[Vinnrox250]

New car for my bonus mom. Going into the new year fresh and paid for.

So blessed to be able to give back to those who raised you.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

Buying the iPhone 16 Pro Max as we speak! Coming from a 12 pro max.

I spent much of last weekend setting up the new iPhone 16 Pro and wiping the 15 Pro to trade it in. Other than the added physical camera button, the two phones seem just about identical.

I'm liking the camera button, but have zero, make that negative interest in any of the AI features. The bulk of my new phone setup time was going through every iOS 18.2 setting to confirm that every AI option was disabled and the new OS didn't enable any other privacy-detracting feature.....

[JJ 911SC]

400 ft² of click flooring (Costco) for next year project...

Didn't needed the sound proofing but I needed the waterproofing..

[M_Six]

Originally Posted by JJ 911SC

400 ft² of click flooring (Costco) for next year project...

Didn't needed the sound proofing but I needed the waterproofing..

We have similar flooring on our sun porch. It was the only flooring the sun porch contractor would recommend since we didn't want carpet. The temperature changes on the porch would make anything else unusable.

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

Buying the iPhone 16 Pro Max as we speak! Coming from a 12 pro max.

I have the 11 ProMax. I cant see any feature in the 16 that gives me reason to upgrade. Maybe I'm ignorant of why I should. Share why you are upgrading for us poors.\

\

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

I have the 11 ProMax. I cant see any feature in the 16 that gives me reason to upgrade. Maybe I'm ignorant of why I should. Share why you are upgrading for us poors.\

\

I'm not buying a new one til my current one doesn't work anymore. Don't need or want any new features. If it ain't broke... don't buy a new one.

[flybigjet]

Originally Posted by Esteban

I'm not buying a new one til my current one doesn't work anymore. Don't need or want any new features. If it ain't broke...

I've got a six+ year old iPhone Xr. It's old and slooow, but it works for what I need it to do and I like the size.

When I was at the Training Center last week, the Very Nice 20-Something IT Girl offered to set up Duo Push and my company email on my phone.

I got..... chastised..... for having such an old and slow phone. She was very polite in saying "Get a new phone, Dinosaur!" and she's probably right.

Assuming my phone doesn't blow up, get eaten by penguins, or get lost, I'm holding out for a 17. I don't care about AI or a camera (as long as it's as good as the one my Xr has, and that's pretty much a guarantee), so I'm interested in seeing what the 17 Slim looks like. If it's faster, has better battery life than the Xr and is the same size, I'm sold.

It's a tool, not a status symbol.

R.

[Vinnrox250]

Originally Posted by flybigjet

I've got a six+year old iPhone Xr. It's old and slooow, but it works for what I need to to do and I like the size.

When I was at the Training Center last week, the Very Nice 20-Something IT Girl offered to set up Duo Push and my company email on my phone.

I got..... chastised..... for having such an old and slow phone. She was very polite in saying "Get a new phone, Dinosaur!" and she's probably right.

Assuming my phone doesn't blow up, get eaten by penguins, or get lost, I'm holding out for a 17. I don't care about AI or a camera (as long as it's as good as the one my Xr has, and that's pretty much a guarantee), so I'm interested in seeing what the 17 Slim looks like. If it's faster, has better battery life than the Xr and is the same size, I'm sold.

It's a tool, not a status symbol.

R.

“Eaten by penguins” hahahaha. I busted out laughing.

[MoeTE87]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I spent much of last weekend setting up the new iPhone 16 Pro and wiping the 15 Pro to trade it in. Other than the added physical camera button, the two phones seem just about identical.

I'm liking the camera button, but have zero, make that negative interest in any of the AI features. The bulk of my new phone setup time was going through every iOS 18.2 setting to confirm that every AI option was disabled and the new OS didn't enable any other privacy-detracting feature.....

That is great to hear! Are you able to send over to me all that you did. I don’t want the AI features but I wanted a better camera.

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

I have the 11 ProMax. I cant see any feature in the 16 that gives me reason to upgrade. Maybe I'm ignorant of why I should. Share why you are upgrading for us poors.\

\

Needing a faster, better camera iPhone. Been traveling a lot more with family and will be traveling more in 2025 and my 12 pro max camera pictures look grainy and not clear at all. My 12 pro max was getting slow and glitchy making simple tasks very long and annoying. Plus, my wife has a 15 pro and we are tired of having two different cords everywhere.
Nothing really exciting but I thought I would give it a shot!

