How do you milk the sheep?

[Mike Irwin]

Introduce a new Iphone and charge $1,000 for it... 

 

 

 

[jmohme]

I guess we will just have to wait and see how many they sell. 

Apple will probably sell a lot of them, but all I know for certain is that while I have owned Apple products for years, I won't be buying an iPhone X, or 8. In fact, I won't be buying any more smart phones. As far as I am concerned, todays tables have rendered all smart phones irrelevant. In fact, when my iPhone 5s dies, it is back to a flip phone for me, if they are even available at that time.

[Eric]

1 hour ago, jmohme said:

I guess we will just have to wait and see how many they sell. 

Apple will probably sell a lot of them, but all I know for certain is that while I have owned Apple products for years, I won't be buying an iPhone X, or 8. In fact, I won't be buying any more smart phones. As far as I am concerned, todays tables have rendered all smart phones irrelevant. In fact, when my iPhone 5s dies, it is back to a flip phone for me, if they are even available at that time.

The thing is, the industry has spent much less resources on development of flip phones since 2007, when the iPhone came out. I don't see any non-smartphones today that are as nice as the Motorola Razr and Krzr. Those were a couple of outstanding phones. I carried a Razr for a couple of years, before the iPhone came out. I'm sure the modern non-smartphones have better electronics and OSes than the Razr, but I haven't seen any of the newer ones that I like half as much.

At any rate, I doubt if I'll get away from iPhones, unless something Earth-shattering occurs. I like my iPhone.

[Eric]

My first cellphone was a motorola StarTac flip phone. That was an outstanding little device. It was digital and analog, so it was very versatile. It came out about the time that cell networks were switching over to digital equipment, but there were still a lot of analog cells around. This phone could use either. When a digital cell was available, the battery usage was very low. The StarTac was tough as hell too. I beat the crap out of that phone, but it kept working. I still own my StarTac and it is still operational. Obviously, it is no longer connected to a cellular plan, but I can still look up people in the contacts list and it can still make emergency calls. I can't believe the battery still holds a charge, but it does.

Also, I had a charger that would charge the phone, plus two loose batteries. The phone already got great battery life, but with the extra batteries, it would last me a week, if I didn't use it too much. I used to travel a lot with this phone and having that kind of battery life was a huge plus.

[KBKEITH]

4 hours ago, Eric said:

My first cellphone was a motorola StarTac flip phone. That was an outstanding little device. It was digital and analog, so it was very versatile. It came out about the time that cell networks were switching over to digital equipment, but there were still a lot of analog cells around. This phone could use either. When a digital cell was available, the battery usage was very low. The StarTac was tough as hell too. I beat the crap out of that phone, but it kept working. I still own my StarTac and it is still operational. Obviously, it is no longer connected to a cellular plan, but I can still look up people in the contacts list and it can still make emergency calls. I can't believe the battery still holds a charge, but it does.

Also, I had a charger that would charge the phone, plus two loose batteries. The phone already got great battery life, but with the extra batteries, it would last me a week, if I didn't use it too much. I used to travel a lot with this phone and having that kind of battery life was a huge plus.

I’m thinking that’s from the 2001-2002 timeframe? We had one of those at work that was used as a loaner phone for German colleagues when they visited our office. They loved that phone.

Edited September 21, 2017 by KBKEITH

[jmohme]

I guess I just don't get why the fascination with smart phones continues when there are much better devices for functions other than phone calls.

I actually got one of the first iPhones when they came out and really liked it a lot. I upgraded about every other generation and still found the features amazing and useful, but once I got an iPad mini in my hands, the smart phone became just a phone. I continued to use some of its features features, but in all honesty, the only thing that my iPhone does better than my iPad is phone calls.

Next we have the constant updates. I do know that these updates contain a lot of security fixes but they are primarily to remain competitive by adding  new annoyances/features (I have a hard time differentiating between them) that I neither want nor need and often effect the user interface. In the case of the iPhone, I find that unacceptable since the reason many of us ever went to Apple products was ease of use and consistence of the user interface between applications.

I realize the same issues exist with the iPad, but I like its functionality better than the phone and will tolerate the changes on it, but I want my next phone to be nothing but a phone and would prefer a real keypad that is protected when the flip phone case is closed so that it does not butt dial someone I have not spoken to for 20 years like my iPhone did yesterday.

[Eric]

7 hours ago, KBKEITH said:

I’m thinking that’s from the 2001-2002 timeframe? We had one of those at work that was used as a loaner phone for German colleagues when they visited our office. They loved that phone.

I got my first StarTac in 1997, but I'm sure the model was available into the 2000s. It was a great phone.

[inthefrey]

13 hours ago, Eric said:

My first cellphone was a motorola StarTac flip phone. That was an outstanding little device. It was digital and analog, so it was very versatile. It came out about the time that cell networks were switching over to digital equipment, but there were still a lot of analog cells around. This phone could use either. When a digital cell was available, the battery usage was very low. The StarTac was tough as hell too. I beat the crap out of that phone, but it kept working. I still own my StarTac and it is still operational. Obviously, it is no longer connected to a cellular plan, but I can still look up people in the contacts list and it can still make emergency calls. I can't believe the battery still holds a charge, but it does.

Also, I had a charger that would charge the phone, plus two loose batteries. The phone already got great battery life, but with the extra batteries, it would last me a week, if I didn't use it too much. I used to travel a lot with this phone and having that kind of battery life was a huge plus.

This phone was a tank!