Iphone users..

So roughly $2,100 for 2 years before taxes, fees, etc.

That sounds about right. I really like using the iphone and find it worth the money. I don't believe that anyone is forcing you to purchase one though, correct? If that's too much for you quit complaining and go and buy something cheaper.
 
My wife and I are planning on switching our plan from Verizon to AT&T when the new IPhone comes out.

I believe the family plan with the lowest minutes (maybe 450?) and data package was right at $120. I wasn't intending on getting the text package - I rarely text.

In comparing - it's not different than any PDA with a data package from what I can see. Our family plan with VW is about $70 for 500 minutes (no rollover which AT&T supposedly has) and data of $30/month per phone. I think AT&T PDA/smartphones had similar data package fees.

So you can't get the IPhones very cheap - and they never go on any sort of sale - but the service is pretty much in line.
 
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That sounds about right. I really like using the iphone and find it worth the money. I don't believe that anyone is forcing you to purchase one though, correct? If that's too much for you quit complaining and go and buy something cheaper.

Go ahead a purchase all the Iphones you want. I never said anything about purchasing or not purchasing an Iphone or if someone should do it. I was just explaining the costs. Why did you assume I was complaining?

Like DaddyMac said, I think all of these plans are about the same price.

Not that it matters but I have an Ipod Touch and have no use for a cell phone.
 
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Full Web Browser?
Decent MP3 Player?
Turn by Turn Mapping on the spot?
Millions of Games, Applications and Programs in one spot to purchase?

No sir, you did not have these 5 years ago on a basic flip phone. 5 years ago, if you got reception with your cellphone you were happy. But, of course you are referring to MMS because that is so much different than just emailing a picture.....

I've had all of that for years with my palm, save for the full web browser. I rarely find anything I'd want to do on the web that I can't do with a mobile site, though.

Don't forget that the iPhone doesn't have flash, though, and likely never will (thank you Apple!). That means that "full web browser" is "full web browser" for about 70% of the web.

And let's not forget the things my palm does that the iPhone does not:
Tethering
Replacable Battery
Decent keyboard
GOOD Exchange integration
Cut and Paste
MMS Messages
 
The landscape keyboard on the iPhone is way better than Palm imo. My thumbs never were able to only hit one key on the Treo.

Technically u can replace the battery if needed.

Apps for the iPhone are way better than anything I ever saw for Palm.

Lack of Flash hasn't bothered me yet.
Posted via Mobile Device
 
I think the original thread was about iPhones, not about why other phones are better...
 
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OK, I just priced out a 32gb and a service plan

$299 Ipod 2/yrs service
Data Plan $30
Nationwide 450 $40
Text-200 msgs-$5


So roughly $2,100 for 2 years before taxes, fees, etc.

Remember that Americans are struggling financially and are starting to save their money......

Can't you take $120 off that? I don't know if I've ever heard of a data plan that didn't come with unlimited texting...
 
My husband got an iPhone last year when they came out, but ended up getting rid of it within a month or so. Couldn't get service in our house unless you stood in a certain place. If you were sitting on the couch and the phone rang, you had to get up and go to that spot to answer (we're in WDM). Couldn't get coverage at work (in WDM), and there was poor coverage on I35 on the way to Ames and in the parking lots around Jack Trice, and NO coverage inside Jack. Didn't seem worth it to pay that much for such poor service.

He ended up going back to a Blackberry, and we switched to a different carrier because I had the same problems on my LG phone.
 
I am not a big cell phone guy, but I enjoy my Iphone....I read several news applications a day, I have a variety of applications that help me out at work, my son follows professional wrestling on it, and I haven't had any coverage problems.

Applications work pretty well without 3G (I actually don't notice a big difference when I am in a 3G area). I am able to do my email easily and I can do all of my ipod functions on the phone obviously. I just have a single phone and my monthly bill is just about $70.
 
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I've had all of that for years with my palm, save for the full web browser. I rarely find anything I'd want to do on the web that I can't do with a mobile site, though.

Don't forget that the iPhone doesn't have flash, though, and likely never will (thank you Apple!). That means that "full web browser" is "full web browser" for about 70% of the web.

And let's not forget the things my palm does that the iPhone does not:
Tethering
Replacable Battery
Decent keyboard
GOOD Exchange integration
Cut and Paste
MMS Messages

Tethering - Is on its way this summer
Replacable Battery - You can take your iPhone in to Apple and they replace it for you
Decent Keyboard - Multi-touch screen, works perfect
Exchange integration - ??????? It has exchange and works perfectly (My wife uses it for work and loves it)
Cut and Paste - 3.0 Software
MSS - 3.0 Software

What beats a PALM:
- Multiple applications built into one big store for everyone to easily access, and multiple developers for a profitable platform
- Webkit Browser (Safari for the iPhone) - Browsing full webpages on iPhone is a breeze. Find one Palm that does it better and I'll take it back (Yes I'm talking to you Palm Pre fanboys)
- A nice clean standardized graphical interface for everything on the phone
- Multitouch screen (zooming, scrolling)
- Access to a great mapping application Google Maps integrated into the iPhone OS

Do I need to continue? Why do you think that the iPhone is beating Palm, Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones COMBINED right now? Because its a far superior product. Yes, it costs money, yes the data plan is $30 a month. If you can't afford it, get a flip and quit complaining. There is a price for a quality product.
 
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The landscape keyboard on the iPhone is way better than Palm imo. My thumbs never were able to only hit one key on the Treo.