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

That is great to hear! Are you able to send over to me all that you did. I don’t want the AI features but I wanted a better camera.

I just went through every setting, checking with my web search engine du jour if I wasn't sure what it controlled. Same thing that I do with every iOS update, because Apple occasionally adds new settings or flips my choices thinking that I'm a millennial who wants to share my bathroom visits in every app on the phone.

The one thing that is still in my favor right now is that the AI stuff was only released with the latest iOS 18.2 update, and you can still tell the installer not to download the bulk of it during setup. That doesn't stop annoying AI-like features from slipping past, such as the one that does facial recognition of every picture that you've ever taken and generates a "convenient" mug shot library that may or may not be shared along with times and GPS coordinates to track people.

An example is that the Photos app identified my DW as a person and OCD psycho dog as a pet. I went to the settings for customizing the lock screen layout, and it offered to let me pick a picture from my photos. The one that it suggested by default was my DW holding OCD psycho dog up in front of the "Welcome to South Carolina" sign at the I-77 visitor's center. I didn't even remember taking that picture, and certainly would NOT use a picture with any personal information as the wallpaper on my locked phone screen because it is there for anyone to see if I set my phone down or misplace it! My wallpaper is the same dark Earth from space one that came with the iPhone 4 over a decade ago, which only shares that I'm old and have a passing interest in planet Earth for some reason.

There are several "turn off these settings NOW" videos on YouTube every time that a new iOS version is released, and I suggest waiting a few months before installing upgrades and checking them out after people have found all of the changes.....

[MoeTE87]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I just went through every setting, checking with my web search engine du jour if I wasn't sure what it controlled. Same thing that I do with every iOS update, because Apple occasionally adds new settings or flips my choices thinking that I'm a millennial who wants to share my bathroom visits in every app on the phone.

The one thing that is still in my favor right now is that the AI stuff was only released with the latest iOS 18.2 update, and you can still tell the installer not to download the bulk of it during setup. That doesn't stop annoying AI-like features from slipping past, such as the one that does facial recognition of every picture that you've ever taken and generates a "convenient" mug shot library that may or may not be shared along with times and GPS coordinates to track people.

An example is that the Photos app identified my DW as a person and OCD psycho dog as a pet. I went to the settings for customizing the lock screen layout, and it offered to let me pick a picture from my photos. The one that it suggested by default was my DW holding OCD psycho dog up in front of the "Welcome to South Carolina" sign at the I-77 visitor's center. I didn't even remember taking that picture, and certainly would NOT use a picture with any personal information as the wallpaper on my locked phone screen because it is there for anyone to see if I set my phone down or misplace it! My wallpaper is the same dark Earth from space one that came with the iPhone 4 over a decade ago, which only shares that I'm old and have a passing interest in planet Earth for some [...]

Thanks for all of the useful info on this! I was very hesitant to get the 16 pro max but decided to splurge and get it. Now I am reconsidering it and possibly wanting to return it as soon as it arrives tomorrow. I don’t want AI all up in my business and shit. Plus, I don’t want to have to babysit every little thing on it to make sure all AI features are turned off. I will think about it today some more but after talking with you, it has really opened up my eyes on what I don’t want from a new phone.

I really wanted the 15 pro max but there wasn’t any deals at Verizon on it, only on the 16 pro max.

Thanks and Happy New Year!

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

That is great to hear! Are you able to send over to me all that you did. I don’t want the AI features but I wanted a better camera.


Needing a faster, better camera iPhone. Been traveling a lot more with family and will be traveling more in 2025 and my 12 pro max camera pictures look grainy and not clear at all. My 12 pro max was getting slow and glitchy making simple tasks very long and annoying. Plus, my wife has a 15 pro and we are tired of having two different cords everywhere.
Nothing really exciting but I thought I would give it a shot!

OK you have valid reasons. Heck I haven't even upgraded to 18.2 yet. I'm waiting until 18.2.1. Yeah I', not an early adopter.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

I really wanted the 15 pro max but there wasn’t any deals at Verizon on it, only on the 16 pro max.

The 15 Pro/Max also have Apple Intelligence when you upgrade them to the current iOS 18.2, so there's no escaping it in the long run unless you plan to live with obsolete phones and skip security updates.

