Prospective new iPhone 4S owner needs info to help make final decision

Perlemoen · May 30, 2012

Good day!
I am due for an upgrade, and having evaluated all my options out there (ie BB vs Android vs iPhone). I am leaning very heavily towards the iPhone. The main reasons being: 1) Simplicity of use, 2) The phone is a good size (fits in pocket), 3) The phone's OS is stable and less prone to malware.

I am very impressed with the iPhone 4s' features and apps. However, I use my phone for business, and I require some more basic features to still be functional on the phone. I have been doing some research on the Internet to clarify some of my concerns - but most of the information provided relates to phones pre-dating the iPhone 4s. I find the sales staff at my nearest i Shop a bit vague on these issues. I am aware that some "deficiencies" found in the older models may have been addressed in the new model and OS. I therefore figured that I could join this forum with the hope of some input from experienced Phone 4s users.

These are my questions:

1) Conditional Call forwarding. I need to be able to activate three main types of conditional call forwarding options simultaneously (divert when unavailable, divert when busy, divert when not answered). I see there was no simple way to activate this on the former models. It is necessary to enter codes. It was also never clear whether all three could be activated simultaneously (considering they address three different scenarios). Does the new iPhone 4s handle this requirement?

2) Sending SMSes using an iPhone connected to a PC. I often use the Nokia PC Suite to send SMSes from my phone, whilst it is connected to my PC. This enables me to send information copied from my PC to clients, using my phone's address book. They can also then reply to my phone, which is great. Can the iPhone 4s do this?

3) Can I send SMSes to multiple recipients?

4) Can I reject a call and the phone provide an option of immediately sending an sms to the caller? Many times I am in meetings, and cannot answer a call. With my current phone, when I hit "reject call" I have the option of sending a standard SMS saying "Sorry, cannot answer your call now. I will call you back asap."

5) Can I "force" the iPhone to only operate on GSM network?, even if 3G is available? Sometimes the 3G network ini my area renders voice call quality terrible. But if i select only GSM (GPRS or EDGE) then all works well.

These are my most pressing concerns. I would really appreciate it if someone can assist me with this information. This information will really help me make my final decision to go the iPhone route.

Many thanks!

Regards

Stephen

smalltowngirl13 · May 31, 2012

Stephen good luck on your decision...hopefully you will get some insight on your questions!

And welcome to the forum!

Skull One · May 31, 2012

Hopefully someone with a little more direct experince can chime in, but here are the answers as I know them right now.

1) No
2) No
3) Yes
4) No
5) I believe they added that feature back to iOS 5 last year. But I am on CDMA and not 100% sure.

dlwhtrose · May 31, 2012

Perlemoen said:
Good day!
I am due for an upgrade, and having evaluated all my options out there (ie BB vs Android vs iPhone). I am leaning very heavily towards the iPhone. The main reasons being: 1) Simplicity of use, 2) The phone is a good size (fits in pocket), 3) The phone's OS is stable and less prone to malware.

I am very impressed with the iPhone 4s' features and apps. However, I use my phone for business, and I require some more basic features to still be functional on the phone. I have been doing some research on the Internet to clarify some of my concerns - but most of the information provided relates to phones pre-dating the iPhone 4s. I find the sales staff at my nearest i Shop a bit vague on these issues. I am aware that some "deficiencies" found in the older models may have been addressed in the new model and OS. I therefore figured that I could join this forum with the hope of some input from experienced Phone 4s users.

These are my questions:

1) Conditional Call forwarding. I need to be able to activate three main types of conditional call forwarding options simultaneously (divert when unavailable, divert when busy, divert when not answered). I see there was no simple way to activate this on the former models. It is necessary to enter codes. It was also never clear whether all three could be activated simultaneously (considering they address three different scenarios). Does the new iPhone 4s handle this requirement?

2) Sending SMSes using an iPhone connected to a PC. I often use the Nokia PC Suite to send SMSes from my phone, whilst it is connected to my PC. This enables me to send information copied from my PC to clients, using my phone's address book. They can also then reply to my phone, which is great. Can the iPhone 4s do this?

3) Can I send SMSes to multiple recipients?

4) Can I reject a call and the phone provide an option of immediately sending an sms to the caller? Many times I am in meetings, and cannot answer a call. With my current phone, when I hit "reject call" I have the option of sending a standard SMS saying "Sorry, cannot answer your call now. I will call you back asap."

5) Can I "force" the iPhone to only operate on GSM network?, even if 3G is available? Sometimes the 3G network ini my area renders voice call quality terrible. But if i select only GSM (GPRS or EDGE) then all works well.

These are my most pressing concerns. I would really appreciate it if someone can assist me with this information. This information will really help me make my final decision to go the iPhone route.

Many thanks!

Regards

Stephen

I can tell you that you would not regret getting the iPhone. I too come from BB and Android (several to be exact) and i have not looked back since getting my iPhone. I also use my iPhone for work (I work in a law office) so I understand some of your concerns. I will try to answer them based on my experiences.

1. Unfortunately no. I believe there is call forwarding depending on your carrier but it is not selective. Its all or nothing.

2. From a PC no but if you have a mac for work (as I do) I have been able to access my work server and attach documents to messages. But again my office is completely mac oriented. It is not possible to do so from a PC.

3. Yes

4. You can reject a call and silence the ringer at any time. However you cannot send an immediate message based on the rejection. What you would have to do is reject the call then while having the phone under the table, send a message to the number manually. Or as I do, I have in my "voice mail" message that I am either away from my phone, in a meeting or on another call.... type message.

5. I believe so. The iPhone 4s is a GSM/CDMA phone. Thus is can work internationally. I believe we are just waiting for the unlock for the 4s to come out. We have the jailbreak which you need to do first then unlock the phone. Once unlocked you can go to any carrier either GSM or CDMA.

I hope this answers your questions.

And welcome to the forum.

Perlemoen · Jun 1, 2012

Hi Everyone!

Thanks for the warm welcome to the forum. I do appreciate the time you have taken to reply.

I can live with Questions 2 & 4 going against my preferences, but my Question 1 is quite a critical factor, so please pardon me harping on this point for a bit longer.

Some research done on the internet (you can see how keen I am to get the iPhone!) gives the following solution for conditional call forwarding on the iPhone:

To setup Call forward if busy, simply dial *67*[another phone number]# and tap Call To setup Call forward if not answered, simply dial *61*[another phone number]# and tap Call
To setup Call forward if unreachable, simply dial *62*[another phone number]# and tap Call

I found this on:iPhone Tip: How to Use Conditional Call Forwarding

As you can see, this was posted in 2009, which leads me to two questions:

1) Do you think I could apply this to the new iPhone 4s?
2) I would like all three those forwarding options to be available simultaneously - can it be done? , or must I only activate one at a time? (logic tells me though that all should be able to be applied simultaneously, seeing that the codes are all unique - but I don't want to be presumptious).

Thanks for looking at this.

Regards

Stephen