[neoben]

Howdy, everyone...

Have you seen this new iPhone ad about bricked phones?

YouTube - Apple iPhone ad - Bricked but Useful

-Ben

[Nexus5]

nexus5

[terryshaw09]

i thought that was pretty funny

[::maroma::]

The very end when he's scratching his back was pretty funny. The other stuff was pretty "meh". I think what might be lost on this guy is not that Apple killed his iPhone, but that HE killed his iPhone.

[theDreamer]

Again with blaming Apple for this non sense.
~Apple did not force you to unlock your phone.
~When unlocking your phone many people, posts, etc. told you not to update firmware until it was tested by the hackers.

The whole, "I wanted to go to Canada," (could be replaced by any country) is complete bull sh!t. The iPhone works every where and if you know you are going out of the country then you will need to purchase an international month of data/minutes. Guess what, this is exactly how it is with any other phone on the market, I did it when I went to England last year for work. I did not do it when I went to Canada at the start of this summer, and guess what? I was charged an extra $20 because of some phones calls I made.

[nnnan]

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by theDreamer 

The whole, "I wanted to go to Canada," (could be replaced by any country) is complete bull sh!t. The iPhone works every where and if you know you are going out of the country then you will need to purchase an international month of data/minutes. Guess what, this is exactly how it is with any other phone on the market, I did it when I went to England last year for work. I did not do it when I went to Canada at the start of this summer, and guess what? I was charged an extra $20 because of some phones calls I made.

Yes, and you pay exorbitant fees for the ability to use your US cell phone service in another country. Let's look at Greece, for example, with AT&T Wireless.

AT&T Standard International Roaming: $1.29/min
AT&T World Traveler: $1.29/min
Text Message: $0.50/message

Ok, so I don't have to pay $5.99 a month for World Traveler while in Greece. But that 10 minute phone call I got from Mom would cost $12.90, and the 15 minute call I made to Uncle Dick on his birthday would be $19.35, and the 20 SMS my brother and I traded would be another $10. Call my aunt (in Greece) to ask her what to pick up from the store because I forgot what she wanted? (5 minutes minimum: $6.45)
Make/receive 100 minutes of phone calls to/from my father over a three week period? $129.00 Call my cousin in Germany or a friend in Turkey? Sorry. "You may not be able to place calls to international destinations other than United States while roaming in this country. Calls can be completed within the visited country and back to the United States," according to AT&T's Web Page.

Total bill for the above would be $59.99 for my regular service and $177.70 for the paltry few calls I made/received. NOT WORTH IT WHEN:

I could buy a local prepaid SIM card from CosmOTE for € 5. Then the 10 minute call from Mom would be free to me (incoming calls are paid for by the caller, but at 35 cents a minute on Mom's phone bill), the 15 minute call to Uncle Dick would be € 10.80, the SMS with my brother would be € 4.40 (€ 0.2202/SMS to/from foreign networks). The calls to my father (he has CosmOTE) would be € 0.50 for 50 minutes of me calling him (with the special € 0.01/minute to one of two CosmOTE subscribers of your choice) and free to me for 50 minutes of him calling me (he would pay the € 0.50) and the call to my aunt would be € 1.95. And I could call my cousin in Germany or my friend in Turkey for € 0.72/minute. (Let's assume I call my cousin for 10 minutes and my friend for 10 minutes, so € 14.40).

Add that up and you get € 36.75, which at today's exchange rate is $52.08. I'd still pay the $59.99 for the month of AT&T cell phone service, so my total cost for the month would be $112.07. Subtract the phone calls to Germany and Turkey and you have $91.66 to directly compare.

So, with typical usage in Greece, AT&T costs me $237.69 to roam, and using a Greek SIM card I pay $91.66 total (remember, I still have to pay for my AT&T service back home).

I also could not find a way to purchase an "international block of minutes" for a flat fee from AT&T.

WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER PAY??? $237.69 OR $91.66? I KNOW WHAT *I'D* CHOOSE!

So the whole, "I wanted to go to <insert country here>" is NOT, I repeat, NOT bull sh!t. There are advantages to having an unlocked phone. It is not unreasonable to want to unlock your iPhone.

It is unreasonable, however, to expect Apple to support a hacked phone when they do not support unlocking the phone because of their exclusivity agreement with AT&T. (Lawsuit disregarded for this discussion).

[theDreamer]

WHICH WOULD YOU RATHER PAY??? $237.69 OR $91.66? I KNOW WHAT *I'D* CHOOSE!

I would pay the one I could use my iPhone on, that is the more simple answer.
I pay $50 a month for my iPhone, drop $30 for data on international and then pay for individual minutes. *Note AT&T use to offer (or maybe it was Cingular when I had them) blocks of international minutes, though as times chang & company A takes over B things will evolve.