As another data point, my old/beloved iPhone X that didn't do 5G and was cut off from iOS updates and had a failing battery also used to tag GPS coordinates and date/time in the metadata of every photo it took...so there really is no way to avoid the privacy leaks without being a luddite and carrying a dumb flip phone (and even then the FCC requires GPS chips in them "for 911 location tracking").

I don't do social media for privacy reasons and don't even use iCloud to back up my phone, but then again maybe I'm overly paranoid and from an older generation that doesn't like facial recognition and license plate readers tracking my every movement and what I buy?

So, enjoy your new 16 Pro Max but do take some time to check on the privacy stuff that's important to you. The physical camera button alone is worth the upgrade from even the 15 Pro/Max.....

[vreihen16]

Regarding Apple Intelligence in iOS 18.2, how much of this stuff would you actually use? In my case, I know how to write for a target audience, don't send text messages to need fancy emojis, am not bombarded with notifications because I don't do social media, and have no use for ChatGPT because I can read and interpret things for myself. (In other words, I'm not a millennial!) It's very easy for me to say don't enable it and not miss anything:

To be fair, I did enable it on my old 15 Pro after wiping my content just to see what it did. My big takeaway was that the ChatGPT/Siri programmers set traps for every single method that Captain Kirk used to talk a rogue computer to death, so humanity is doomed if AI ever decides to exterminate us all.....

[MoeTE87]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

OK you have valid reasons. Heck I haven't even upgraded to 18.2 yet. I'm waiting until 18.2.1. Yeah I', not an early adopter.

I honestly thought it was time to upgrade to be honest. The AI stuff vreihen16 mentioned has me a little worried to be honest. So we will see. New phone doesn't arrive until sometime tomorrow morning, so I have time to do some research and see if I really want it.

Originally Posted by vreihen16

The 15 Pro/Max also have Apple Intelligence when you upgrade them to the current iOS 18.2, so there's no escaping it in the long run unless you plan to live with obsolete phones and skip security updates.

As another data point, my old/beloved iPhone X that didn't do 5G and was cut off from iOS updates and had a failing battery also used to tag GPS coordinates and date/time in the metadata of every photo it took...so there really is no way to avoid the privacy leaks without being a luddite and carrying a dumb flip phone (and even then the FCC requires GPS chips in them "for 911 location tracking").

I don't do social media for privacy reasons and don't even use iCloud to back up my phone, but then again maybe I'm overly paranoid and from an older generation that doesn't like facial recognition and license plate readers tracking my every movement and what I buy?

So, enjoy your new 16 Pro Max but do take some time to check on the privacy stuff that's important to you. The physical camera button alone is worth the upgrade from even the 15 Pro/Max.....

Thanks for the info! I don't do much social media to be honest. I hardly ever post. If I do, it's more so about sports and some car stuff. I look at a lot of golf videos and memes along with sports / car things as well.

I do use the icloud to back up everything.

I will take my time and do more research and take into account what you said the last few posts and be more mindful of it all. My wife has the 15 pro, so that is good to know about the AI as I will want to make sure non of that stuff is turned off on her phone.

But all in all, how are you liking the phone?

I am very excited for the camera!


Thanks!

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by MoeTE87

But all in all, how are you liking the phone?

I jumped to the 15 Pro from my beloved iPhone X back in the spring, because its battery was failing and I needed it to run my blood glucose monitor all day at work. That was a huge jump, even when compared with my work-issued iPhone 12 Mini. The 15 Pro to 16 Pro was barely noticeable, outside of the mechanical camera button that was made possible by omitting the SIM tray in the 16 Pro/Max because of eSIM.

Since then, my work situation has changed by being forced into involuntary retirement by surprise. I can count the number of times that I've left the house since last July on one hand, and really don't need a cell phone other than for monitoring blood sugar. I figure that this is going to be the last phone that I ever buy, and for psychological reasons could not go through the rest of my life carrying something with a 15 on it. (My race car number was 16, and my nemesis for years drove car #15.) So, I splurged on the upgrade, with the hope that smart watches will be able to do everything that the iPhone does by the time that it is obsolete.

