What is your current pain level?
Should you switch to the Verizon iPhone4? I answer this question the same way a nurse asks you about an injury–On a scale between 1 and 10, what level of pain are you in? If you give the nurse a high number, she will give you a shot of morphine, and the pain will go away. In the same manner, if your AT&T pain level is high enough, maybe a shot of Verizon is exactly what you need.
My AT&T pain level is about a 9 right now. I reserve 10 for women in labor trying to get directions to the hospital and their call drops. That would be a solid 10. I put myself at a 9 because I’ve gotten to the point that I scream and yell at my phone when it drops or fails to send a text. The other day I was on an important call when it dropped and I started beating up my car’s steering wheel and screaming irrationally. I should be throwing the iPhone out the window instead of beating up my car. I’m just so tired of dropped calls and the red icon on my text messages prompting me to try again. I’m tired of beginning every call with, “I’m on an AT&T iPhone so if this call drops I will call you back from a land line.”
Should you make the switch? The first factor you need to consider is how much will it cost above the initial $199 for the phone? In my case, I bought the iPhone 3GS on the day it came out so I have about 6 months left in my contract. It will cost me around $75 in early termination fees. If you already bought the iPhone4 then you should know that AT&T changed it’s terms and conditions and placed a much higher penalty on early termination. Pull up your terms on AT&T’s website and calculate what it will cost to get out of your contract.
If you are okay with the early termination fees, we then need to ask the question, how upset will you be if they introduce an iPhone5 in June? History does show that every year a new iPhone gets introduced. My best guess is there won’t be a major new version of the iPhone. Maybe they will introduce the iPhone4S and make the current model faster while fixing the AT&T antenna issue. I don’t think they will support 4G LTE this year. Verizon is just rolling out their LTE network and AT&T hasn’t even announced their 4G strategy other than saying it’s coming. It’s just too early for Apple to jump in.
I think this is going to be the year of iPad and Mac. All the rumors are currently pointing to a new iPad2. The iPad needs a ton of features to bring it up to the feature list of the iPhone4. It can’t take pictures. It can’t FaceTime. It doesn’t have an insane amount of pixels per inch found in the retina display. Compared to the iPhone4, the iPad is outdated technology. That’s why I think the big announcement this year at WWDC will be about the iPad. Steve Jobs has even said it’s time for the rest of the products to catch up.
Some of you may want to hold out until June to see what happens. Or maybe you think AT&T’s network will become better with the mass exodus of people switching to Verizon. All I know is my car will thank me for making the switch. On February 10th, you should ask what level of pain are you in?
What about Verizon’s inability to support data and voice connection simultaneously? I see this as a significant flaw. I’ve also heard that AT&T’s network, while admittedly less reliable, does have faster connectivity. Thoughts?
I take it you are not very high on the pain scale. All your points are valid concerns. Verizon CDMA max download speed is about half the speed of AT&T 3G. However, when your phone is always searching for a 3G signal and dropping to Edge then it doesn’t really matter. My phone is usually always on a WiFi network so the Internet will continue to work in that case even while talking on the phone. The only time I’m not connected to WiFi is when I’m in a car and I usually don’t talk and surf while driving. I agree it all gets better when LTE is supported but I think we have another year to go and I can’t wait any longer.