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Goodbye to my iPhone

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For almost two years, I’ve loved my iPhone. That’s amazing, since I live where AT&T has never provided 3G coverage. The contract expires this summer.

Admittedly, business trips were refreshing because I generally always had a 3G connection. That is, until the last six months or so. During that period of time, I’ve been experiencing some random dropped calls. For example, AT&T dropped my 3G connections about 8 times in less than 30 minutes in April. All three calls went over 5 minutes before they were dropped, and they were made from a hotel in Anaheim, California (near Angels Stadium). Those drops certainly made it appear that their system couldn’t handle the volume of concurrent calls, but it could have been something else. 😉

The final straw was AT&T’s unlimited data plan change announcement. Wow! It caught me by surprise. Their back peddling with a subsequent announcement of qualified renewed contracts doesn’t work for me. They’ve lost what little trust I had for them.

Fortunately, I’d deferred buying an iPad. I’d planned to order an iPad 3G model this last week, but now it will definitely be a Wi-Fi only device! I’m also deferring the purchase now to see if there’s another surprise in the wings.

When I compare the cost of my iPhone against the HTC EVO, the iPhone loses. I found Daniel Lyon’s article Phone Fight! interesting for many reasons. While his comparison of Microsoft versus Apple of yesteryear to Google versus Apple of today is interesting, this quote strikes me:

“Right now the most advanced smart phone on the market is arguably not the new iPhone 4 but rather an Android device called the EVO 4G, made by HTC, a Taiwanese company. That phone has front and rear cameras, and shoots hi-def video, just like the new iPhone 4. But the EVO has a bigger display, its camera shoots in higher resolution, and it can turn itself into a mobile Wi-Fi hotspot, something the iPhone 4 can’t do.”

The mobile Wi-Fi hotspot means my iPad Wi-Fi works virtually anywhere. That alone is probably the single most important reason why I considered dropping my iPhone. Alas, I was disabused of the notion today by David Pogue (6/17/2010). The battery life is pathetic.

Let’s face it: the iPhone interface is AWESOME! Therefore, my idea of replacing my iPhone with an EVO will be a nearly forgotten memory, like my HP-25C of college days and Star Wars IV premiere gone by …

Written by maclochlainn

June 13th, 2010 at 12:55 am

Posted in EVO,iPhone