iPhone 5

[wabower]

Yahbut it's still your fault for letting Apple design it that way.

I'm just as middle-aged as you are.

 

[denverpilot]

Such awful First World problems Jay has.

 

[wabower]

And somewhat surprising for a self-described power user.

Such awful First World problems Jay has.

 

[Jay Honeck]

And somewhat surprising for a self-described power user.

Ouch. I have failed as a power user. Never did get the guy's iPhone to connect.

It gets worse. I was just screwing around with my "personal assistant" (a Siri-like creature on Android) on my S3 when I told her to "Call voice mail."

She responded (in her wicked cool, Kate Beckinsale voice) "Calling Neal Howard".

Augh! Its 10:40 at night! "No!", I shouted, but it was too late. The phone was ringing.

So I start button mashing, trying to stop the damned call -- and I close the phone app entirely! That doesn't stop the call, of course -- and I hear Neal answer "Hi, Jay!"

Now I've closed the phone app, and its running in the background! "Hello, Jay?", as I fumble with the damned phone that I'm still not 100% familiar with.

Finally I get the phone app open, explain to Neal my ridiculous situation, and apologize. Luckily he was out having a drink, so no harm done. Yeesh!

Smart phones. Apparently ya gotta be smarter than the phone!

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[Joe_KansasCity]

The Galaxy S3 is the best phone in the world. Period.

Excellent. It will be in great company with the the best tablet (Nexus 7), best aircraft (Pathfinder), and all other best in class items in your possession. We've come to expect nothing less.....

 

[Jay Honeck]

Excellent. It will be in great company with the the best tablet (Nexus 7), best aircraft (Pathfinder), and all other best in class items in your possession. We've come to expect nothing less.....

Well, I'm glad you've finally come around, Joe.

Sent from my Nexus 7

 

[Pa28-140]

Excellent. It will be in great company with the the best tablet (Nexus 7), best aircraft (Pathfinder), and all other best in class items in your possession. We've come to expect nothing less.....

Joe: Surely you haven't forgotten the best NoTell Motel. Hilton and Marriott stock are sure to bottom out soon, as will Apple, Cirrus, and anything else Uncle Elmer doesn't own. We are so unworthy.

 

[Jay Honeck]

Joe: Surely you haven't forgotten the best NoTell Motel. Hilton and Marriott stock are sure to bottom out soon, as will Apple, Cirrus, and anything else Uncle Elmer doesn't own. We are so unworthy.

Ah, brought your sock puppet along, I see? Welcome to PofA!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3...

 

[Joe_KansasCity]

These debates that include declarations about the "best" phone, tablet or other technology device are interesting, but in my opinion always miss the mark when minor details like screen size, processor speed, etc are the points of debate. I've spent most of a 25 year career involved in IT, and was a strong fan of Microsoft for most of that time.

Two years ago my family completely rid ourselves of all non-Apple technologies and only wish we had done it years earlier. At the time, within our home/family there were 5 PCs (desktops and laptops from various makers) running windows 7, a blackberry, 3 other assorted phones, a netgear router, various backup solutions, a couple of MP3 players, etc, etc, etc. Nothing communicated well together, and at least one full weekend per quarter was devoted to fixing issues, rebuilding systems due to viruses, malware, trojans, etc. There was always the need to deal with service pack updates, driver updates, component failures, hours on hold trying to get to customer service reps who learned english as a second language........ There was always something wrong.

Then, at the suggestion of two friends of the family, we made the plunge and bought an iMac, three MacBooks, four iPhones, two iPads a time capsule for networking and single backup solution across all systems. All of the system seamlessly work together. My contacts, calendar, email, documents and photos are automatically synchronized across three devises (Macbook, iPad and iPhone). All of our family and work calendars are shared automatically, and everyone's content is automatically backed-up to our time capsule and the cloud. The only thing we have done to any of the devises is update the operating systems when those easy updates were made available.

These systems do what technologies should do.... enable and improve quality of life without adding challenges and issues. For the past 2 years we have led very busy lives and have never given a thought about the reliability and the utility of the solutions we rely on every day.....

I used to be right in the middle of the technology peeing contests about the best this or the fastest that or the largest screen or the....blah blah blah. Today I could not care any less. For our family, Apple as built integrated solutions that have profound capabilities and the only time we notice them is when we marvel at how much we use them and how little attention and maintenance they require..... YMMV

 

[X3 Skier]

These debates that include declarations about the "best" phone, tablet or other technology device are interesting, but in my opinion always miss the mark when minor details like screen size, processor speed, etc are the points of debate.

