General Apple Megathread

[TorqueDog]

I'll be hanging onto my 11 Pro. When the USB-C iPhone 15 Pro comes out, I'll upgrade.

[TimSJ]

I need to get a new phone over the next few weeks moving from my pixel 6 back to an iPhone.

not sure whether to get a discounted 13 pro or get the 14 pro. WAs hoping for more seperation to make the decision easier

[Kybosh]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

I need to get a new phone over the next few weeks moving from my pixel 6 back to an iPhone.

not sure whether to get a discounted 13 pro or get the 14 pro. WAs hoping for more seperation to make the decision easier

I'm in the exact same boat but I'm not even sure where to get a discounted 13 pro now. Doesn't exist on the apple store anymore.

[TimSJ]

Originally Posted by Kybosh

I'm in the exact same boat but I'm not even sure where to get a discounted 13 pro now. Doesn't exist on the apple store anymore.

the carrier i am switching to (eastlink) has them on for $1272 for pro max and $1104 for the pro

is it worth the $300 to move up to the 14? i don't know

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by TimSJ

the carrier i am switching to (eastlink) has them on for $1272 for pro max and $1104 for the pro

is it worth the $300 to move up to the 14? i don't know

That is a #### tonne of money for a phone.

[photon]

Unless features like the always on screen or the improved cameras are SUPER important then there isn't that much difference between the 13 Pro and the 14 Pro.

I do really like the purple though.. hm I wonder how much they'd give me for my 13 Pro

[DownInFlames]

New phone, huh? Neat.

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by undercoverbrother

That is a #### tonne of money for a phone.

I used to feel the same way until I stopped thinking about a phone as just a 'phone', which was hard considering the Nokia brick I had as my first mobile. Phones haven't been just phones for a long time.

People spend that kind of money on laptops all the time, and you could make the case that -- for people these days -- a mobile phone does as much if not more for them than a laptop could, and in a more practical form factor for regular on-the-go use. Even if you get a laptop with a cellular radio built-in (I have a Surface Go LTE), you still can't use it for placing voice calls over the cellular network, it's strictly data. And just because I have the Android subsystem on my Surface, I'm not gonna run around paying for city parking with an app on my laptop.

Now, there's a discussion to be had about people switching their phones every year or two which is expensive and unnecessary in the same way buying a new laptop every year or two would be expensive and unnecessary. Difference is that we don't have our carriers trying to shove a new laptop down our throats every chance they get.

[Fuzz]

But you can also get a perfectly functional phone for $400. The marginal upgrades in features make the value proposition pretty poor. I've been using a $180 Motorola for the past couple years, it's got a large screen, huge battery that lasts 3 days, 2 sim cards(or 1 SD). Is it the fastest thing out there? No, but it's very usable.

[Erick Estrada]

Originally Posted by Kybosh

I'm in the exact same boat but I'm not even sure where to get a discounted 13 pro now. Doesn't exist on the apple store anymore.

Will there be discounted 13 pros? I only see the regular iphone 13 at apple's site. Also Rogers shows the 13 pro as available only in graphite and 128 gb. My kids need new phones so rather than get them a new phone to destroy I would rather pass on mine and get a new one for me.

[DoubleF]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I'll be hanging onto my 11 Pro. When the USB-C iPhone 15 Pro comes out, I'll upgrade.

I'm of a similar thinking, but my 11 regular has started to glitch on me lately. The phone will randomly freeze for up to 10-15 seconds which means frustration, missed pictures/videos and occasionally apps will crash and close on their own. It's not extreme enough for me to truly desire a new phone, but it's first world problems annoying enough to occasionally have a spouse get upset for missing a photo op with fidgety kids. Of course, "nothing is wrong with the phone, it might just be getting old" is the response.

I'm keeping my ear to the ground to see if there's some decent deals for the 12 or 13 pros in the next few months before considering going all out on the 14 pro. IIRC, after a few months, the gap between prior gen and latest gen phones drops to a few hundred bucks?

[Wormius]

^^^ are you sure you don’t have a whack load of photos on your phone? Mine behaved that way and would improve temporarily after a reset, but the fix was just offloading all of my photos.

[DoubleF]

I typically leave at least 10 GB free by compressing media, but I haven't thought about file numbers. Good call. I have 35K photos and videos (wife must have been a paparazzi in a former life and frequently grabs my phone to take pics and videos when hers isn't within reach), that could be part of the issue. If I don't find a good deal on a phone in the coming week, I'll give complete offloading of the pics and vids a shot. My wife often asks me to or grabs my phone to scroll through the pics several years back to cross reference stuff, so that would be a last resort I think.

