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Oh, I am so delighted to hear that Timmy's Apple somehow cares more for "planned obsolescence" than "planned compatibility". My iPhone 5s is only a year old (!) and is already out of the picture on many useful features.

What features did your 5S have on the day you bought it that don't work now?
 
Hotspot + data + voice?

Question for all you Verizon iPhone 6 users (either type) - can you use it as a hotspot for your laptop AND access it for data AND talk on it (voice) simultaneously? I.e., can you have the Hotspot + simultaneous data/voice enabled and used all at the same time?
Thanks.
 
Question for all you Verizon iPhone 6 users (either type) - can you use it as a hotspot for your laptop AND access it for data AND talk on it (voice) simultaneously? I.e., can you have the Hotspot + simultaneous data/voice enabled and used all at the same time?

Thanks.


You have to pay extra for the hotspot feature. I haven't tried it like that but by all rights it should work. BTW I love the name GO Ravens
 
You have to pay extra for the hotspot feature. I haven't tried it like that but by all rights it should work. BTW I love the name GO Ravens

Verizon includes the hotspot feature for free now. They've been doing this for a couple of years. I think it was a requirement due to a certain spectrum of LTE bandwidth they purchased or something which prevents them from charging extra for hotspot/tethering. Every VZW customer should have this feature to the best of my knowledge (unless perhaps some older plans don't offer it). If you don't have it, I'd call them!
 
It's always been a CDMA vs. GSM issue, the iPhone hardware has been capable but the network hasn't.

That being said, in my area AT&T wasn't an option. We had it for a 2 year contract and it was terrible! No reception at all at my house, very little at my mom's, calls would drop when going around a curve or sometimes even under a tree. LOL! Yeah, we switched to Verizon and haven't looked back! While it is awesome that this has been enabled, it was never a deal breaker before because you have to have cell service before you have talk and date at the same time. :rolleyes:
 
It's always been a CDMA vs. GSM issue, the iPhone hardware has been capable but the network hasn't.

My company-provided Verizon Galaxy S4 can talk and surf at the same time. If the Verizon iPhones can't (and without VoLTE, they can't) then it's an Apple problem, not a Verizon problem.
 
Verizon includes the hotspot feature for free now. They've been doing this for a couple of years. I think it was a requirement due to a certain spectrum of LTE bandwidth they purchased or something which prevents them from charging extra for hotspot/tethering. Every VZW customer should have this feature to the best of my knowledge (unless perhaps some older plans don't offer it). If you don't have it, I'd call them!


Not for me I have the grandfathered unlimited plan
 
I activated the features and all is fine except it makes any ringback tones, the music you can choose for people to listen as they wait to get connected with you, inactive. Boo. So, you have to compromise either cool voice quality & VOIP or ringback tones. Boo Verizon & Apple :(

Well, since I'm not a 16-year old girl, I think I'm fine with that tradeoff.
 
I activated the features and all is fine except it makes any ringback tones, the music you can choose for people to listen as they wait to get connected with you, inactive. Boo. So, you have to compromise either cool voice quality & VOIP or ringback tones. Boo Verizon & Apple :(


Yeah this is my only issue, I usually get a lot of compliments about my ringback tones.
 
Just got it enabled on the company account for me. I was on the phone with 16 down and 10 up...I'll take that.
 
For those AT&T folks making the "nyah nyah" noise about this, I can count on the fingers of one hand the number of times I've desperately needed to use data on the same device on which I was making a voice call at the same time where I was not in WiFi coverage. And 3/5 of those times the workaround was to make a FaceTime audio call instead.

And that's instead of putting up with AT&T's horrendous coverage seemingly everywhere in the Bay Area and the microcell, which quite frankly never worked properly at all.
 
Verizon = undertapped potential

I am the current owner of an iPhone 5S / 64 GB / Space Gray. I own it for many reasons - best call quality + coverage I've ever experienced. Loud and CLEAR speakerphone. App availability. "It just works."

