Apple → [iPhone] I miss being a sheep in the herd

on Nov 26th i ATTEMPTED to abandon Apple. I was "upgrading" from the iPhone 4 to a droid razr maxx. Phone arrives VIA fed ex Nov 26th. Right off the bat i screw up the SIM CARD slot trying to get the stupid "door" open to install the sim card. After two hours the phone looks like crap with scratches all over the side from my prying the jammed SIM card "door" open. i finally get the SIM card in but during the prying something got borked and the phone keeps giving SIM card errors. I keep taking it in and out it finally activates but 4 G does NOT work . over the course of Tuesday the phone remains miserable to use and my patience wears thinner and thinner. On Wednesday morning by noon time i am in the process of going back to my old trusty iPhone 4. I could stand android no more. I will not attempt to return to Android anytime soon. However all is not well. I do NOT like the iPhone 5 either and do not know where to move forward phone wise from here.

May sound silly, but the fact you had issues installing the sim card is the Android os's fault? Doubtful.

As for Apple support, I have always heard they help out of warranty but when I had an issue with a sticky iPhone 4 button 2 months out of warranty they calibrated it, took it out back, said they they could see the issue, realize other people had issues with the home button as well, but wanted $150. I guess I was not the lucky one.

I was having issues with the OS as well with pop ups this APP stopped working and that APP stopped working. The APPS were bloat ware force installed by the carrier if i kept the phone i would have rooted it if possible however i had other things to worry about beyond getting that phone in order.........like work.

Not sure what's not to like in the iPhone 5. It really is a great phone.

screen too long/tall . headphone jack moved to the bottom. don't like the lightning connector. Why didn't they just go with the micro USB other phones use ?

That's the same issue I had fixed for $30 at a local smartphone repair shop. These places are well stocked in iPhone parts and the parts aren't that expensive either.

I actually like the jack to be on the bottom. That way it's not an octopus of cables. My new phone has it on the top though.

Anyway, I'm liking the Lumia 920 and WP8 more and more every day but I still miss being part of the herd.

I still keep my iPhone around to have airplay support and few iOS only apps.

I've had it for over a week now and I'm really happy with it.

Overall, I'm very happy with it too (upgraded from an iPhone 4). The screen is almost too tall (I like to "cradle" the phone in my hand by resting it on my pinky and with my small hands, it's *almost* impossible to reach the far top corner of the screen) but I for on LIKE the lightning cable -- no more worrying about which way it goes it, it doesn't pop out easily, and has been working like a champ. I don't care much one way or the other about where the headphone jack is.

So, you basically couldn't put a SIM card in right and that's the fault of the phone?

Sounds like a PEBKAC issue...

As someone who has Droid Razr Maxx, I'm getting a feeling you were going into the "Droid" experience looking for an excuse to go back to an iPhone.

I'll admit the sim/sd card door on the Razr series is not the most convenient, however since you'll most likely have to open it once to put the cards in, not a big issue. The fact that you managed to scratch the phone while trying to open it makes me think that you were trying to pry it with something metal and from the wrong end (hinge side).

As far as the software, Droid Razr series doesn't have a lot of bloatware, and whatever it did have can be either uninstalled or disabled by a single screen touch and drag.

Sounds like the carriers install their own crap.

Regardless of what the fandroids say I love my iPad 2 and my iPhone 4S. They do everything I need to do and for the more "serious" work I use my Sandy Bridge laptop with Windows 7 or my 2600K @ 4.3GHz with GTX 660 SLI beast that has Win7/Win8.

Geeze. Ganged up on by Fandroids ! Please forgive me that the last time i had to use a SIM card was over 10 years ago when it went in the battery compartment. Its not my fault the carrier did NOT preinstall the SIM card (they installed the microSD card that went behind the same door) . If that was not possible either a pull tab or some clear instructions on how to open the door would have been nice. My point about the door is the phone was off to a bad start right out of the box. If i am at fault for anything here it is stupidity of ordering online. Had i got the phone from a brick and mortar store the card would have been installed. regardless of the sim card as i said the phone needed rooting and i honestly did not wish to put time and effort into doing so. The folks that said iPhone 5 win this round OR i'll just wait a while 5s will come along .