[Erick Estrada]

Not sure where to put this as it's Apple related as on my morning walk to get my coffee today, I came across four white Subaru Imprezas with Apple Maps graphics and R2D2 looking fancy cameras on the roof getting all prepped up. Basically four cameras pointing N,S,E,W. I spoke to one of the fellas who was from BC and all they do is drive around streets across western Canada recording the images for the street views. It kind of hit me what a large undertaking it is to get views like this from every city and town in the world. FWIW he said it was the best job ever if you like to travel and see a lot of things.

[Jimmy Stang]

Does anyone have experience using the dual sim feature on an Apple phone? I will be going abroad in a month or so, and in the past I have swapped my Canadian sim into an older, secondary phone (so I wouldn't miss any important calls or messages), but used my main phone as my holiday workhorse with a foreign sim. But two phones is kind of a hassle.

My current iPhone XS supports dual sim (1 physical, 1 eSIM), so I think that I can keep my Canadian physical sim in there, and get an eSIM from a foreign carrier upon arrival. I then set the foreign eSIM as my primary/default, make sure roaming is disabled on my Canadian sim before I go, and I should be golden, right?

[undercoverbrother]

Originally Posted by TorqueDog

I used to feel the same way until I stopped thinking about a phone as just a 'phone', which was hard considering the Nokia brick I had as my first mobile. Phones haven't been just phones for a long time.

People spend that kind of money on laptops all the time, and you could make the case that -- for people these days -- a mobile phone does as much if not more for them than a laptop could, and in a more practical form factor for regular on-the-go use. Even if you get a laptop with a cellular radio built-in (I have a Surface Go LTE), you still can't use it for placing voice calls over the cellular network, it's strictly data. And just because I have the Android subsystem on my Surface, I'm not gonna run around paying for city parking with an app on my laptop.

Now, there's a discussion to be had about people switching their phones every year or two which is expensive and unnecessary in the same way buying a new laptop every year or two would be expensive and unnecessary. Difference is that we don't have our carriers trying to shove a new laptop down our throats every chance they get.

fair comment.

[sleepingmoose]

Originally Posted by Jimmy Stang

Does anyone have experience using the dual sim feature on an Apple phone? I will be going abroad in a month or so, and in the past I have swapped my Canadian sim into an older, secondary phone (so I wouldn't miss any important calls or messages), but used my main phone as my holiday workhorse with a foreign sim. But two phones is kind of a hassle.

My current iPhone XS supports dual sim (1 physical, 1 eSIM), so I think that I can keep my Canadian physical sim in there, and get an eSIM from a foreign carrier upon arrival. I then set the foreign eSIM as my primary/default, make sure roaming is disabled on my Canadian sim before I go, and I should be golden, right?

I used the dual sim when I went to Hawaii last December. It works like a charm. You don’t even need to wait till you arrive - T-Mobile has an app you can download that will setup a PAYG eSim account ahead of time. Then you just need to select which account your data comes from, what to do with calls, etc. pretty slick.

[Jimmy Stang]

Originally Posted by sleepingmoose

I used the dual sim when I went to Hawaii last December. It works like a charm. You don’t even need to wait till you arrive - T-Mobile has an app you can download that will setup a PAYG eSim account ahead of time. Then you just need to select which account your data comes from, what to do with calls, etc. pretty slick.

Thanks for sharing your experience. I'm looking forward to giving it a shot.

I'll be going to the UK (and Ireland briefly), and it seems that a few providers there do eSIM, so I'll see if I can place an order in advance with EE or Vodafone similar to what you did with T-Mobile. It would be handy to get that sorted beforehand instead of upon arrival.

[cam_wmh]

For those looking for previous gen iPhones etc; there are a few refurbished resellers;
Grab a refurb, subscribe to BYOD, and save.

www.openbox.ca
www.getorchard.com
www.thefonestore.ca
www.secondcell.ca

[TorqueDog]

Originally Posted by Fuzz

But you can also get a perfectly functional phone for $400. The marginal upgrades in features make the value proposition pretty poor. I've been using a $180 Motorola for the past couple years, it's got a large screen, huge battery that lasts 3 days, 2 sim cards(or 1 SD). Is it the fastest thing out there? No, but it's very usable.

Sure, but it depends what functionality you value. Let's say you like taking photos. Assuming you're buying brand new, a $400 phone is probably not going to have a great camera relative to a more expensive one that focuses on image quality, and if that's what is important to you then you're going to spend more for better.

Standalone cameras are actually a good parallel; you can spend a little to buy a point-and-shoot or a lot for a DSLR. Both are going to take photos, but even with how good your run-of-the-mill camera has gotten, a DSLR is going to give you far and away better results and be a more effective tool.

You can also spend $400 on a laptop and it's likely going to end up being e-waste in two years. I know this because I had to convince my parents to stop buying crappy Best Buy specials, the damn things'd crap out on them like clockwork.