For our family, Apple as built integrated solutions that have profound capabilities and the only time we notice them is when we marvel at how much we use them and how little attention and maintenance they require..... YMMV

+1

The main reason I have switched to Apple for almost of my gadgets. "It just works." I do maintain a PC but use it less and less since I have little need for heavy duty computing anymore thus no need for a MacBook or other computer.

Cheers

 

[Sac Arrow]

Ouch. I have failed as a power user. Never did get the guy's iPhone to connect.

It gets worse. I was just screwing around with my "personal assistant" (a Siri-like creature on Android) on my S3 when I told her to "Call voice mail."

She responded (in her wicked cool, Kate Beckinsale voice) "Calling Neal Howard".

Augh! Its 10:40 at night! "No!", I shouted, but it was too late. The phone was ringing.

So I start button mashing, trying to stop the damned call -- and I close the phone app entirely! That doesn't stop the call, of course -- and I hear Neal answer "Hi, Jay!"

Now I've closed the phone app, and its running in the background! "Hello, Jay?", as I fumble with the damned phone that I'm still not 100% familiar with.

Finally I get the phone app open, explain to Neal my ridiculous situation, and apologize. Luckily he was out having a drink, so no harm done. Yeesh!

Smart phones. Apparently ya gotta be smarter than the phone!

Sent from my Nexus 7

I think every smartphone and tablet needs to have a hardware STFU switch or button that will, regardless of the circumstances, turn off all sound, all phone dialing and all data transmission.

 

[denverpilot]

I think every smartphone and tablet needs to have a hardware STFU switch or button that will, regardless of the circumstances, turn off all sound, all phone dialing and all data transmission.

Two software sliders is too difficult? iOS 6 added "Do Not Disturb" to the already existing "Airplane Mode". Done.

 

[Joe_KansasCity]

Ah, brought your sock puppet along, I see? Welcome to PofA!

Sent from my Samsung Galaxy S3...

Well, I'm glad you've finally come around, Joe.

Sent from my Nexus 7

This "sent from" thing looks to be very important here so I'll try to include mine going forward.....



Sent from my Macbook Pro while seated in my favorite chair while watching the Sunday night Football Game between San Diego and New Orleans...



How'd I do?

 

[numl0ck]

My wife and I got our iPhones on release day, and no we didn't wait in line nor would I for a phone. FedEx does a wonderful job of bringing them right to our door for free.

We are both very satisfied with them. It is a great upgrade from the 4. The weight alone is amazing. LTE is very fast. If I could afford the data plan, I would use only that.

Two software sliders is too difficult? iOS 6 added "Do Not Disturb" to the already existing "Airplane Mode". Done.

Do Not Disturb is another fantastic feature, especially for those of us that use our phones as alarm clocks on our night stand. No more 2am alerts from our friends tagging us on Facebook.

I've had no issues with Maps or connecting to WIFI. And I'm getting used to Siri.

As for the comment about the aluminum backing causing signal issues: I would have to say I doubt that. The antenni are on the outside, so the backing should make no difference in attenuation.

My friend has a Galaxy SII, and I think it's a good product. However, for my taste, not to mention the integration into our house (Apple computers, AppleTV, iPads and AirPlay) and car specific Apple apps, the iPhone wins. I also prefer the smaller size of the iPhone over the GSII&III.

The ability to stream music from my phone to my TV and computer at the same time and control the volume independently to each device is pretty freaking slick.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

Funny story: Someone in the Android world has made an aluminum-backed case for the Samsung Galaxy S3. The Android forums are full of folks who have discovered that it is killing their WiFi reception, and renders NFC -- one of the biggest advantages of the S3 over the i5 -- unusable....

That's because Samsung's antenna designers didn't design their antennas with a metal case in mind. Apple's did - And, in fact, I think they're still using pieces of the case as the antenna, so no problem.

Neither of us could accurately tap that itty-bitty right arrow on that itty-bitty screen. I presumed that was what it did, but just could not make it go.

Really? I'm a 6'4" 295lb ex-truck driver, so I probably have fatter fingers than 99% of the folks here, and I have no problem with the blue arrows...

And the password entry keyboard remained stubbornly locked in portrait mode, no matter what we tried. I eventually took my glasses off, set the thing on my desk, got my face down within 6" of the desktop, and VERY carefully typed each letter with the very tip of my pinky finger -- the only finger small enough to work accurately.

Oh puh-leeze. My big fat fingers work just fine on the iPhone keyboard.

However, if you want to make it easier on yourself next time, just hold your finger down when you type a letter - The letter will show in larger print above your finger, and if it's the wrong letter you can move your finger to the right one and THEN release it and you'll get exactly what you expected.