We have four Droids with Verizon for several years and have never witnessed that.

I don't understand this "serious work" which apparently some think can't be done on an iPad. I had some service work done yesterday on my furnace. The guy completed the work order, charged my credit card and emailed me the receipt using his iPad. I almost took his picture to show people cause there was another thread somewhere about this.

In that other thread I also mentioned how I use the iPad in my work but I also have two clients. One is a regional hospital that uses iPads throughout by doctors, nurses and office personnel, and a restaurant that uses iPads as cash registers.

All of that IS "serious work" unless what was meant was you needed more horsepower but, in that case, using a Mac with OSX (that's a Unix operating system) is far more serious than a Windows PC.

slacker, kindle and a few others which i forgot. I never even used these APPS or interacted with them. I would simply receive a pop up saying the APP had stopped . It is becoming more and more apparent that this is NOT the norm for this phone. The one i received was a lemon. Also at random times i would hear a recording saying "verizon wireless" (out phone's speaker) but there was NO call or text coming in.

i agree wholeheartedly.
i am tied deep into the apple ecosystem -- iphone5, ipad2, 2011 13" mba (i7 model, 4gb, 256ssd).
i work in network consulting for a very large cisco gold partner. most of my day to day work involves meetings, with my nights consisting of network device configurations, documentation, and heavy duty network diagrams.

for most of my work and small changes -- my ipad2 works great. notes, recordings, even network changes via anyconnect with an ssh app.
for my diagrams -- i use my mba both natively with omnigraffle and running a small win7x32 vm in fusion. it has all the power i need to do what i need to do.

i do have a linux beast of a laptop (hp8560p, i7@2.6, 16gb ram, 256ssd with 500gb spindle in cd bay) for when i am concurrently running 3 or 4 vms for a demo or tricky deployment work -- but most of the time it sits on its docking station in my home office -- since it breaks my back to carry and run around a facility with.

my two bits.

q.

I'm helping drive my own thread off topic here but I think "serious work" depends on the exact job being done and the apps/tools available. All work can be "serious work" of course but there are things like heavy graphics, number crunching, software development, disconnected networks, etc are still much better on a desktop. It's just about the right tool for the right job.

There may/will come a time in the future where that changes. We would need better networks, better apps and more processing support in the cloud.

And back on topic, I'm liking WP8 enough now that I'm missing my iPhone less. Though it is making a nice iPod touch now.

Really? I don't own one, nice try though. I have had an iPhone 3G, 3GS, 4, and am typing this on my 4s.

You are not being ganged up on, just pointing out that some operator error seems to be the case.

Notice that I said MORE serious work. It's great that you THINK that a Mac is more "serious" but I'd like to see anyone with a 4.3GHz i7 MAC with dual GPUs for any reasonable amount of money. Besides, if I cared at all about Mac OS I could easily turn either of my Windows machines into Hackintoshes. I wasn't trying to turn this into Mac vs Windows. I was just saying that I like my Apple phone/tablet but typing long documents and doing CPU/GPU-intensive tasks are far better on my Windows machines.I was neither talking to you nor about you. Notice that my reply was for the OP. Nice try though.

Obviously you are one of those who only buys on price without regard to value in return or you are unaware of the value you get in a Mac over a Windows PC. But I've already listed all the value added you get in a Mac in many threads before.

btw, I own no Apple products other than a first generation iPad that was given to me for Christmas.

Mhmm... Yet you are the one that feels the need to "prove" or "state" how Macs are more "serious" when I wasn't comparing Macs to Windows at all. Now you're trying to tell me that there is no "value" (or not as much) in the Windows machines I own when compared to Macs. If you don't own Apple Mac products, then you wouldn't know the difference anyway. So tell someone who cares about how much more "serious" Mac products are. Meanwhile I am free to have my opinions. I simply stated that I enjoy the products I own, regardless of what fandroids and macboys say.

