Contemplations

Well, it’s not just me: Ars Technica has reproduced a bug (ExtremeTech link for conciseness) that demonstrates that the Verizon iPhone 5 is absolutely pummeled by iOS 7.  Battery life is decreased by over one-third in normal use, which has been borne out by my experience in the last couple of days of using it – normally my mixed use projects out to about 9 hours of email, RSS, podcast playback, Instagram, maybe a little Twitter, maybe some texting.  Yesterday, it was below 15% after five hours.

Needless to say, this is an untenable proposition.  On days when I’m at my desk all day, I can just leave it plugged in, which is fine – but on days when I’m out and about, the phone stands to be deceased completely by 6 PM.  And quite frankly, it’s 2013 – I fully expect to be able to go from waking up to turning in without having to plug my phone in.  I was more or less able to do that on the iPhone 4 and 4S, and on the 5 until now, so it’s entirely possible without having to go over to one of those Android phones with the 3000 mAh battery.

Thoughts:

* I was able to buy a nano-SIM from T-Mobile for 99 cents, which should arrive next week.  At that point, it will set me back only $3/day to test out how my unlocked iPhone 5 works with T-Mob’s network here – no LTE, certainly, nor 1700 Mhz coverage, but at the very least I should be able to ascertain whether Verizon carrier settings or CDMA technological limitations or LTE power consumption are to blame.

* My phone and service are provided by work.  Given that it’s been only 10 months, it’s not likely that they’d look kindly on replacing the thing already, especially if this is something that can be fixed in software. Also, with the pace of purchasing, I suspect there could be a software fix out before a new phone/service could be ordered and delivered by work.  Traditionally, the first update for a new iOS version arrives between 3 and 6 weeks after the initial launch, so there should be a widely-available 7.0.1 (actually more like 7.0.2, since 7.0.1 is the iPhone 5S/5C version) by the end of October.  No chance work could deliver a new phone by Halloween, even if I were willing to go with a 5C…or something else.

*This is where I get intrigued again by the Moto X, and the prospect of somehow obtaining an unlocked one which I could then throw on AIO Wireless for $55 a month (less $25 a month work subsidy for use of a personal phone…effectively giving me my old AT&T service back for a dollar a day with no contract) is tempting.  But even setting aside the very poor camera on the Moto X, I’m tied to enough of the Apple ecosystem that shifting would be painful. I don’t know how much of the Google ecosystem I would be obligated to, and I don’t know how difficult it would be to keep using my existing music supply despite the greatly reduced proportions of DRM.

* AIO Wireless throttles their LTE to 8 Mbps.  That’s not necessarily a deal breaker – in my experience, I can’t beat that on Verizon’s LTE without having at least 4 bars of LTE signal (only once this week have I cracked 8 Mbps with less than 4 bars) and given T-Mob’s buildout of HSPA+ I might be able to trump that speed without even having to rely on LTE. My test-dummy for T-Mob prepaid service has heretofore been an unlocked iPhone 4, so I’ve been stuck with traditional 3G speeds (not to deny them credit for having 1900 Mhz 3G service most places around here).  I’m very curious to see what a Faux-G connection is like.

* Looking at the Moto X, I’m wondering whether Apple might not try to bump the iPhone 6 a little bit.  A move from 1138×640 to 1280×720 would preserve the same screen ratio (16:9) while increasing the screen size to 4.5 inches at the same DPI, and if you somehow cut the side bezel out altogether the increased width of the phone would be negligible. The old Android trick of increasing the screen size to make the phone bigger to get a bigger battery might seem like a concession of defeat for iOS purists, but it might get a real-true all-day phone while simultaneously shutting up the “Apple needs to make a GREAT BIG PHONE OR THEY ARE DOOOOOOOMED” crowd in the tech press.

* I’m out of town next week, which is no time to be doing anything drastic or rash with one’s phone.  I’m seriously considering a hard wipe/restore to iOS 6 for the duration.

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