FlightAware Once Again Offers Tool to Track iPhone Pre-Order Shipment Flights

[erikdonohoo]

I am on a legacy unlimited data family plan as well as is my wife. We spend $145 a month total, and now unlimited data gives you 22 gigs per line before the possibility of throttling. If I switched to Next, I would need an almost $400 plan to be comparable. Sorry, but Next does not save me money.

And if you want to compare apples to apples (I'm sorry, the pun was too easy) under Next's 24 month installment plan you have to pay for 18 months before you can even trade the phone in and upgrade. Under the new iPhone Upgrade program, you only pay for 12 before you upgrade. You therefore are paying much less under that plan than for the Next plan.

I just have to disagree about Next. I have yet to find a scenario that will save me money under that plan vs. every other option I currently have. If I had a mobile share plan, then I'd go with the Apple Upgrade program. Being as I have unlimited data, I'll stick with my current plan as long as possible and continue to pay less for the device than I would with the Next program.

As far as being on an unlimited plan you are right. I'm on a mobile share 30 GB plan back when they did 15 for the price of 30, so we only pay 130 for that shared data. On mobile share, next does indeed save you money.

As far as the upgrade is concerned. Both apple and ATT make you give back the original phone before trading in. Its not as if after 12 months of payments you get the other phone too. With ATT, if you want to keep it, you just pay off the remaining balance. Which is something you can do at anytime, regardless of whether you chose the 12, 18 or 24 month plan. So each year, I pay off the difference, upgrade at 0 down, and sell my old phone for more than it cost me to pay off the difference.

 

[auriconis]

As far as being on an unlimited plan you are right. I'm on a mobile share 30 GB plan back when they did 15 for the price of 30, so we only pay 130 for that shared data. On mobile share, next does indeed save you money.

As far as the upgrade is concerned. Both apple and ATT make you give back the original phone before trading in. Its not as if after 12 months of payments you get the other phone too. With ATT, if you want to keep it, you just pay off the remaining balance. Which is something you can do at anytime, regardless of whether you chose the 12, 18 or 24 month plan. So each year, I pay off the difference, upgrade at 0 down, and sell my old phone for more than it cost me to pay off the difference.

I know that you have to give the phone back either way. My only point there was that if you're someone who's just going to trade in the phone to them either way, you end up paying less to Apple than you do to AT&T before you're allowed to trade in the phone. Given, if you just pay off the phone and sell it yourself you'll end up in the best scenario of any, but for those who don't want to go through selling something on ebay, etc., You just have to spend less per phone upgrade through the iPhone program than you do for the Next program.

 

[DIRSGT]

You realize that Next actually saves you money now right? It wasn't that way when they first introduced it. But you spend less over 2 years with next than you do with the contract. For one the $40 phone on the plan fee is dropped to $15 while on next, and your taxes and fees are a few dollars lower too. My wife is on a two year contract, I'm on next. We spend more for her line than for mine.

It can totally depend on your situation and requires individual analysis. I did a spreadsheet with my current grandfathered plan w/ corporate discount and compared it to the Next 18 and a new 2yr plan. While my grandfathered plan does not provide unlimited peak time minutes for talk (off peak starts at 7 PM and peak minutes rollover) or unlimited text from non-Apple devices (not iMessages) I still save $360 vs NEXT 18 and $170 vs a new 2yr plan (not grandfathered). These numbers include all the corporate discounts applied. The arrived at differences include service, tax, activation fee, and phone. And that is with only 5GB of data, as I use at least 3-4 every month. I rarely use all my peak minutes (876 banked right now) and most friends have iPhones, so text message limits are not a concern.

 

[averyh43]

Ordered my iPhone 6S right when pre-orders went live. No shipment confirmation yet from Apple but it still says "Preparing for Shipment" with a 9/25 delivery date. Found the order on tracking number and UPS and it has said this for days without changing:

Harrisburg, PA, United States 09/21/2015 1:48 P.M. Package is in transit to a UPS facility

Time to worry yet? :/

 

[erikdonohoo]

I know that you have to give the phone back either way. My only point there was that if you're someone who's just going to trade in the phone to them either way, you end up paying less to Apple than you do to AT&T before you're allowed to trade in the phone. Given, if you just pay off the phone and sell it yourself you'll end up in the best scenario of any, but for those who don't want to go through selling something on ebay, etc., You just have to spend less per phone upgrade through the iPhone program than you do for the Next program.

It can totally depend on your situation and requires individual analysis. I did a spreadsheet with my current grandfathered plan w/ corporate discount and compared it to the Next 18 and a new 2yr plan. While my grandfathered plan does not provide unlimited peak time minutes for talk (off peak starts at 7 PM and peak minutes rollover) or unlimited text from non-Apple devices (not iMessages) I still save $360 vs NEXT 18 and $170 vs a new 2yr plan (not grandfathered). These numbers include all the corporate discounts applied. The arrived at differences include service, tax, activation fee, and phone. And that is with only 5GB of data, as I use at least 3-4 every month. I rarely use all my peak minutes (876 banked right now) and most friends have iPhones, so text message limits are not a concern.

I think we have established that this is true for grandfathered plans. But with mobile sharing, it is better.

 

[starskream]

I remember when I could see MY iPhone coming from China. However, due to my grandfathered plan I had to order directly (or actually "indirectly" thanks Chewbaka) from AT&T this year to keep my plan. Now I can see nothing...AT&T!!!!

you had to do it through AT&T? I was still able to use Apple.

 

[DIRSGT]

you had to do it through AT&T? I was still able to use Apple.

Yes, in order to get a subsidy 2 year plan (i.e. $399 up front 6s+ 64GB)AND keep my old unlimited plan. It was my best deal over a 24 month period and kept unlimited plan. I could have paid about $900 upfront at the Apple store and kept my plan...but why do that when I get it financed by AT&T and my current monthly plan includes the cost of the phone.

BTW, got notice from AT&T that FedEx is delivering my 6s+ 64GB SG phone on Friday....so AT&T's initial Oct 16 - 23 estimate was VERY conservative for me.

 

[joeycee]

Something was weird with Apple's shipping notifications this year; usually they're pretty good of getting the tracking number to be on a timely basis but this time I didn't get it until Tuesday before the Friday arrival. But my UPS account was smart enough to tell me about the shipment days earlier.

Then of course once the iPhone made it to New England, UPS decided to change my status from "Delivery scheduled on Friday" to "Delivery date cannot be determined" and there it stayed until it showed up on Friday after all. Normally I'd just get one at the Apple Store same day but I got the AT&T Plan to save some money (I only upgrade on the S-cycles), but after the trouble they gave me to unlock my old phone I won't be doing that ever again.