Newbie Member Here With Some General Questions

raf66 · Dec 14, 2011

Hi everyone. I'm a new member to the forum but do not yet have an iPhone 4S (which I plan on getting for Christmas). I do have some experience with Apple products. Both my teenage kids have an iPhone 4 (though they rarely let me have any time with their phones), and I have an iMac desktop computer as my home computer. I've also had iPods and an iPod Touch. I love Apple products and am really jones-ing to update my phone from my current Droid X (that I've had for 1 1/2 years) to the new 4S.

Anyway, what can I expect coming from the android platform? I like Safari but will I be limited to that browser as my only choice? Will the lack of flash support hurt my browsing experience? Are there any issues (quick battery drain, lack of flash, connections to email accounts for push notifications, speed, dropped calls) that I should be aware of? By the way, my carrier is Verizon and since that company is kind of new to the iPhone, are there any issues that I should be aware of with them as well, such as call quality, 4G availability, etc.?

Thanks to everyone for any guidance you could provide this newb, and it's great to be here.

iHolophyte · Dec 14, 2011

raf66 said:
Hi everyone. I'm a new member to the forum but do not yet have an iPhone 4S (which I plan on getting for Christmas). I do have some experience with Apple products. Both my teenage kids have an iPhone 4 (though they rarely let me have any time with their phones), and I have an iMac desktop computer as my home computer. I've also had iPods and an iPod Touch. I love Apple products and am really jones-ing to update my phone from my current Droid X (that I've had for 1 1/2 years) to the new 4S.

Anyway, what can I expect coming from the android platform? I like Safari but will I be limited to that browser as my only choice? Will the lack of flash support hurt my browsing experience? Are there any issues (quick battery drain, lack of flash, connections to email accounts for push notifications, speed, dropped calls) that I should be aware of? By the way, my carrier is Verizon and since that company is kind of new to the iPhone, are there any issues that I should be aware of with them as well, such as call quality, 4G availability, etc.?

Thanks to everyone for any guidance you could provide this newb, and it's great to be here.

Welcome to the forum.
All I can say is yes you'll experience all of what you mentioned above, but it's personal preference to how much you adapt if at all to that. Personally I love the iPhone, but then again I never came from android. You might find you hate it from what you're use to or you may find you love it from what you're use to. Best answer is try one out first in an apple store.

iHolophyte

Junior · Dec 14, 2011

Welcome.

As for flash stuff, you may or not have beef with that as a problem at first. As sites move away from flash, you'll notice your mobile web browsing experience will get better. I honestly don't notice too much difficulty browsing most of the sites I frequent, but if you're always checking flash-type sites, you're going to miss it. As for battery life, you'll see an improvement over what you currently have. I haven't had any issues with dropped calls (but I'm in Canada - we don't get jacked by Verizon)

Can't help with any of your other questions, but someone else might have more info. Enjoy.

raf66 · Dec 14, 2011

Thanks for the quick responses!

I would note that apparently some of my questions have been covered in other posts and all I would've had to do is search.

Sorry about that. It appears from perusing other posts that 4G is not available for the iPhone (which sucks since apparently Verizon has 4G coverage in my city), and Safari is the only default browser available (luckily I love Safari on my iMac).

My question regarding battery drainage and dropped calls stems mostly from the fact that both my kids' iPhones (4, not the 4S) have terrible battery life (maybe they're using their phones too much!), and many people I know who have iPhones (not the 4S but the earlier iterations) had terrible problems with dropped calls (the majority were on AT&T rather than Verizon). Maybe that was a carrier issue in my area rather than the phone's fault.

There are some things I'll probably miss when I ultimately switch from the Droid X. Rooting was great on the earlier software version(s), and it allowed me to speed my phone up considerably and tether other devices to get online wirelessly. But alas since Gingerbread was released I've lost my rooting ability.

For sure I believe the iPhone is a well-made product that seems more solidly built than my Droid X. I've been VERY pleased with my other Apple products as they just seem to work every time flawlessly. Also I'm really looking forward to video phone calls (Tango or Facetime) as my Droid X has no front-facing camera. Plus the camera and the video camera seem to produce much better pics/movies than my Droid X puts out.

Thanks again for the information and the warm welcomes.