I’m not a novice, and I’m certainly not the “typical” iphone user; however, it has been my first week with one, so I could be slated into the “beginner” category if you want to be all particular about it. For me, I decided against the dataplan that Rogers was pushing on their customers, and as mentioned before, I had to undergo some pressure to bend to their wills and pick up the dataplan before they would ship me a phone without one. Ever since the phone has arrived I’ve been undergoing a bit of a social experiment with it. Do I really need to use the 3G/Edge technology while I’m out and about, or would wifi suffice? Could an average user survive both technologically and economically without a data plan?
The first thing I had to do was make sure that I was able to guarantee that the internet was not being accessed mistakenly or in error while I was showing off the phone, or using it as a phone. I decided the best way to do this was to place all the internet applications into its own window. On a couple of occasions while I was messing around familiarizing myself with the phone, I hit the email button, incurring a couple of KB damage to my pocket book. In all honesty it’s turned into a bit of a game for me. I think I’ll title it “Overcoming the Greed.”
Lesson Learned
3G is blazingly fast, so it’s really simple to lose a couple dozen KBs of data in an error. So, to over come the flood gates of hell being leashed upon me, I decided I’d turn off 3G entirely because EDGE was a lot slower. I’d much prefer the trickle of hell than the flood gates, and I’m sure most would agree with me. So, outside of a couple first day blunders, I managed to keep my usage rates down; however, I started to notice that I was still incurring usage, despite abandoning use of any application outside of my wifi connections. Trust me, I’ve been super anal about it, I’d know if I was using something when I shouldn’t be. Some how I’ve managed to use 13.0 KB up and 65.0 KB down.
Me, a user full aware of the difference between wireless internet at home and a wireless internet abroad has managed to incur some data usage. I’ve spent a great deal of my time explaining to interested friends and family the differences between the two, but, I’ve yet to feel comfortable with them “understanding” what it meant fully. At this point, I’d have to recommend against getting an iPhone without a dataplan, unless of course, you’re tech savvy and fully grasp the differences. For me, I might get charged an extra five bucks, for the facebook creepers, they would likely get charged an extra fifty bucks. Don’t do it!
Now, if apple would give us the ability to shut off 3G/EDGE entirely it would be a whole new outcome for me. While I understand the motivation behind not providing the “feature”, I still have a hard time understanding why they would remove the option entirely. It’s pretty simple, place an on/off switch beneath the 3G on/off switch and I, along with many other Canadians, would be estatic.
July 21st, 2008 at 3:58 pm
Interesting article. I wish I could try to replicate your experiment, but alas, I still do not have an iphone.
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July 21st, 2008 at 5:47 pm
Well its easier to use than my phone I don't call mine Internet because its too hard to use and I want to Google anytime and anywhere I want, thats basically the Iphones purpose
July 22nd, 2008 at 11:39 am
Someday your dream of being a mac addict will come true… you just need to “wish” harder. ;)
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July 23rd, 2008 at 10:15 pm
I'm sorry but I don't understand, why did you get an iPhone if you will only use 5% of its purpose. With my iPhone I can now access my cloud data anywhere anytime. If I add a contact in my iPhone, boom it's on my Mac! (and vice versa) Someone sends me an e-mail, ping! got it anywhere! Especially here in the Ottawa region the (free) wifi coverage is almost null, 3G is a blessing. It's like buying a Ferrari and putting cheap Canadian Tire tires on it :)
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July 23rd, 2008 at 11:27 pm
Well, your Ferrari simile is the perfect comparison; however, it's not like putting Canadian tires on it in my opinion. It's like buying a Ferrari and not being able to drive it over 100 km/h. Is there a point in purchasing a car with that limitation? Hell Ya There IS! ;)
There was a series of busted devices that led me to the iPhone. First, my “beloved” razr was dead, my plan was up soon and I needed a new phone. 199.00 is about the same price i'd pay for any other “phone”. Second, my iPod has been dead for 6 months, so I desperately needed a new one. Finally, I'm a freelancer who works from home so 90%+ of my time is on wifi. I'll probably eventually get a dataplan, but so far, it's been working out pretty good :) But, ask me again in two weeks after I get addicted to a couple apps and you might have a completely different answer…lol.
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July 24th, 2008 at 11:08 am
Ah! Now I understand and it makes a lot of sense.
As for the Ferrari have you try to go over 100km/h in a Ferrari with Canadian Tires? Well me neither, but I'm sure it's not safe lol. Also at first I had written: “It's like buying an electric car with only the cord that plugs into the wall, but no battery” lol.
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July 24th, 2008 at 1:09 pm
Or you can avoid all data charges by simply calling Robbers and telling them to block your data usage.