YAY - wife's new iPhone arrived! BOO - Bluetooth appears to be dead!

[thewayne]

Last month was her birthday, but this technically wasn't a birthday present. THAT was a copy of the DVD box set of Good Omens, which officially released November 5. The reason for the new phone is that Verizon, in their infinite wisdom, is shutting off their 3G network next month. Found out from the university security guards that they got new flip phones because of it.

The phone in question is a refurbished iPhone 6S. Yes, about 4 years old. It's also the last year with a headphone jack. Sorry, we're luddites and don't care for BT headphones: we want a jack. But we do need Bluetooth in other ways, quite specifically, connecting the phone to her new car! I found this one on Ebay, it's got 128 gig of memory, and with a case, a two year warranty, and with tax and free shipping it was just slightly north of $200!

There are advantages in recycling old tech if you don't need bells and whistles!

The phone arrived late this morning, before she got up. I unboxed it, did some initial setup, and plugged it in to charge. The battery was at about 50%, but she's pretty negligent about keeping it charged. I'm of the school that phones should be fully charged in case of emergencies, which don't happen because my phone is normally fully charged! Surely were I to not have mine charged, something horrible would happen. :-) Later I backed up her old phone to her laptop and then restored it to the new one. And conveniently, the case also arrived today! It wasn't scheduled until Tuesday, so some lovely serendipity. I had a standard plain case for it to protect it and keep it non-slippery, which would have been adequate until the good Book Book case arrived, but it all came together quite nicely.

I couldn't completely configure the phone because her iPhone 4S didn't have a SIM chip, she'd have to go down to Alamogordo to the Verizon store and get them to finish activating it. But she had a phone conference at 2:30, so she'd have to do it solo. And it all went swimmingly! Activation was a success, she texted and called me, then took the dogs for a bike run around the movie theater. Then after I got off work we met at the local Italian restaurant.

And that's when she told me of the problem with Bluetooth.

Not only couldn't she get it to pair with the car, when she plugged it in, the audio quality was horrible. The podcast she was listening to skipped back and forth, not a good thing. I then tried to sync it with my hearing aides: no joy. So clearly something is afoot. (she hadn't found that audiobooks are now hidden in the Apple Book app)

Fortunately Ebay has some pretty solid policies in place for situations like this. I just finished sending a message to the seller, described the problem, and requested a replacement with us keeping this one, so we don't have to convert back to her old one, then back to a different new one. Apparently they have a system in place where the seller can send us a replacement, we keep the current one, and I consented that I have to send the old one back in 21 days or they'll bill me for it.

I think that's an eminently fair system. And as long as everything with the replacement goes smooth, I'm not going to ding the seller in reviewing them.


Myself, I'm on an iPhone 6, I'm waiting until next year and might get the new SE2 when it comes available as the 6 doesn't work with the Watch 5. The Apple Watch 4 introduced a fall detector, and with my osteopenia (pre- or first stage osteoporosis), I think it might be a wise thing to have as I'll be turning 60 in a couple of years(!). The fall detector, if it senses that you've fallen, will try to alert the wearer and ask them if they need help or to cancel the alert. If they don't cancel it, it'll send an alert to a pre-programmed list along with GPS location. And I found out that the Watch 4 and 5 can actually detect bike spills and car accidents, and after what we and our friend experienced in September and October, I like the idea of something else having my back in case I'm in a serious accident.

Comments

[acelightning]

Last year, my husband and I suffered several instances where our 3G flip phones weren't getting any signal, in various places. Verizon told us they were phasing out their 3G network, and we'd have to buy 4G phones - fortunately, they did have one plain flip phone that used 4g. Well, within the past few weeks, there have been serious signal outages in our neighborhood - no service at all on our 4G phones. In two cases, I was without mobile phone service for more than 4 days. I'm an old lady with a heart condition, and it makes me very nervous when my phone doesn't work. During the most recent outage, Verizon promised to give us a "network expander", which is sort of a personal wifi hotspot, which will connect to through our Comcast internet. The device arrived today, but hooking it up is going to get rather athletic. And meanwhile Comcast has been a bit wonky - I had no internet connectivity for a couple of hours yesterday. (I probably ought to have the fall detector, but I'm not buying an Apple Watch or anything like that.) And if the 4G network is going to fail the way the 3G network did, why did I have to buy a 4G phone?

[thewayne]

One of the problems this country has had for a good 20+ years is the monopoly problem, i.e. the lack of merger prevention. We should not be given the choice of just three major cell phone providers: the Sprint/T-Mobile merger was just approved. The companies, regardless of what they say, are not competing. Our cell phone costs are ridiculous when compared to other first-world nations.

And as you and I experienced, Verizon decided to shut down their 3G network. I received no notification of this, I read it in a news article! As to why the 4G network in your area went wonky, who knows. But when your area cell service is out, unless you have a landline, you’re screwed.

