Nekochan Net

"smart phone"
That's funny. Smart people don't use cellphones.

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Sitting in a room.....thinkin' shit up.

400MHz R12k - Apple G4 Cube dual 500MHz/GF6200 - Newton Messagepad 2100 - Apple PowerBook 2400c/G3@240 - DECstation5000/133 - Apple Workgroup Server 9150/120 - Apple Macintosh IIfx - Apple Macintosh Color Classic (Mystic upgrade) - Sun Cobalt Cube 3 - Tadpole RDI UltraBook IIi

"call me an ambulance"
iphone: "from now on, I will refer to you as 'anne ambulance'"

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

I've had an iPhone 4S for almost a week now. I'm kicking myself for not going the iPhone 4 route this time last year when I converted from 6+ years with a BlackBerry over to Android.

I had a Samsung Epic 4G, which had an amazing display, physical keyboard and a decent camera. It ran Android 2.1 originally, which worked OK. When they released 2.2, that's when everything went downhill. The native e-mail client began adding <br><br><br> to my replies, wi-fi would only work for a few hours before having to pull the battery and reboot the phone, and it started corrupting memory cards every few weeks. So after several factory resets and various custom ROMs it was time to move on. And who knows when Samsung/Sprint will release 2.3, if at all. As much as I'd love to smash it with a hammer, it looks like people are still buying them on eBay.

Anyway, the 4S has been great. The camera is incredible, both still and video. The e-mail client is so much better than the stock Android client or the Touchdown app. It works nicely with Exchange. It's quicker and more responsive than my Epic, my Bluetooth earpiece works better (I had to keep the Epic in my shirt pocket, any further and it would lose connection), and by the time I go to bed I still have about 30% battery left after long day of use. Hopefully that lasts for a long while.

I knuckled under and got an iPhone 4S sooner than I expected, largely because the battery on my old Treo 700p coincidentally started to have problems holding a charge a couple of weeks ago. So far, I'm quite happy with it. The call quality is at least as good as the Treo (still my main reason for having a phone), and I am pleasantly surprised with how well the Siri voice function has been working for me.

On the negative side, I really do miss having a physical keyboard, and some of the things that I used to do routinely are so firmly entrenched in my muscle memory that it is a bit of a chore to adjust to a new way of doing things. I do have to recharge it every day, which is not something I had to do with my Treo, but since I leave the iPhone's Wifi and Bluetooth turned on, I guess that isn't too big of a surprise. Overall, though, I think it was a good purchase.

A final note: I went to a retail store to make the purchase, and I made a big deal about being on a tight budget and that I could not spend any more per month than I was already paying. The sales person made a few adjustments on my service plan, and it looks like I will actually end up spending $15 less per month than I had been. Quite a nice surprise!

@joe I was an earlier adopter of PDA. I had a CPDP Cellular Packet Internet PCMCIA card for my iPAQ; 12KB/sec woohoo! But after a certain point between when WinCE switched over to PocketPC, and smartphones drive the PDA's into oblivion, and my 100th hard reset and reload all my apps the quality of the 'experience' started to go downhill. My switch to iPhone from my latest HTC horrorphone felt rapturous. i'm sure you'll love it. GarageBand just came out for iPhone :-) BTW: the power issues seem to be a iOS5 quirk. small thing to iron out eventually. my iPhone4 went a couple of days between charges. With iOS5 I nearly make a day.

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DECUS Member 368596

I'm required for my senior project to get a phone with ANT+. So there is some of the newer sony droids, or the ancient samsung F110

.. and a plug-in module for my ipad (which will also work on ipod/iphone, presumably, but I already have an ipad...)

really wish iphone would build in an ant+ transceiver. but that might make the nike+ crowd upset... (I have the band and with the new nikeOS released in august it is finally great. Got it earlier this spring but only have about 300 miles on it so far... it's hard to take along a football with the sensor tied to your laces so guess what gets left at home

I don't want to give up my moto a45eco now, I finally got it working with the handsfree in my car.

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

You're not driving hard enough if you can talk at the same time

it's hard to drive slow, you have to work at it!

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

Thanks for the tips, @sky. I'll check out GarageBand for sure. I am liking the 4S quite a bit.

well I have some killer good news. the verizon iphone 4s has a sim card slot, and they will unlock it for you after 60 days. I travel often and like those prepaid sim cards. so that will be enough to sway me away from bell.

My handsfree wasn't working this morning, but it was working at lunch. I don't think it's the car's fault, either (mazda).

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"

You ain't just whistlin' Dixie about the total crap service you get from American telecoms. It's outright shit. Chinese phone service is so much better than what you first-worlders get that it's shocking.

it's in the Chinese governments best surveillance interests to provide good service, as long as it's only crappy 2G.

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DECUS Member 368596

American telcos are all shit*, along with the used cars salesmen and estate agents (and janitors!) but in terms of the big three that carry the iphone... what's that saying? "all the animals are equal, but some are a little bit more equal than others"

*compared to europe/middle east/asia/etc telcos. Candians actually have it worse in my experience.

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(Maradona) (DavidVilla) A1186 (Xavi)
A1370 (Messi) dp43tf (Puyol) A1387 (Abidal) A1408 (Guardiola)

"InfiniteReality Graphics - Power Through Complexity"