's it! And I really thank you for your clear explanation of some > of the android world that I didn't "get". > > -- Owen > > On Mon, Oct 31, 2011 at 4:12 PM, Chris Feola <ch...@nextpression.com>wrote: > >> Hi Owen, >> >> Yes, Android phones are open. There are two paths for this: >> >> 1. Download updates yourself. Lots of places to do this, the best of >> which is generally regarded to be CyanogenMod http://www.cyanogenmod.com/ >> 2. Wait for your manufacturer to stream you updates. >> Plenty of good reasons to do both. The best manufacturers -- I like HTC >> -- are consistently tweaking and adding features. CyanogenMod tends to be >> faster to the big updates. Use what you like. >> There has been some controversy about locked bootloaders, but everyone >> has pretty much backed off of that now. >> >> As to battery life, I'm sorry if I was unclear. The Sensation is as >> good or better for battery life when you use it the same way. But you >> won't. If you keep that quarterHD screen lit for four hours non-stop >> reading Heinlein on your Kindle app while streaming Pandora...yeah, you're >> going to need to recharge. If you only flick the screen on when you hear a >> text come in, not so much. >> >> Please keep firing questions as you think of them! >> >> cjf >> > >
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