You replied to my statement so I replied to yours. If you didn't want a response, you should have kept quiet.

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Now you're trying to tell me that there is no "value" (or not as much) in the Windows machines I own when compared to Macs.

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How you got "no value" at all out of what I said, I'll never know.

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If you don't own Apple Mac products, then you wouldn't know the difference anyway.

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That's like saying I wouldn't know the value of a Ferrari cause I never drove one. Any computer enthusiast can read computer reviews like those from Consumer Reports:

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Apple was the most reliable among desktop brands. It also had the best technical support, so Apple owners are far more likely to have a positive tech-support experience than those with Windows computers.

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And any who have experience with how computers work can judge the value of a system based on that.

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So tell someone who cares about how much more "serious" Mac products are. Meanwhile I am free to have my opinions. I simply stated that I enjoy the products I own, regardless of what fandroids and macboys say.

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Apparently you cared cause you vented against my "opinion" with yours but don't want me to give mine.

In any case, you said, essentially, Macs cost too much. I said you get what you pay for and, therefore, you receive proper value in return for the purchase price of any Apple product based on reviews and my considerable past experience.

Fact is you wouldn't know the value of a Ferrari unless you drove one, because knowing the value stems from having experience driving it along with all the other cars in its class. Only then could you really know if that Ferrari model is not only a great car but whether or not it is better than its peers.

Meanwhile talking horsepower in computers is meaningless. I'd rather have a slower machine CPU wise that offers an OS with far superior workflow like I get from OS X. I don't crunch numbers 24'7, my machines rarely see all their cores maxed. If I want to play games I'll do it on my PS3, XBOX or Wii U where the gaming experience is simply superior. I do business work, mostly ACAD and NX along with spreadsheets, endless emailing and PDF doc generation, typical office and M.E. stuff that doesn't require 4.XGHz anything. What it does require is GUI ergonomics and better synergy between apps which Microsoft has NEVER mastered and NEVER will master. Even for video editing, horsepower is largely irrelevant compared to workflow ergonomics. Yeah, big power machines will do the final encode faster but who cares if it takes you 3X longer to actually do the editing in the first place?

Redmond simply doesn't get it. Fact remains I can take a piece of crap well fermented Mac mini and get my WORK done far quicker than I ever could with one of my 6 core PCs, simply because it isn't CPU power that holds back Windows, it is the worst GUI ergonomics in the history of history that kills Windows.

Just yesterday I spent a few hours trying to get JIS keyboard support running in Windows 8 and simply couldn't. Posted in the MS forum and no one has a clue how to get it working. Googled around...lots of people with the same problem, no solutions. OS X, no problem, just plug the KB in and I'm good to go. Language support? No problem, select the language and go, nothing to DL, no menu settings buried somewhere you'll never find them...just go to System Preferences, then lang and text...done. Windows...holy crap. Just try and find the control panel using Windows 8 or any menu if you don't already happen to know the name of it from using previous versions. Try to set Windows 8 to auto login with your UN/PW if you don't know the the adv user menu is netplwiz or whatever it was. They have different settings spread across a gazillion menus. Win 8 looks like it was designed by 50000 people who never saw each other and didn't know what the others were working on. Then they put the pieces into a box and shook it really hard. It looks slick but is the most convoluted thing I've seen. It makes the Winchester House look well organized.

Oh yea, I know, everyone uses Windows. That is because they're largely Crayon eating fools sucked into the Fry's $299 laptop deal but just like McDonald's makes the most burgers, it doesn't mean they're the best...far from it.

So you don't know it's a great car? If you do, did you find it out by driving one? How long must you drive one before you determine that. How many cars do you buy before you found a keeper?

Get my point? You learn from others, read study and apply your experience. You didn't walk into Best Buy and buy the first thing on the shelf cause you don't know anything till you try it, do you?

The rest of your post is spot on.