Am I the only iPhone Grinch?

What the heck do you get for $10 per month?

I was thinking in the range of $40+ per month.


We shop at the grocery store ourselves?


Thank you for that!

my mother carries a cell phone for travel only, she uses the virgin pay as you go plan

had to get a new phone as her old bell analogue was being retired (shame too, one of the best phones on the market for reception in remote areas like the manitoulin island)

the new phone cost $49.99, a $100 phone card keeps the phone activated for one year, she never ran out of time with her old phone, so i imagine she'll be making lots of cell calls near the end of september 2009

Nope.

Work has destroyed the phone for me.

I often ignore it when it rings at home......

Mmmm, I'm a mix of tech phobic and tech philic, and in some cases tech impoverished (never took a cadd course, for example, some years ago).

Started with computers fairly early but not as early as some, but never learned programming, etc. Lallygagged about getting email. Abuzz and, primarily, a2k have clued me into the wonders of tech. Got a cell phone some time in the late nineties, called them car phones for a long while.

I was the same way in the lab - after the first run through I would catch on to how to use this and that but I'd never be ms. fixit with the machine, past looking at the specs and directions, while I could troubleshoot what was going on with experiments. As a child, I never took apart household machinery (maybe my mother's jewelry).

Similar to Deb, I don't/didn't really want work questions/phone calls once I've gone home, it's down time. I have long tended to not answer my phone until I hear who is calling (pre caller i.d.) and advised friends far and wide re not calling past x hour. That because if I get into a long interesting phone call at ten at night I might not then be sleepy for hours. (Of course, I do want to hear later than that in some circumstances.) Part of my phone avoidance is from decades of being, with husband, sort of a popular phone destination in my old home town. We both wanted space from each other's myriad phone calls, plus our own, which could get sort of battering, wbatever the content. Answering machines were terrific.. Then when I moved here, my number was someone's old fax number.. those calls dragged on forever.

I also rather like silence.

However, I can imagine how well IPhone might work in a landarch practice - see it as potentially extremely useful. I like what Dag is saying about that friend's photo display. See it as a way to communicate to office from the field, with images of the ongoing situation.

My mobile I keep mainly if I get in some stuck situation and need to communicate. I did call from a store today, but that is unusual. Virtually none of the calls on my mobile are from anyone I know. Now I pay its ringing at low volume no attention. I did pay attention when we had the gallery/studio.

So, I now don't need an Iphone, and it would be for me just one more thing to figure out -- but I'm not minding their existence.

There are Solo plans that start at $10/month. You had to sign a contract - I went with 2 years - mostly so I don't have to think about it for a while. No activation charge etc. No charge for the phone (3G/camera ... all the good stuff). I can add/delete features on a monthly basis.

As I recall it, you get 250 daytime minutes/25o anytime minutes per month. I've used about 45 minutes total since June - about 25 minutes in one sorta emergency call. Most of my calls are less than one minute long.

Hello? Hi Miss X, your car is ready. Awesome, I'll be over to pick it up. Bye. Bye.

Hi. Hi, I'm at the subway. Great, I'll be down to pick you up. See you in a couple of minutes.

~~~

I was thinking about this while we were out walking. I don't really use my MP3 player anymore. It was handy while I was commuting by transit, but now I drive - so I don't need a device that contains an MP3 player.

I love my camera and carry it everywhere.

If there was a device that was a fantastic camera, and it happened to have a phone as a not-annoying addition, it'd be the perfect carry-along for me.

Makes sense to me - not for my old work, but for me now.

Wouldn't use one if it were given to me.

Silence, peace, and quiet is highly under-rated.

I must confess, I don't understand those who need music everywhere they go. I'm not finding fault. I just don't understand why one wouldn't want a break from something one does all the time, no matter how much one enjoyed it.

It's hard to go anywhere these days without music of some kind blaring at you. Shops are rift with it, especially this time of the year. Working in a retail store myself, I find it gets on my nerves after a while and glad to get home to some quiet time.

So those of you who DO use cell phones... do you have a home phone as well? Why? In our area home phones are ridiculously expensive, even for the base plan (I think like 15-20/month). If you take that money, and use it to upgrade you cell plan, I think you would have more then enough minutes. (I have more then I know what to do with. Especially with free nights & weeks, and free calls to sprint customers. Why would I pay for a phone that I can only use at home?

The funny thing is, I use my phone at home far less then anywhere else (except when I am working from home, but since I am working, I count that as 'Office' time).

I think many only listen to music when they are out and about. When I was in college I would listen to music on the bus, or walking to class. Rarely listened to it at home, though.

Haven't had a home phone in a decade, what's the point?

As for why the Iphone is good:

Directions
Directions
Directions

The first time you're lost, and you can pull up Google Maps, wherever, you figure out instantly why this device is so damn useful.

Not that I have an Iphone; I plan on doing what I normally do with phones, wait two years until the 'new hotness' is the 'piece of ****' and get it for practically nothing. My current cel has all the features which cost tons of money just a few years ago, I got it for free with my contract. Just wait, luddites, someday you too will enjoy the benefits of the tech!

Cycloptichorn

No, some of us just don't give a damn!

You will when you're lost, truly lost, and someone's tech helps you out. Guarantee.

Cycloptichorn

The iPhone is a holy religious relic, fully devine and fully technical device. Stop your blashphemous heresy now, unclean wabbit! Or, by Steve, I'll blow you up in the name of Jobs, the merciful! (Peace be upon him.)

wassa iffone? wassa grinch for that matter?

iPhones are simply the evil spawn of the one true religion: Laptopianism

The iPhone is pretty awesome, really. I would get one except I won't change carriers.

I don't need an iphone, I'm another one who just uses my pay as you go cell for the odd call or emergencies....

That said, I do think they are cool, and I can see why it's advantageous for some people to have them.

For those that use a blackberry, to me an iphone is much easier to navigate.

Like rosbourne said, it's more like carrying around a portable computer.

If my job involved me being out of the office much of the time, I'd have one if only for the email function. That is how I do the vast majority of my communication, gathering and diseminating information at work. I can go for hours at work not verbally communicating with anyone, but doing lots of back and forth.

I also have to jump on and off both the internet and my companies intranet all day long, so I'd need that too.

I don't know I'd need the GPS locally, but if I was traveling, sure. I use Google Maps to find out how close applicants are to one of my facilites.

You can download/read books on the iphone, as well as surf the internet, look up financials, etc.

In other words, instead of having to carry a labtop plus books to read, and several other devices potentially, it's all in one.

There's one application I head of where if you find an item at a store, you can take a picture of the scanner code, then let iphone search for other stores with a better price.

I'm personally not interested in the music, for reasons others have stated, but there's plenty of things I could work on, or enjoy during downtime, if I wasn't connected to my office.

I'm thinking music while I walk might be good. It helps when exercising.

But...how do you get music INTO an iPhone?

Is there a way you can do it from your CD collection?

Well, I don't want radiation in my ear if I have to be on the phone for a long time. Also, my broadband comes through the phoneline.