Your example is also for calls only, my iPhone does much, much more than this and I need all of my features at all times for work, school, leisure, etc. So will you be able to get up to the minute weather, emails, Google maps, full internet, stock quotes I monitor daily, etc. For your example it might be cheaper too do that, but for me I need more data then minutes and your example would not be worth it.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by theDreamer 

I would pay the one I could use my iPhone on, that is the more simple answer.
I pay $50 a month for my iPhone, drop $30 for data on international and then pay for individual minutes. *Note AT&T use to offer (or maybe it was Cingular when I had them) blocks of international minutes, though as times chang & company A takes over B things will evolve.

Your example is also for calls only, my iPhone does much, much more than this and I need all of my features at all times for work, school, leisure, etc. So will you be able to get up to the minute weather, emails, Google maps, full internet, stock quotes I monitor daily, etc. For your example it might be cheaper too do that, but for me I need more data then minutes and your example would not be worth it.

Well, of course my example is for calls only, because you currently can't get an unlocked iPhone that is sanctioned by Apple.

I would LOVE to have an iPhone if it were unlocked. Heck, if that $25 data for international were unlimited, I'd use my AT&T SIM for data and the CosmOTE SIM for calls, but the $25 data plan is for 20 MB transfer a month and 0.005 cents/KB = $5.00 for each additional megabyte of transfer. And really, for your purposes, is 20 MB a month enough? If you transfer 40 MB, your total bill for the month would be $125. Supposedly this plan was created in response to the outcry over the $3000 bill the one guy ended up with when he went overseas and used his data indiscriminately while there, thinking "unlimited" meant "unlimited anywhere in the world."

If we use the regular rate (outside the 29 discounted countries) of $0.0195/KB, he transferred 150.24 MB, so even with the data plan in a discounted country, his bill still would have been very high. ($25 for the first 20 MB and $666.83 for the other 130.24 MB = $691.83. It's not $3000, but $700 is still a pretty hefty phone bill).

You talked about paying for individual minutes; at $1.29 a minute, you must not use your phone very much for actual phone calls, then. Compared to how things work in Europe with respect to cell phone service providers, the US is still getting ripped off BIG TIME. In your case it would have been cheaper to just use pay phones for voice calls, but you'd be restricted to places/situations where a pay phone was available.

But really, if I'm travelling in Europe (unless on business), I don't need to "get up to the minute weather, emails, Google maps, full internet, stock quotes ... monitor[ed] daily." And it sounds like doing that would exceed the 20 MB a month anyway. It would still be cheaper to just use the WiFi function of the iPhone and rent time on a WiFi hotspot, or go to an internet cafe and have unlimited data transfer for € 1.00-5.00/hour depending on the individual cafe, or buy 30 days' worth of dial up internet access for € 20.00 for a laptop.

The phone usage numbers I gave were for my recent trip to Greece this past August. I had my unlocked phone and bought a local SIM card for voice calls and SMS, used an internet cafe at € 1.50/hour for high bandwidth applications, and bought 30 days' worth of dial-up internet for € 20 for low bandwidth applications and secure connection to bank sites, etc. Of course, the three days I stayed with a friend in Athens I got to use his 10 MB/sec wireless connection for free. Total cost to me for my connectivity (phone and data) for a three week trip: approximately $100, excluding the $59.99 for my unused AT&T cell phone service.

My point is that, even with the international data plan, it's still ridiculously easy to run up a ridiculously expensive phone bill with the iPhone in its current state. It's still cheaper by far to make a few sacrifices by using local services rather than roaming, and still get to do at least 90-95% of what you need (or want) to do, without having to stop and think "Now, have I exceeded the 20 MB limit?"

[theDreamer]

Unfortanutely that 20mb is for all plans.
The reason for this is because AT&T does not have control over of networks in other countries, for the most part, so they have to pay fees when you are using someone else's network, etc. Though the 20mb limit is low it would still provide me with data to get by for what I need, and since I seem to be a more aware consumer I would monitor my usage overseas and make sure I do not end up with a 3k phone bill.

I do understand how the "unlimited data plan," can be confusing for the average consumer and I understand that. This is also why Apple introduced in a recent update to be able to turn EDGE off for when traveling if you do not need the phone. Though deeper into this, the phone has features that you can disable to as to only allow when you select to access data so you can still receive calls, but not have to worry about extra data fees, but again the average consumer is unaware.

I can not dispute the cheapness of using X phone over there v. the iPhone, but to me I would feel better to be able to use my phone with the features I need, etc. Also if I were to be overseas and using more than 20mb of data I would probably be on a business plan or call AT&T about my trips overseas and see if another plan is available. This is the one thing consumers need to learn, is a quick phone call to AT&T (or any company) will save you money when traveling overseas if you just ask about fees, rates on phone charges and usage.

[Person Man]

Originally Posted by theDreamer 

This is the one thing consumers need to learn, is a quick phone call to AT&T (or any company) will save you money when traveling overseas if you just ask about fees, rates on phone charges and usage.

Yes, but you shouldn't have to call AT&T and ask if a cheaper (but hidden) plan is available. They should lay it all out on the table to begin with.

[brassplayersrock²]

this video is better: YouTube - Your iPhone is a BRICK (thanks to Steve Jobs)