Thread of Cellphones

[DigitalGypsy66]

Anker got four of us through full days 12+ hours at Disney.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

god damn Apple News got me. I saw an article from Inc. about the dynamic island in the new iPhone 14 Pro and I was salivating. The island itself is fine, not amazing, but I’m too ready for a new phone (I have the 11 right now)

preordered it. I’ll report back if it sux

[Morkle]

I was due for an upgrade so I ended up getting the Pro Max. Looking forward to it being bulky and heavy - but since I barely leave the house, it's basically my iPad replacement lol.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

14 pro just arrived. It’s nice but there are some changes that’ll take some getting used to. Like, Always On is a little weird (aka the screen doesn’t go full black when not in use; it’s very dimly lit but will always show the time and any notifications [you can turn this off]) or how notifications show in the bottom of the Lock Screen instead of the top

[willeyeam]

My favorite iphone feature is when they get stuff android did five years ago and go nuts about it

[skullman80]

My favorite iphone feature is when they get stuff android did five years ago and go nuts about it

[DigitalGypsy66]

I was going to say the same thing lol.

My son upgraded his phone to iOS 16 and the lock screen looks much like my Pixel 6. Slightly different font and widget placement, but very similar.

[Shyster]

At least that's not as bad as Windows adding a feature that Linux had 30 years ago and everyone going nuts about it.

[MWB]

I went to Verizon to get a new phone. Asked about getting the 12 since I just wanted something cheap. The guy told me I’d have to upgrade my plan, which didn’t really make sense since I had gotten my daughter one last month and it didn’t require that. So it was gonna be $28 more a month with the phone and plan upgrade. I asked about trade in and he said I’d get $45 total. I pressed him on the plan upgrade and he said if you call and order you won’t have to do it. So I called and ordered and they said you can get a 14 by trading in your current phone, with cracks, and all you have to pay is the plan upgrade. So just $10 a month. The cell phone game is such a racket.

[Morkle]

I will never go in store to Verizon because they force it every single time I go.

I have a 12 GIG plus FREE 12 Gigs for the life of the contract.

It's unlimited and like $50 a month or something. Every time I talk to someone in Verizon "oh we have to get you to a new plan, because speed etc." I have 5G now, and tell them if they can beat my current pricing I'll switch. Every single time, they bring it up and never look at the details.

Verizon offered that like 10 years ago, and at most, I use 2-3 gigs a month.

[DigitalGypsy66]

How many of you actually have real 5G service with Verizon? I have fake 5G locally, which is "enhanced 4G LTE" or the same speed as my kids older non-5G phones.

[Morkle]

I have real 5G as I'm near Pittsburgh, but it flips to LTE often when I'm outside of city limits.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Yeah, I think we'll get it eventually...but Vz had to turn on the fake 5G on phones that can handle 5G so it looks like we are getting value for our 5G plans. But at least we're getting Disney bundle for free.

[MalkinIsMyHomeboy]

How many of you actually have real 5G service with Verizon? I have fake 5G locally, which is "enhanced 4G LTE" or the same speed as my kids older non-5G phones.

I had noticeable issues with 5G while at the Presidents Cup tournament. I allegedly had 3 bars of 5G but couldn’t load **** or send images over text

also, possibly dumb question, but I had noticed with LTE that I always had a better connection with 2 bars than 3. What’s up with that?

[tifosi77]

Rooting through the e-junk drawer and I found a six-year old Sammy Galaxy (S6?) that hadn't been powered on for years. I thought maybe I could repurpose it as a digital streaming controller, relegate it to kitchen duty, etc. This is currently a role filled by my old LG V10; the two phones are contemporaries, so I wouldn't be improving much by way of performance, just curious about the process. Well, joke's on me.... the phone has been in an update loop for the better part of two entire days now. One update downloads and installs, another one immediately prompts. The cycle never ends.

[dodint]

Oh, that's easy. What you do is relocate it to the trash can and then walk away.

[tifosi77]

Fine

I just got a Pixel 7 Pro. AMA

[dodint]

I...have no idea why I was so snarky about that.

[DigitalGypsy66]

I have a Pixel 6, upgraded from a 3. They are very good phones and the OS is very good imo.

[skullman80]

Yeah I have a 6 pro came from a 3.

I can never imagine going to an Iphone even though everyone else including my wife has an iphone lol.

[DigitalGypsy66]

Same. I'm the only one in my family, my wife's family, close friends, etc. that has an Android phone. My brother, always an early iPhone adopter, hates his 14 Pro that he just got (it seems sluggish and the battery life isn't great.) He's thinking about making the switch to Pixel, but I'll believe it when I see it.

[skullman80]

Same. I'm the only one in my family, my wife's family, close friends, etc. that has an Android phone. My brother, always an early iPhone adopter, hates his 14 Pro that he just got (it seems sluggish and the battery life isn't great.) He's thinking about making the switch to Pixel, but I'll believe it when I see it.

My wife just went from a 11 to a 14 since we finally combined cell phone planes after nearly 5 years of marriage lol.

I think it comes down to bring used to either apple or Google though. I used her 14 for a bit yesterday and everything just felt weird. I'm sure she'd say the same thing about my phone though lol.

[tifosi77]

My only gripe with the new phone is that I've amassed 6+ years worth of charging cords that worked fine with my Pixel 2 and tablets and such, either as native USB C or with a mini/micro-to-C adapter plug. Same with wireless charging bases and the like (the P2 is not a wireless device, but you could add a dongle thing that sat flush against the back inside the case which acted as the induction receiver, or whatever the word is). None of it works properly with the USB C on the 7 Pro. Charging is sluggish, and you can actually do long term harm to the battery using mismatched cordage. So now I have to spend money updating/replacing all that old support stuff.

[RonnieFranchise]

OK, riddle me this techies:

My daughter had both cameras break on her iPhone 12. Apple wants $330 to fix the cameras on a phone that might be worth $500. So, we decided just to get her a new phone.

She does not remember the password for her apple ID/iCloud account. We have been trying for months to resolve it. Apple has this deal where they take your info, and then 2 weeks later or something they send you a link to reset. We've done that three times including once at the Apple Store and have never once been able to get the response email. Called them, talked to them in person, no dice.

Had not occurred to me that to wipe the old phone to trade it in, we need the Apple ID password. Apple will turn the activation lock off if you have proof of purchase with the IMEI on it. I didn't save it because in the event I needed it, I figured it was on the Verizon website. Turns out Verizon only maintains this data online for 18 months and the phone was bought 24 months ago. Called Verizon and the guy in Bangalore said he looked and looked and couldn't find a receipt. So I sent Apple the receipt for the new phone, showing the old one as a trade in and got denied in record response time for Apple, like 11 minutes till they said no, it's not good enough. So basically I have this brick with $300 trade in value that I can't get because it's locked.

So I'll go to the Verizon store tomorrow and talk to some happy preppie sales bro and see if they can help me out, which they probably won't. Anyone have a way to wipe the iPhone?

[Beveridge]

Wife was receiving texts this morning then around noon she doesn't get any incoming messages.

Restarted, cleared cache, reset data/WiFi and still nothing.