Is there no way to "make the password visible" in the iPhone? One of our biggest problems was that neither of us could see what was being typed, because it would only display one entry at a time.

So, that's not enough? Do you know how to spell your password?

The one thought I had with reading your trials and tribulations here was that you might be still using the old WEP passwords that turn themselves into hex strings and are generally a pain in the ass. If you are, change to the newer WPA standards, it's more secure and isn't such a pain.

 

[flyingcheesehead]

These systems do what technologies should do.... enable and improve quality of life without adding challenges and issues. For the past 2 years we have led very busy lives and have never given a thought about the reliability and the utility of the solutions we rely on every day.....

I used to be right in the middle of the technology peeing contests about the best this or the fastest that or the largest screen or the....blah blah blah. Today I could not care any less. For our family, Apple as built integrated solutions that have profound capabilities and the only time we notice them is when we marvel at how much we use them and how little attention and maintenance they require..... YMMV

Joe gets it!

I used to have an IT consulting business, and people were always surprised when I showed up with a Mac laptop in hand. "But... But... You're a COMPUTER person! You use a MAC?!?" they'd say. But the last thing I wanted to do after doing the technical gymnastics to get THEIR systems to play well all day is have to do it for my own. Apple's stuff generally just plain works. That's why Apple customers keep coming back.

 

[Jay Honeck]

The...best...iPhone...case...EVER:

 

[Mafoo]

I have the 4S, my wife has the 5. It's an awesome phone. I know several people who have switched from Android to the iPhone 5 (my CFI being one of them), and absolutely love it.

iOS 6 is great as well, with the only exception being maps. The default maps app is crap. However there are dozens of good options on the app store, and you can run Google maps just fine through the browser (or some wrapper apps).

Microsoft Windows used to come with a basic word processor, and it was horrible. No one evaluated the operating system based on the quality of it's bundled apps when evaluating Windows, so I suspect no one should do it now.

If there were no good option on the App store, I guess it would be acceptable to complain about it.

 

[Sac Arrow]

Two software sliders is too difficult? iOS 6 added "Do Not Disturb" to the already existing "Airplane Mode". Done.

Yes - if you can't access the sliders due to a software lockup.

 

[Mafoo]

I used to have an IT consulting business, and people were always surprised when I showed up with a Mac laptop in hand. "But... But... You're a COMPUTER person! You use a MAC?!?" they'd say. But the last thing I wanted to do after doing the technical gymnastics to get THEIR systems to play well all day is have to do it for my own. Apple's stuff generally just plain works. That's why Apple customers keep coming back.

 

[wabower]

And why I just (finally) cut the cord with PC's. They're just too damn much work.

 

[denverpilot]

Yes - if you can't access the sliders due to a software lockup.

If the software is locked up, why would you care to get to the sliders? It'd be time for a Home+Power hold reboot.

 

[Sac Arrow]

If the software is locked up, why would you care to get to the sliders? It'd be time for a Home+Power hold reboot.

Scenario - you reach down to dial girlfriend, and accidentally dial wife, meanwhile some internal loop is running which renders your ability to immediately cancel the call useless.

 

[Mafoo]

Scenario - you reach down to dial girlfriend, and accidentally dial wife, meanwhile some internal loop is running which renders your ability to immediately cancel the call useless.

There is the big red end bar at the bottom of the dialer. You hit it and instantly cancel your call.

Plus with iOS 6, you can set a Geo Fence around your girlfriends house, and then tell Siri "remind me to take a shower at the truckstop when I leave bubbles home".

 

[Sac Arrow]

>There is the big red end bar at the bottom of the dialer. You hit it and instantly cancel your call.

In theory, yes. In practice, not always.

>Plus with iOS 6, you can set a Geo Fence around your girlfriends house, and then tell Siri "remind me to take a shower at the truckstop when I leave bubbles home".

Hmm, that's an idea.

 

[jesse]

>There is the big red end bar at the bottom of the dialer. You hit it and instantly cancel your call.

In theory, yes. In practice, not always.

>Plus with iOS 6, you can set a Geo Fence around your girlfriends house, and then tell Siri "remind me to take a shower at the truckstop when I leave bubbles home".

Hmm, that's an idea.

Pretty sure on my iPhone if you just hit the power button at the top it'll terminate the call.

 

[wabower]

How do you know Bubbles? Is she back in business?

>There is the big red end bar at the bottom of the dialer. You hit it and instantly cancel your call.

In theory, yes. In practice, not always.

>Plus with iOS 6, you can set a Geo Fence around your girlfriends house, and then tell Siri "remind me to take a shower at the truckstop when I leave bubbles home".

Hmm, that's an idea.