The World According to Mitch

Friday afternoon I went to the Apple Store in Mapleview Mall (Burlington) to pick up a new phone.  I was served by the lovely Miss Stefanie, who was really great (see article).  I was on the fence about the iPhone 6 versus the iPhone 6 Plus, so Stefanie suggested I do what she called ‘The Pocket Test.’  Simply put: see if it fits in your pocket.  The 6+ did, but I was still unsure.  Since the Apple/Rogers method allows a 15/30 return policy (15 days OR 30 minutes talk time) I was worried I wouldn’t be able to change my mind in time… but I was going to the U.S.A. for the weekend, so I wouldn’t be doing much talking.  Okay, let’s try the 6+.

I want to preface what I am going to say about the phone with a very definitive comment: The 6+ is a great phone.  It is pretty, it is great, the screen is wonderful.  It is also likely big enough to take cover behind should you ever find yourself under enemy fire.  If I thought my old Nokia Lumia 920 was big, it didn’t compare to this.  I tried it for the weekend and decided it was not the phone for me.  Why?  I like the fact that I could use my old iPhone 5 one-handed, and that was just not possible with this beast.  This wouldn’t be a differentiator for people with smaller hands – they might have needed both hands to operate the smaller device anyways.  However my hands are pretty big, and so that was it.  Oh, and it fit into my car-clip… barely, and only without the protective case. 

Verdict: Great phone… but not for me.

I spent a couple of hours Monday afternoon at the same Apple Store.  This time Felicia helped me until her shift ended and Stefanie freed up, and she was just as great and friendly as Stef was.  Yay Felicia and Stefanie!

I should mention, by the way, that I am never comfortable walking into an Apple Store, especially if they are busy.  You might wait around for ten minutes before anyone acknowledges you.  I was ready to fire off a signal flare when Helmut (a nice guy) came up and made sure Felicia was going to take care of me.

Because Rogers was involved (they are paying for the phone, after all!) Felicia and I had to figure out together how to do the exchange. It didn’t take long, and she was very professional as she spoke to the agent from Rogers.

The hardest part about exchanging the phone was the same issue I had when I traded up from my now defunct iPhone 5: Restoring from the iCloud Backup can take a lot of time… and before you do that, you first have to apply the latest patches to the phone.  So I literally spent two hours at the store (I would rather use their power and wifi than Starbucks because they are more reliable).  Everyone was very nice… even though, as my new Fruit Phone initialized and patched and restored I was sitting there on my HP Pro Tablet 408… the one that looks a bit like an iPad, but has a micro-USB port, micro-HDMI port, and the option to extend your device with a Micro-SD card so that the native 64gb storage is now 128gb   Every time I pointed this out to Stefanie she grumbled.

Why did I point it out, you may ask? Because I found it amusing that every time another ‘genius’ approached us she introduced me as:’This is Mitch.  He used to work at Microsoft.’  I wasn’t sure if she was warning them that I was really the enemy, or that I knew what I was talking about so they better not BS me   But everyone was nice and it was all in good fun.

So I have now been running the iPhone 6 (nonplussed) for a day and a half, and it is just as good in almost every way as the 6 Plus.  I have noticed a couple of differences that work in the bigger device’s favour, but not enough to change my mind.  I made the right decision trading the Mammoth in for the smaller cousin.

Verdict: The iPhone 6 is a great device… for me!

Apple makes some great products.  Even if I do not like the iPad Mini over my HP Pro Tab 8 (or HP Stream 7), or the iPad over my Surface Pro 3, or the MacBook Air over my Surface Pro 3 (again!) does not mean they are bad… they are just not for me.  Of course, 18 months ago I wouldn’t have imagined I would be using an iPhone over my Windows Phone 8 device, but here I am.  As long as the device does what you want, pick the one you prefer.  It is about functionality, not flash.  Yes, I am still a Windows fan, and an HP fan.  However we are now five years into the Windows Phone experiment, and they are still not nearly as functional as the iPhones are.  So no, I am not switching back anytime soon… to the shock and dismay of many friends I suspect!