It's.....so......pretty......

[Joey Shabadoo]

I used to like having the top of the range phone but find the cost has risen far too much lately. I've got a middle range Samsung just now - it works fine and runs all the apps I use no problem.

No problem with folk wanting the 10 - if you can afford it and it does what you want it to do, go for it.

You're a long time deid.

 

[Drago]

Oh indeed, I've got no problem with folk wanting it if it tugs their rug. I simply don't see the point in paying all that money to walk up the road staring at your hand.

 

[Joey Shabadoo]

Oh indeed, I've got no problem with folk wanting it if it tugs their rug. I simply don't see the point in paying all that money to walk up the road staring at your hand.

My parents are retired and live part of the time in Spain. They know their local area but didn't really go too far afield because they were scared of getting lost or missing their train etc. I got them a smartphone and showed them how to use Google maps and it really has transformed things for them. Equally, the Messenger App allows them to keep in touch with the family at home far better than a landline.

They have their uses.

 

[pplpilot]

I'm a big Apple fan, I have been since I had a G3 in indigo blue and my current 27imac, but I do feel they have lost the plot with pricing. I'm a big user of a smart phone (samsung), travelling for work a lot and the fact I don't need to lug my laptop out every time I have to join a Skype meeting / send mails, review word/ppoint docs etc is a blessing. But each to their own, If you want one and can afford one go for it.

 

[Markymark]

Oh indeed, I've got no problem with folk wanting it if it tugs their rug. I simply don't see the point in paying all that money to walk up the road staring at your hand.

I agree but on mine I can send emails, access the internet, process files, even do remote access from my work computer. You are retired, I am not, it is exceptionally useful. When I retire, maybe I won't need such functions.

 

[nickyboy]

Oh indeed, I've got no problem with folk wanting it if it tugs their rug. I simply don't see the point in paying all that money to walk up the road staring at your hand.

Maybe when I'm retired I might think the same. But for now, a smartphone lets me run my business from anywhere. I can be in the house, on a train, passenger in a car, at an airport, in a café on an illicit midweek bike ride. It lets me handle emails, WhatsApp messages, internet stuff, files that come as attachments to emails etc etc

What I do means I need to be available. If I didn't have a mobile, pocket-sized computer I would have to sit at home and stare at the laptop all day. As it is I've just come in from a two hour bike ride and I've been available to my clients the whole time

 

[Drago]

I have the faculty to send emails, navigate, and all the rest of it, just not on my phone. I can understand other folk wanting it and I'm cool with that, but I can read a map, send emails when it suits me, and I'm not slave to a piece of plastic whenever it goes beep because someone has said something inane on social media.

I can see their uses, and fair play to those that exploit them. That's entirely their call. However, I can also see their downsides, and I am avoiding all the downsides without any detriment. They're happy, I'm happy.

But my final thought - I am indeed retired, and managed to do so at 47 because I didn't go around spending £1300+ on phone handsets. If people want to work into their sixties or later to fund such a lifestyle then thats their call.

 

[Markymark]

But my final thought - I am indeed retired, and managed to do so at 47 because I didn't go around spending £1300+ on phone handsets. If people want to work into their sixties or later to fund such a lifestyle then thats their call.

Actually the £1300 gives me a more pleasurable lifestyle now for the reasons given by @nickyboy . As for how much money for retiring, £1300 on such purchases won't make much difference here

 

[Drago]

Across your adult life, £1300 here, £1300 there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.

 

[nickyboy]

Across your adult life, £1300 here, £1300 there, and pretty soon you're talking real money.

My Huawei is £25 a month for a two year contract so you're talking £600 for 24 months of the ability to go on bike rides midweek with impunity. Happy with that. And the business I get by being available, it pays for itself many times over

 

[MacB]

I suppose my real issue here is that this is one of those things that forces itself into my consciousness and I seem, without going full hermit, helpless to stop it. Yet I have never bought, and never will buy, an Apple product and have no interest in their activities.

BBC Website - multiple articles
Various Websites - pop ups and puff pieces everywhere
Youtube - recommended reviews even though I've never looked at any phone reviews before
Cyclechat - a fecking thread with a disguised title to suck you in, full of the usual self justifying garbage....I have no problem with bling but my tastes differ...just admit it's bling and not the second coming and you'll piss off far fewer people.

Strangely, or maybe not, I have not bought, will never buy and have never chosen to listen to a track by U2...that avoidance began before Apple was even a thing.

 

[Crackle]

I question only if it's worth a thousand pounds which is a premium over most other highly capable phones and suspect the price is set not on the value of the product but on expectation of hype, production runs and demand plus a fiddle factor based on loyalty. If you want one and can afford it, go for it sucker!

 

[MacB]

Really? you didn't consider questioning why we needed a two month tease on a cycling forum, with a 'mysteriously' disguised title, about somebody planning to get a new phone?

 

[Crackle]

Really? you didn't consider questioning why we needed a two month tease on a cycling forum, with a 'mysteriously' disguised title, about somebody planning to get a new phone?

Heck no. As odd threads go, this one doesn't even twitch the oddometer, especially as markymark started it.

 

[Markymark]

Really? you didn't consider questioning why we needed a two month tease on a cycling forum, with a 'mysteriously' disguised title, about somebody planning to get a new phone?

Whether you like them or not it's a cultural phenomenon. Apple are one of the biggest companies in the world. It's s major launch of products which they'll sell in the hundreds of millions. That is newsworthy whether you agree with its influence or not. In decades to come this success and dominance of Apple will be talked about. I am not suggesting it is justified but a company worth coming up to a trillion dollars releasing major new hardware is news worthy. When I sit on the tube pretty much everyone has one. We're all sheep, I get that. We're all being ripped off, I get that. We should all be using tins of beans and string, I get that. But to deny its relevance is silly. And every newspaper editor in the world recognises that.