So I was looking at our XFinity cable bill and said to My Beloved "Hey, did you know we were signed up for something called “XFinity Rewards?”.
“Really? How many points do we have? Enough to get a free movie or a discount on something?”
“Dearest, you happen to be on something called ‘Diamond Level’, and you have enough points to get a free iPhone 14…if you want it, that is.”
“Do it!!”
Neither of us have ever had an iPhone of any sort, so any tips, tricks, critiques or opinions are welcome.
I’ve been with Iphone for about 13 years, but I’m in the Apple ecology with computers and all, so it makes sense for me to stick with it. I’m saying that since someone is bound to show up and ask if you can’t get a Samsung Galaxy [top model] instead. Imma stay out of that but I do have one point to offer.
All my sources (tech sites, Apple fan-persons ASF) say that the change between 13 and 14 is minimal* and not really worth the upgrade. Since 13 is still available, would your points stretch to two 13? That would be an even better deal.
*AFAICT it makes sense to upgrade for the pro model users, since the camera got a big boost for iPhone 14 Pro, as compared to iPhone 13 Pro.
The offer was for this particular phone only.
Shame. Get one, keep en eye out for prices dropping for the 13. As a couple, there are some pros to having the same brand: iMessage for one (free text msg if you’re on WiFi) which might be a factor depending on what plan you have. Another is AirDrop, where you can easily send files between devices.
I am still wary of iCloud (and OneDrive for that matter). Apple tends to default your devices to using iCloud*, and as with all cloud based services, you get some storage for free, go over that and a monthly fee start showing up on your CC. I download stuff when the phone is half full and don’t bother with iCloud.
*Same as MS with OneDrive.
Do you have or have you had any apple devices in the past?
I found the learning curve on switching from android to iphone pretty steep as apple does want you totally invested in their product “enviroment”. It seems to me that set up for iphone operates from the assumption that you use other apple devices also. I’ll defer to Charlie_Tan on that.
I’ve found that having just the iphone and nothing else, no pad or computer, ios is a crap system and the hardware is just standard fare stuff.
Do you aleady use Xfinity as your cellular provider? If not, the catch may be you have to sign up with them.
And if you do have them as your provider already do you like the plan and it’s cost? Somethimes the catch is you have to switch to one of their “new” plans and lose your current rate.
Hmmm. The benefits of staying inside Apple’s gated community are there. What I find more frustrating - and this is true with everything Apple - is that they’ve decided what the best settings are for me. Whenever I get a new Apple device, I figure I have to spend a few hours disabling a ton of shit.
Thankfully YouTube has a gazillion videos on what and how to do things. Marques Brownlee is probably the best.
The regular 14 isn’t bad (I personally bought a 14 Pro Max) when I went up from an iPhone 11).
The regular 14 won’t have all the bells and whistles but it’s still a hell of a phone.
If might also suggest if you get it that you get the buy the gig plan if you’re not going to use it a lot.
I never had an iPhone (and I’m a big time Mac user) until 2 years ago (when I got the 11–which I am giving to my younger sister).
I also say–ignore the Apple/iPhone bashers.
I have an iPhone (it’s an iPhone 12, and I looked at the 14, but didn’t see anything really compelling me to upgrade, so maybe next year). As for using other Apple devices, I really don’t; I have an iPad Mini, which I rarely use on trips home. But my primary computer is a Windows 10 PC. My employer does use the Google Suite, and I have all of those apps on the phone and that is super-convenient.
So I question the idea that with Apple, it’s all or nothing.
Ummm…
Isn’t this 100% true for every manufacturer of every product?
No, neither one of us have.
One of the first things I’d do is go to the App Store and get a content blocker for Safari, such as AdBlock Pro, AdGuard or Ghostery.
New iPhones come with a 3 month free trial of Apple TV+, so you can check out Ted Lasso, Foundation, Severance, For All Mankind, CODA, Dickinson etc. You have to sign up within 90 days of purchase to activate it. I assume that still works even though you didn’t purchase the phone yourself. Apparently, the Apple TV+ app is also available on Xfinity so you shouldn’t even need the iPhone to watch it.
If you have a relatively recent TV, it might come equipped with AirPlay built in which will make streaming your photos or videos you’ve taken from the iphone to tv pretty easy.
If your SO or whoever else uses Android or Windows, you can use FaceTime to video chat with them, but a drawback is that the call has to be initiated by the iPhone.
Learn about the various swipes and gestures for navigating around the Home Screen, widgets, control center, notifications, etc.
Unless you want to purchase an iCloud account, turn off backing up photos and videos to iCloud because Apple only gives you a paltry 5GB of iCloud storage space for the free basic account and once that space gets taken up it will start throwing up warnings about low iCloud storage and do you want to purchase more iCloud storage. It works fine if you’re just backing up system and app settings though.
Don’t be afraid to go into the Settings app. A lot of the things that annoy you initially can probably be taken care of by changing a setting. If you care about privacy, definitely go through the Privacy settings.
I have used Windows (prior to it’s demise), Android, and iPhones and previously worked for a cell carrier, although not for many years.
IMHO iPhones are fine, and work right out of the box with fewer customization and installation issues than Android… and you don’t have bloat the way you do on many non-Pixel android devices.
But, and I say this as someone whose last 3 phones went iPhone > Android > iPhone, some of the things they insist on are much more frustrating than what Android does. iPhones are damned persnickity about the way they want to do things, especially with your AppleID and authentication.
You had damn well better want two-factor authorization (which I hate) because otherwise expect your phone to lock your account / password at least twice a week, requiring you to answer your own security questions / and or going through an email unlock because it doesn’t consider you secure enough.
If you ever have a major software failure (very rare, but it happens) you also better hope to have an apple store nearby (and may have to wait or pay) OR install iTunes which is an kludgey poorly-maintained mess on PC to fix said major issues. And without a doubt, their Android > iPhone transfer is a horrible mess that certainly made me feel that they were judging me for ever having a different OS, while iPhone to Android is almost always a thousand times smoother.
But having said all that, an iPhone -is- still more likely to just WORK (as we have a thread on that) and still be in support years and years past the last software update an android phone would have had in most cases.
More so with Apple, since it’s quite a bit harder to dig down and change settings.
Really?
I find them very well organized, and they are all in one place under “Settings.”
And searchable.