One thing I cannot get over is that while I'm on a call, I cannot send people texts via iMessage if I'm w/o WiFi. (Requires data, carrier data not available while on a call) From what I've noticed, I can set the phone to send a regular SMS when iMessage is unavailable but most people forget to enable this under their settings, it's off by default.

I would even settle for SMS to be enabled by default if iMessage doesn't send in, say, 5 seconds. Just my preference. (A call to all you MacRumors members, what are your preferences? Am I alone on this?)

This is not enough to make me want to give up the phone, by any means. A phone with strong reception and good antenna design is simply indispensable.

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Allow me to tell a story - a phone's voice and data capabilities are heavily dependent on the radios that are put in them. There have been three "wonder phones" that Verizon put out which can actually do simultaneous voice + 3G data (that is not a typo) as well as voice + LTE data.

I understand this is a Mac Forum. Warning: I'm about out to mention Android phone names...

1.) HTC Thunderbolt - first 4G LTE phone released and marketed in USA circa 2010
2.) HTC Rezound - marketed on VZW with built-in beats audio
3.) HTC Droid DNA (alleged this carries the same capabilities)

These devices have 2 radios, smartly chosen:

1.) CDMA voice + 3G Data

2.) 3G Data + LTE

I used to own a Thunderbolt (other design flaws made me move on) but I could even pick how I wanted the 3G/4G handoff to be, a hard handoff resulting in "3G off ... about 5 seconds of no data... 4G on". This was the only option in earlier firmwares. With a custom build, I was able to unlock eHRPD and the handoff would be instant, with no perceptible drop in data connectivity. Either of these options were independent of voice, so I could be on a call and witness this also.

------------------

I understand that there are people who will vehemently dismiss my claim as false, I don't know what I'm talking about, only GSM networks can do this. This is about what CDMA carriers could do all along, but IT TAKES TWO RADIOS and the vast majority of phones simply PHYSICALLY do not have the hardware to do this.

I should purchase another HTC Thunderbolt from eBay and post a video of this, on a voice call, no WiFi, while using carrier 3G, LTE off. It's possible but it will cut into a company's margin having such redundancy on a device, especially an android device which the average consumer sees no better than the next 4.3" 1 GHz 4GLTE smart phone.

Alas, I am planning to stay with Apple products for the foreseeable future, they are so damn user friendly, companies would be stupid not to make apps for their devices, and Flickr auto-backups are nice :)
 
I understand that there are people who will vehemently dismiss my claim as false, I don't know what I'm talking about, only GSM networks can do this. This is about what CDMA carriers could do all along, but IT TAKES TWO RADIOS and the vast majority of phones simply PHYSICALLY do not have the hardware to do this.

I should purchase another HTC Thunderbolt from eBay [snip]

You don't need to do that. It's 2 antenna runs out of the radio that enable it - creating separate RF paths. Almost all Verizon and Sprint phones following the Thunderbolt had it, and it wasn't just an HTC thing. It was very costly, and sometimes problematic... creating 2 instances of Tx1 and Tx2 on the device.

But the biggest problem, is that you can't do that with any phone that supports Carrier Aggregation on multiple bands -- this feature is dying immediately. So, the Galaxy S5 is the first Samsung device in a few years that can not do simultaneous voice and data on CDMA carriers without the presence of VoLTE. And at the very least, the Sprint HTC One M8 doesn't either (perhaps the Verizon version as well). The LG G3 dropped it as well.

Since the iPhone 6 supports carrier aggregation, by default it can not do SVDO even if they wanted to add it. CA is going to be the next big step in LTE advancement, so expect every flagship to no longer have SVDO; instead, they'll be supporting CA.

As far as AT&T and T-Mobile. It isn't a GSM thing either. It's a UMTS thing (UMTS, being W-CDMA). You can not do simultaneous voice and data if you're on GSM/EDGE (2G). Only if you're on UMTS/HSPA (3G).

You are just a little ignorant, aren't you? Read the topic and think again.

