Warning about new 4S Phone

[Merlin]

I have a mixture of Apple and non-Apple products... there are some things that are better for each platform. Yes, in the PC market, Apple stuff is generally a bit more expensive for slightly less powerful hardware (in some cases) but the advantage of their model is that everything is designed to work together, so there isn't the random element associated with commodity computer parts that is common in the PC platform. They are also generally designed to be green (low energy), ergonomic and user friendly, so they can used by anyone with little or no training. So, you pay a bit more for those benefits. Plus, the Apple platform is generally better suited for some types of creative development work... many high end photography and graphics development shops focus on OSX as their primary platform, so there is a lot of support in that area. In the mobile market Apple is competitively priced... the droid phones are generally running the same as an iPhone, so they aren't really any more pricey. Feature for feature the android and iOS operating systems are pretty close, but many people believe that the iOS devices (iPhone, iPad, iPod) are much easier to use. I know my wife struggles a bit with some of the more obscure features of her android, but doesn't have any issues with those same types of applications on my iPhone.

Yeah AT&T is hit or miss. Where I was in the Washington, D.C. area, I thought it was very good. I had good signal everywhere and never any issues with the network, but from what I can see so far, San Francisco isn't anywhere near as well represented. My new iPhone is still on AT&T but when I travel around the area I lament that a bit, since the network coverage does seem to be below par... from what I hear, Verizon is best here. But then again, I don't know anyone here who has Verizon to compare with so I can't test that. I'm not sure that it is worth my cancelling my AT&T service to try Verizon on a whim... though the iPhone supports Verizon and Sprint as well as AT&T now.