The iPhone 6 Plus finished the journey from from ZhengZhou, China to Incheon, Korea; Anchorage; Louisville, Jamaica, NY; Windsor Locks, CT; Brookfield, CT; and on to my home in Ridgefield for an 11 am delivery. As usual with Apple products, the setup was a breeze. I took it out of the box, turned it on, went through the simple setup, and then gave it time to load 150+ apps that I had on the iPhone 5S plus gigabytes of pictures and music.
The next thing I experienced was that the iPhone 6+ rang with a default ring tone. Apparently there was a bug in iOS 8.0 that caused ring tones not to sync. I have one that I had purchased way back, but now can’t find it anywhere. It is time for a new one anyway! I answered the phone and it was working perfectly. All the data and settings were exactly where they were minutes earlier on the 5S. I reset the 5S to factory settings and set it up as a hand-me-down to my wife. That process went smoothly except for the phone part of the iPhone. It turns out that the SIM card in her iPhone 4 will not fit in the 5S, so we have to wait for a new SIM card that AT&T shipped to us. I was able to get an exception from AT&T to unlock the iPhone 4 even though the contract wasn’t quite up. They took pity on me for having taken a two year contract on a used iPhone 4, which my wife insisted was plenty good enough for her. She would have taken an iPhone 3 if they had any. The final step is to ship the iPhone 4 to Gazelle. We got $50 plus a $10 early-bird bonus plus a $3 bonus for taking the $63 as a credit on Amazon. The contract thing is not pleasant. This time I upgraded using the Next plan from AT&T. It is basically an installment payment plan with the full purchase price of $849 of the 6+ spread out over 20 months with zero interest. That means I can upgrade to an iPhone 7 in 20 months with no contract penalty.
The iPhone 6 Plus is all that I had hoped for and more. Fast, thin, slick, large screen, and brilliant graphics. Some people may find the size too large, but I find it just right. You can do almost anything on the 5S, but the screen size makes some things laborious or tedious. With the 6 Plus, the difference is dramatic. As I re-use my apps, I find each a great experience. I think of the 6+ as an optimum iPhone size. It is not a mini iPad mini. As for bendgate, the testing has been completed and the results are in –it takes 70 to 90 pounds to bend the new iPhones. My recommendation on this issue is simple: do not sit on your new iPhone.
The only glitch in setting up the iPhone 6 Plus or selling the iPhone 4 were with — you guessed it — AT&T. I really think they are trying hard, but they are a long way from great customer support. My iPhone uses an AT&T Microcell on the kitchen counter because the AT&T tower signal is not very good where I live. The new iPhone has a different electronic serial number, so it is not surprising that the Microcell would have to be updated. You would think that would be easy using their otherwise nice Microcell management page. You can easily add or delete other AT&T phones that you authorize to use your Microcell. However, you can’t remove or change your own! I had the same problem one year ago when I got the 5S. They said then that they were working on a fix — that was a year ago. The Microcell uses 3G technology. LTE has been out there since at least 2012. Apple adopted it quickly into its products, but the owner of LTE, has yet to do so.
Everything I have learned from the prior six iPhones is still applicable on the iPhone 6+, and iOS 8 adds a lot more. Using an iPhone keeps getting easier. The hardware is better than ever — thinner, lighter, and a joy to hold. It would be a shame to put a cover over the beautiful aluminum and glass device. The speed is stunning — it is truly a personal supercomputer. The new Health app is profound for healthcare. I am writing about it in my new book, Health Attitude. Stay tuned. That’s it for now. I am really enjoying the new iPhone.