Read it. It was about iPhone 6/+ capabilities. There's not a single thing your 5s did the day you bought it that no longer works today, as he pointed out.
 
For all the morons that are saying that voice+data only works when calling other HD Voice devices... You're all full wrong.

It works fine for me every time. Landline, dumb phone, etc. etc.

AT&T trolls can go home now.

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Actually, you DO need to call another VoLTE capable phone for VoLTE to work. I work at Verizon. I know.

Nobody really cares if VoLTE works all the time or not. Voice+data works all the time on LTE now and that's all most people care about.

HD Voice has always required two supporting handsets. That's nothing new.

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Yep. It does. :)

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That's not VoLTE. Man there's a lot of confusion about what it actually is. haha. Not you're fault though. VoLTE, or HD calling, only works from one VoLTE capable phone to another. Browsing the web while on a call is a different subject and has nothing to do with VoLTE.

VoLTE and HD Calling are not the same.
 
For all the morons that are saying that voice+data only works when calling other HD Voice devices... You're all full wrong.

Chazz08 already mentioned several posts back he was confused and corrected himself. No need for the insults really.
 
For the past few years, some Android phones could use both pipes. First via SVDO (voice + 3G) and then later, SVLTE (voice + LTE).

It was the iPhone that was lacking this ability. Now, VoLTE gives it.

Which is why Apple didn't offer a phone with features VZW couldn't support. Now that VZW offers it, so too does the device. Makes sense.
 
You are just a little ignorant, aren't you? Read the topic and think again.

Your Verizon 5S didn't support SVLTE the day you bought it. I know because I have one, and it doesn't either. So it's not like they took something away that you already had, you just have a year-old phone that didn't get the new iOS 8 features.

Like pretty much every other device out there, the new stuff shows up in the new product line.

Which is why Apple didn't offer a phone with features VZW couldn't support. Now that VZW offers it, so too does the device. Makes sense.

Makes no sense.

Since the 5S never got SVLTE, CA, there would've been no disadvantage to implementing SVDO for the 5 and 5S. This was just Apple being Apple.
 
Your Verizon 5S didn't support SVLTE the day you bought it. I know because I have one, and it doesn't either. So it's not like they took something away that you already had, you just have a year-old phone that didn't get the new iOS 8 features.

Like pretty much every other device out there, the new stuff shows up in the new product line.

Actually, 5s was not even a year old when they announced all these features. Don't tell me they were incapable of foreseeing this feature a year ago? The same goes for NFC.

The first thing that comes to mind is that Apple is rapidly running out of selling points for new products, hence this delayed introduction of features that should have been integrated long time ago.

You can see that their industrial design is going the same route. They are changing designs, making the product appear new, even if the quality of design is inferior to the previously released model.

In the post-Jobs era, all they do is running in circles and hoping nobody will notice that. All these social events and loads of PR blah-blah cannot even make a decent smoke screen.
 
Actually, 5s was not even a year old when they announced all these features. Don't tell me they were incapable of foreseeing this feature a year ago? The same goes for NFC.

The first thing that comes to mind is that Apple is rapidly running out of selling points for new products, hence this delayed introduction of features that should have been integrated long time ago.

You can see that their industrial design is going the same route. They are changing designs, making the product appear new, even if the quality of design is inferior to the previously released model.

In the post-Jobs era, all they do is running in circles and hoping nobody will notice that. All these social events and loads of PR blah-blah cannot even make a decent smoke screen.
Ah so every year Apple should hold off until it can add more features that would be popular later, and then when it's ready to release it should hold off to add more features that will be popular later again now that some time has passed, and so on. Probably just not release any devices since something new is always just around the corner.

They release what they have gotten to work to the degree they want to get it to work and what they have set up their production to output. They release what the majority of their typical users might find of most use at that time (most of which still don't even know or care about NFC and could only start using VoLTE just now and only in some cases as the carriers are only just now in the early stages of enabling the initial parts of it).
 
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