It’s a bit hard to believe that I’ve been waiting outside of retail stores since 2007 for an iPhone launch. Back in 2007, it was my local Cingular Store and those photos are STILL on Flickr:
Here I am today, many year’s later outside of a Verizon store:
Anyway, it’s September of 2015 and like years past since I moved to New Hampshire, I’m first in line at 3AM. I think last year the next person arrived at 5AM and upon entering the store, I was told by Verizon they had zero stock of 128GB iPhone 6 models. WHAT? So, I went across the street to Best Buy and walked in with 2 people in front of me and a wall of 128GB iPhones to choose from. I felt a bit dumb for waiting.
Why am I at the Verizon Wireless store again for the 3rd year in a row after striking out last year? I like the waiting. Whether it be here, an Apple Store or across the street at Best Buy, waiting for an Apple release has just become something that I love doing. Sitting here alone, it’s probably the only time a year I have to get up at 3AM and loiter in front of a retail store and have a good excuse.I used to get my best work done on airplanes but then I grew up and my stomach got bigger and I couldn’t really write on planes anymore. Being away from my desk at home or the office and in the cold weather (48 Degrees in NH right now), is a refreshing experience. It would be nice to do it with other people but 3 hours with others is better than 0 hours with anyone else but the UPS delivery truck. As an aside, it’s been in the high 30s in previous years so I feel like nearly 50 degrees is really nice for this iPhone release.
What’s the reason for upgrading to the iPhone 6S after only a year with the 6? To most people, that’s not a difficult question this time around and to people like myself and my old friend Nick, we upgrade as often as we can. It’s great to have the latest technology and we love embracing it.
Honestly, I was certain that this would be a skip-year for me. Two things had to happen. Apple had to improve on the CPU/GPU performance and camera of the iPhone beyond the 8 megapixels we’ve had for the past few releases and I had to sell my old iPhone for $600 to cover the $240 early termination fee I owed Verizon, the cost of a down payment on a new iPhone and cover my AppleCare+ for the new device. I posted an ad on Craigslist and the phone sold a week before the new model came out so here I am.
While I sit just hours away from the iPhone that will be mine for at least 12 months, I still have no idea what model I’ll pick. My car-dock from Pro-Clip and my Grovemade dock at work don’t work with the iPhone 6S Plus. I discussed with GroveMade and it looks like they’re going to let me send back the wooden topper to my dock and they’ll replace it with the top that fits the 6 Plus as long as I cover shipping and the dock I send back is in good condition. I think this is a very fair deal. Part of me thinks I should keep my current wooden top because I may go back to a regular sized iPhone next year.The ProClip mount will be fine but the piece that screws into it that holds the iPhone will need to be upgraded but Pro Clip told me I might be okay so I should try it before ordering a replacement. I think since both docks are modular, I’ll probably keep the 6 mounts and get 6 Plus mounts. That would be the most responsible thing as I’m not certain I’ll have the larger iPhone for longer than this trial year.
128GB seems like a no-brainer but more and more I feel like going 64GB. Aside from resale value, I don’t watch movies on my iPhone and I don’t shoot video and thanks to iTunes in the cloud, I really can’t fill it up with music. It would take 3-4 months of constantly being on WiFi for the iPhone to download all of the songs from iTunes Match that I click “make available offline”. I keep promising myself that I’ll stop being lazy and setup iTunes USB sync again and just load all of the songs I want but then there’s that day I want a particular song that doesn’t live in a playlist and I have to enable iTunes Cloud and that removes all local AAC files from Music and replaces them with streaming only / store offline songs. Why can’t I get a hybrid?
As for colors, Gold is the obvious choice. It’s a shame the only black face is Space Grey. I don’t like grey but the black would look great with my all black interior on the Golf R. I was noticing at the car show a few weeks ago how the white iPhone stuck out quite a bit. I’d like a gold back and black front but that’s not a configuration that’s offered
Why go 6S Plus? Really, it’s just about battery life and maybe not feeling like I have to squint to look at Yelp while I’m walking in a new city and trying to find a place with decent espresso. I’ve held an iPhone 6 Plus in my hand maybe 3 times in the last year and each time someone hands me their phone to type in my WiFi password or take a photo of them, I think “holy Hell this is heavy”. The new 6S Plus is slightly heavier than that. i really don’t know. I’m completely torn. Another negative to the larger iPhone is steal ability. I can’t really grip the phone with my fingers all of the way around it. I have very large hands and if I’m holding the iPhone in one hand, someone could steal it easily.
Responsibly, an iPhone 6S 64GB in Gold is the most logical choice for my needs without any changes in iPhone docks and the lowest cost AppleCare + Plan ($99 versus $129).
The All-out would be an iPhone 6S Plus 128GB in Rose Gold. Radical but could turn out to be a hugely cool thing to use for a year to see what Android people keep raving about when it comes to larger phones and I do like pink.
Those are the two phones I’m thinking of and I won’t know until I go up and see them one last time in person before making a choice. The 6S Plus battery life would be awesome. I’ve never had a phone die on me but I also am a religious charger and having an iPad and Apple Watch keep me from using my iPhone very much.
As you can tell, I really have no idea what phone to pick.
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One last thing, we’re on the verge of the 4th anniversary of Steve Jobs’ passing. My friend Ben and I will correspond every few months at random about Steve and how much he affected us and his impact on our lives. There are a lot of people at Apple doing amazing things. Steve might be given more credit than you think he deserves but amid all of the movies and books and “tell-alls” about his life, my fondness for his life and his impact on our world has never faltered. Thank you Steve for everything. You are missed.
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It’s 4:30AM and I’m going to read the paper and sip my coffee. Have a great iPhone day! Stay warm and dry out there my fellow soldiers.