Technically u can replace the battery if needed.

Apps for the iPhone are way better than anything I ever saw for Palm.

Lack of Flash hasn't bothered me yet.
Posted via Mobile Device

Yeah technically you can, but not when you're in the airport just because your battery ran out..it's a lot more complex than any other phone.

Apps might be better, but PalmOS is almost a 20 year old platform. My point was that everything the iPhone does has been done before, and then some. It may look a bit nicer and prettier, but it doesn't actually have much functionality that wasn't available 5 years ago.

Tethering - Is on its way this summer
Replacable Battery - You can take your iPhone in to Apple and they replace it for you
Decent Keyboard - Multi-touch screen, works perfect
Exchange integration - ??????? It has exchange and works perfectly (My wife uses it for work and loves it)
Cut and Paste - 3.0 Software
MSS - 3.0 Software

What beats a PALM:
- Multiple applications built into one big store for everyone to easily access, and multiple developers for a profitable platform
- Webkit Browser (Safari for the iPhone) - Browsing full webpages on iPhone is a breeze. Find one Palm that does it better and I'll take it back (Yes I'm talking to you Palm Pre fanboys)
- A nice clean standardized graphical interface for everything on the phone
- Multitouch screen (zooming, scrolling)
- Access to a great mapping application Google Maps integrated into the iPhone OS

Do I need to continue? Why do you think that the iPhone is beating Palm, Blackberry and Windows Mobile phones COMBINED right now? Because its a far superior product. Yes, it costs money, yes the data plan is $30 a month. If you can't afford it, get a flip and quit complaining. There is a price for a quality product.

Replacable battery as in I can carry a spare or two charged up and don't have to worry about using my phone all day. This is kind of important when you're using bluetooth tethering all day, as 3G is rough on batteries (of course, this is less of a problem with AT&T since you'll end up on EDGE a lot if you stray from the beaten path too much).

Multi-touch screen is not a keyboard. The lack of physical keyboard is the biggest single thing that keeps me from getting an iPhone.

Exchange integration works, sure, but the calendering (which I use extensively) is flawed in a variety of ways, including not being able to create a meeting request. There is no tasks/to-do list sync. Offline mail handling (i.e. when you're on a plane) is crap. There are plenty of people, on this board even, who have tried it and found it lacking in terms of enterprise integration.

Palm, and sprint, have had this for a long time. Again, not as slick as Apple, perhaps, but it's there. It turns out that most of them are mostly crappy and useless, though.

Webkit is great, I agree. And that's why it's the basis for the Palm Pre's web browser.

Palm has this. It may be a bit outdated, but it's clean and standardized.

Multitouch is great, but palm has had "single touch" forever, and it works just fine.

Google maps is integrated into PalmOS. Not to mention the availability of third party applications ala TomTom. Perhaps not as tightly as it is in the iPhone, but it's there, and it works just fine. It had it before the iPhone did, as well.

It's beating them because it's a slick, functional device that has a mammoth marketing department behind it, and it's marketed at consumers first, and professionals second. The traditional "professional" smartphone market is still dominated by blackberries, winmo phones and palms. The iPhone is killing in the "consumer" smartphone market.

My point is that there are VERY few things you can do on your iPhone does that I can't do with my palm, and some areas where my palm even has an edge.

Slingplayer, for instance, is 3G enabled on my palm, but isn't on your iPhone. Thank you AT&T.

I've had smartphones (palm and WinMo) for going on a decade now, and have been paying for data plans (with tethering) for about that same amount of time, so the price of the plan is not an issue at all. I just want the most functionality on as good a network as possible, and right now the iPhone/AT&T package just doesn't do it for me for how I use my phone.

With all that said, I'd probably own one if it was on either Sprint or Verizon and not AT&T. It doesn't do anything that the palm doesn't do, but it does a lot of things that the palm does do better, with a few notable exceptions.
 
IF I wanted a personal phone where I just wanted something to play with and try out neat apps all the time, I would probably get the I-Phone. However, as noted above, the I-Phone is most likely not your first choice if you want to get real work done.

Apple does what they usually do: the took an existing product and made it easy to use. They are very good at this. HOWEVER, they are not the first to market with technologies like they claim. Most of what they bring out has already been available from others for quite a few years. Watch some of their marketing and compare against some real world experiences - they don't quite "lie", but they aren't really telling it like it is. Some of their advertising examples:

-The iphone: the first phone/internet/i-tunes device. Note, not the first phone/internet/music device - that was already avaialble and had been for years. I had windows mobile with phone/internet/wmplayer several years before the iphone. Add micro sd and the amount of data I can take with me is unlimited.

-They don't need drivers for their computers as they are "above that". Yet the first time I looked to by a Mac, they told me I would have to download a driver for the printer I already had.

-They don't need security patches like windows. Funny, with the Mac I have at home, I get notified of available patches about every 6 months.

Apple creates solid packaging and cosumer electronics that can be marketed to the masses and they are good at it. But, that is about it.
 
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I do think it sucks that AT&T won't allow you to use 3G with the new slingbox Iphone app but they do allow it for other devices.
 
But yet it's okay for them to lambaste Windows for doing the same thing?

Yes, cause Windows is asking me to do it at least once a week and it gets fricking old.

Especially since I can't restart my desktop without having to go thru a 20 min process to get my 22" monitor to work at the top resolution again. Nevermind the near 5 min reboot time it takes.
 

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