One other thing that I did as part of the change is ditch Verizon after being a cellular customer of them and their predecessor Bell companies since 1987. They were hammering me $206/month for cellular service on two phones and a watch, and I can't afford that in my unplanned early retirement. Visible (owned by Verizon and using the same towers) is offering a sale that ends later this month for their unlimited plus package for only $30/month (per phone) for 25 months, and then $45/month after that. The carrier switch took minutes to port over my cell phone number of 47 years thanks to eSIM, and their package includes unlimited tethering and free Apple Watch cellular for that $30/month! I haven't noticed a difference in service so far, and neither has my DW. I'm sure that Visible calls and data will be throttled before Verizon customers will when the system is busy, but am not working in a job where being reachable 24/7/365 is critical any more to justify spending another $150/month just in case.....

[jamesinaz]

Originally Posted by vreihen16

I jumped to the 15 Pro from my beloved iPhone X back in the spring, because its battery was failing and I needed it to run my blood glucose monitor all day at work. That was a huge jump, even when compared with my work-issued iPhone 12 Mini. The 15 Pro to 16 Pro was barely noticeable, outside of the mechanical camera button that was made possible by omitting the SIM tray in the 16 Pro/Max because of eSIM.

Since then, my work situation has changed by being forced into involuntary retirement by surprise. I can count the number of times that I've left the house since last July on one hand, and really don't need a cell phone other than for monitoring blood sugar. I figure that this is going to be the last phone that I ever buy, and for psychological reasons could not go through the rest of my life carrying something with a 15 on it. (My race car number was 16, and my nemesis for years drove car #15.) So, I splurged on the upgrade, with the hope that smart watches will be able to do everything that the iPhone does by the time that it is obsolete.

One other thing that I did as part of the change is ditch Verizon after being a cellular customer of them and their predecessor Bell companies since 1987. They were hammering me $206/month for cellular service on two phones and a watch, and I can't afford that in my unplanned early retirement. Visible (owned by Verizon and using the same towers) is offering a sale that ends later this month for their unlimited plus package for only $30/month (per phone) for 25 months, and then $45/month after that. The carrier switch took minutes to port over my cell phone number of 47 years thanks to eSIM, and their package includes unlimited tethering and free Apple Watch cellular for that $30/month! I haven't noticed a difference in service so far, and neither has my DW. I'm sure that Visible calls and data will be throttled before Verizon customers will when the system is busy, but am not working in a job where being reachable 24/7/365 is critical any more to justify spending another $150/month just in case.....

I need to check out Visible. Thanks. I also don't need much as a retiree. My issue is where I live only Verizon worked reliably. But if I can get reasonable phone and data for 2 phones for less I'm in.

[Esteban]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

I need to check out Visible. Thanks. I also don't need much as a retiree. My issue is where I live only Verizon worked reliably. But if I can get reasonable phone and data for 2 phones for less I'm in.

Check out Spectrum Mobile, too. We pay around $59 a month for 3 phones. Don't remember our plan but it's not unlimited data. Came for Verizon and Spectrum is just as good. At least it is here where I live.

[vreihen16]

Originally Posted by jamesinaz

I need to check out Visible. Thanks. I also don't need much as a retiree. My issue is where I live only Verizon worked reliably. But if I can get reasonable phone and data for 2 phones for less I'm in.

Visible is owned by Verizon, and uses their network and towers.

The reason why they can offer lower prices is because Visible has no customer call center or stores with employees to pay, they don't offer bundles of extra services like streaming subscriptions, and don't give away phones whenever you sign a new 2-year contract. (Customer support is via ticket system or live chat in their app if you ever need it.) If you already own a phone or pay cash for one, you can bring it with you. If you want a new phone and don't have the cash, they offer 0% financing through Affirm.

They offer two plans. Visible is on sale for $20/month, and includes basic unlimited data and calls. Visible Plus is on sale for $30/month, and adds on unlimited 5G Ultra Wideband data, faster mobile hotspot, and free smart watch cellular. Since we have Verizon 5G UW coverage in neighboring towns and both my DW and I have cellular-capable Apple Watches, the Visible Plus plan is the right choice for us.

Another option in the pre-paid arena is Total Wireless, which is also owned by Verizon. They are targeting families versus individuals, and their current promotion works out to $25/line/month for basic unlimited service if you have four phone lines.

Both Visible and Total Wireless are pre-paid monthly plans, with no 2-year contract to lock you in. Visible also offers an annual payment option that saves a few bucks over their regular price, but strangely it is not on sale like the monthly plans.....