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.
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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
