It's been a long time since I posted in this joke of a blog that I spawned however long ago it was that I did. That aside, I'm back for probably a very brief time to offer my thoughts on the Verizon iPhone 4.
Basically I'm here to lay out some solid points as to why you SHOULDN'T be running to your Verizon store on Thursday to finally experience Apple's smartphone on a network that isn't AT&T. I'm not here to argue about which is better and will not be discussing any of the arguments about Verizon allowing you to actually make calls on your iPhone, or AT&T allowing you to surf the web while talking, etc. That's not why I'm here. I'm here to tell you that you need to contain your excitement and keep that money you're shaking at Verizon and Apple in your pocket.
So why should you not get the Verizon iPhone 4? Well let's say you get it. You walk into a Verizon store on Thursday and pick up your shiny new, top-of-the-line iPhone 4. It's beautiful. It's glorious. It's magical. It's revolutionary. Yada yada yada. But do you want to know how long it will be top-of-the-line and revolutionary?
Approximately 4 months.
Why, you ask? Because Apple will be releasing it's 5th generation iPhone this summer, most likely in June like they always do. So your lovely new phone will be outdated in 120 short days.
"I don't care about having the latest device or technology and could care less about it being outdated in 4 months. I just want it now" you say to me.
That's fine. I understand that not everyone has to have the newest and latest gadgets. But what's REALLY gonna suck is NEXT summer, in 2012, when Apple announces the 6th generation iPhone that will obviously be better than the 5th gen version, which obviously will be better than the iPhone 4 you'll still have in your pocket. Since you'll be locked into a 2 year contract that only allows you to upgrade every 2 years, you'll have the iPhone 4 for a full 8 months after the 6th gen version has been released. And at that point Apple will not be supporting the iPhone 4 with software updates as they only do so for two years. We've seen this recently with the iPhone 3G that came out in the summer of 2008. While it technically runs the latest iOS 4.x, most of the marquee features in iOS 4, like multitasking and background images, are not supported on the iPhone 3G. It lost full support for software updates that the iPhone 3GS and iPhone 4 have been receiving.
Perhaps for the technologically-challenged people I lost you with that last bit. Basically it comes down to this: don't buy technology 8 months into a product cycle that sees a new annual refresh/upgrade of the product. It just doesn't end well. You really want that iPhone in your hand RIGHT NOW. But in 4 months you'll regret it. And if you don't regret it then you'll certainly regret it 16 months from now when your phone will REALLY be outdated and you have to live with it for 8 more months, at which point it will probably turn into a full year so that you don't make the same mistake again by not waiting. You'll be thinking to yourself "if only I had waited those 4 short months and gotten the iPhone 5 (or whatever they're gonna call it)."
In the end, I think this flowchart sums it up pretty well:
So with that I have one thing to say: Happy Waiting!