We do have a landline, it was part of our internet connection and we had no choice. But the number of friends and co-workers who have that number are pretty much zero. If we lost cell service up here for any substantial length of time, we’d have to call the observatory, my parents, etc. to distribute the number. And then we’d have to leave it turned on, opening us up to all sorts of spammers/scammers.

While you can sometimes get an Apple Watch 4 that has the fall detection as a refurb from Apple, it’ll still set you back $300 plus the cost of a compatible phone. No, there’s less expensive ways to go about it.

[acelightning]

I still have a land line - that was my only connection to the outside world for more than four days. Fortunately, there's a way to call Verizon Wireless Tech Support from the land line.

The monopoly thing is another ridiculous problem. The only cable service available in my area is Comcast - no competitors. (Well, Verizon FiOS competes with them. But they don't have fiber in my town. The problem is the "last mile" is copper wire, and we're right next to the ocean, and the copper wires deteriorate underground or on the poles, because of the moist salty atmosphere. My land line goes out every few months when the copper fails, and they have to come fix it.)

Never mind a smart watch. I'm just going to keep my cell phone in my pocket or on a lanyard, within inches of my hands, at all times, and have all the emergency numbers I need on speed dial.

[thewayne]

We have two internet providers: one cable, the other went through the area and installed fiber up to the wall!  We went with the latter and have 25 mbits up/down, and very few outages.  When we had cable, they'd take theirs down in the middle of the night without warning, not to mention other outages, and with my wife being a night worker, that was simply unacceptable. I'm hoping some day we'll have a president who will start enforcing anti-monopoly rules and apply them retroactively and break up some of these mega-corps.

4G networks: good for a while, yet

[bibliofile]

As I understand it, the 4G network will go away eventually, but not for years. Companies are just starting to plan 5G, but there isn't a standard yet. Chinese company Huawei offers the technology, but there are issues with security (will Huawei's tech give the Chinese government access to calls that use the Huawei tech?).

So it will be a few years before 5G has a standard and is pervasive enough to make cellular companies wind down their 4G networks.

Re: 4G networks: good for a while, yet

[acelightning]

I'm glad to know that. If 5G isn't readily available, that means 4G is in less danger of being declared obsolete. Now if they can just get the damn cell towers to work.

Re: 4G networks: good for a while, yet

[thewayne]

The problem is that 5G is really sucky tech.  It's such a high frequency that it doesn't penetrate buildings well, so the coverage is much poorer, and you'll need a lot more towers!  It's a solution in search of a problem, and aside from providing more data bandwidth - if you can get a signal! - it doesn't solve anything.  4G has much better coverage.  Are they going to give you a repeater for your house for every account?

We had the same problem when I was at the police department (back in the '90s).  Motorola wanted us to swap out all of our 2 meter radios for 80 cm radios.  Problem was, 80 cm has a lot of issues penetrating buildings, especially when you're dealing with skyscrapers.  LAPD switched over and was going through hell with losing contact with officers in nasty situations.  We skipped that purchase, at least then we did.

[rain_gryphon]

The Apple Watch 4 introduced a fall detector, and with my osteopenia (pre- or first stage osteoporosis), I think it might be a wise thing to have as I'll be turning 60 in a couple of years(!). The fall detector, if it senses that you've fallen, will try to alert the wearer and ask them if they need help or to cancel the alert. If they don't cancel it, it'll send an alert to a pre-programmed list along with GPS location. And I found out that the Watch 4 and 5 can actually detect bike spills and car accidents, and after what we and our friend experienced in September and October, I like the idea of something else having my back in case I'm in a serious accident.

I read a story the other day (and cannot find it now, of course), about someone who had fallen over a cliff, and his Apple watch summoned help. I know that you can get apps for Android that do that as an aftermarket thing, and I'd not be surprised to find that they exist for Apple stuff too.

[thewayne]

I read about a guy who was riding out to meet his dad for a bike ride, his dad didn't show, and shortly after his phone alerts him that his dad had had a fall: crashed his bike and was pretty badly banged up!  All alerted from his Watch 4.  Pretty amazing tech, and apparently very hard to fool with a false fall. I think if I were to be frequently near cliff edges, I'd opt for the cellular version of the Watch!

[kraig]

My 2.5 year old 6S is cringing at being called "old tech" but its battery has been kind of screwy lately. :(

[thewayne]

I have a 6, and I replaced the battery in September.  I don't recall where you're located, but if you have an Apple Store nearby or can get to one, they'll replace it, IIRC, for about $50!  Just make an appointment.  New life to (sadly what they consider) old tech!

[kraig]

I have Apple Stores nearby, but it's not my personal phone, it's employer-provided. Dunno how keen they'd be on a battery replacement. My wife's 7 is personally-owned though, and she's been having some battery issues, so maybe we'll give them a ring, thanks!

[thewayne]

Yeah, a company phone changes the equation a bit.  Mine would absolutely require full charging twice a day!  Almost lived on the charger at work, I had to be careful to close certain apps like Find My Friends and WeatherBug.

Glad to help!