you could get the IPhone SE, it has a smaller 4" screen, but still has Touch ID, 12 mp camera, can still record 4K video with rear camera (720p with front). The 32GB model is $14 per month, $18 for the 128 GB.

Apple is actually offering 8 different models for sale at once starting in November when the X is for sale. The X, 8 plus, 8, 7 plus, 7, 6S plus, 6S, and SE.

Yeah, I already don't like $30, I'm definitely not paying $50.

 

This. It already kills me to dish out $30 a month for a stupid phone. No chance I'd ever consider paying more.

Just got back from two nights in Bay area. Apple is good business - for hotels. $379 a night for a Hampton Inn....

They weren't at the Niners game, tumbleweeds in that stadium

Just like always, I suppose that I will stay a few generations behind the times because I just can never justify forking over the cash required to be the first on my block to have the most up-to-date, and current inventions.

 

When it comes to cars, phones, stereos, TV's, computers, etc... somehow I've managed to get to age 53 using the same approach instilled in me by my Dad (raised during the Great Depression), of not having to keep up with the Joneses.

 

As a kid I always wished that we had something brand spanking new, yet my Dad steadfastly remained frugal, and we were the last to get color TV with UHF, always had used cars, tended to get knock-off versions of brand named toys or electronics...

 

...you get the idea...

 

...and while as a kid it always felt so lame and second rate, no doubt by the time the bucks had to come out of my own pocket, I instantly began to comprehend his wisdom, and have followed it without fail my entire adult life, and have never felt that I was lacking.

 

I know that he'd be proud, and I just wish that I had the opportunity to sit down with him and map out every detailed way that I have followed his lead, and even some of the more ingenious ways that I've applied his vision.

 

Though I began working in a computer oriented field in 1983, I never personally owned a computer until 2007.

 

I observed my co-workers year after year go through one PC after the other while filling up their garages with countless stacks of outdated computer equipment and spaghetti wires knowing full good and well that the day would come for a more simplistic approach.

 

Until I finally jumped on board, the 40 hours a week that I had access to the most state-of-the art equipment at my workplace was more than sufficient to keep me in the know, and satisfied.

 

When the Facebook craze began, myself and many of my colleagues who had been schooled for years in high security watched in amazement how the general public, my siblings included, so carelessly jumped at the chance to allow themselves to be on display opening up opportunities for hackers to have a field day.

 

Though I had an email account long before my family even knew what that was, recently my sister, because I'm not on Facebook, asked me if I had email yet. LOL!

 

I forget exactly when I got my first cell phone, but when I did it was the bottom of the line cheapest Nokia available, and within a year was notified by the phone company that the phone would no longer work in the system, and that they'd give me a free phone to become up-to-date. Though I've had a couple of behind the times blackberry versions of phones, it wasn't until last year that I finally had a true smartphone, and even that one is pretty much old and bottom of the line.

 

Jeez, you have a permanently affixed "stay off my lawn" sign in your yard, don't you?

Jeez, you have a permanently affixed "stay off my lawn" sign in your yard, don't you?

 

I don't personally own a lawn. The world is full of them, and I'm surrounded by them, and take delight in their beauty without having to expire the time and energy, or the cost of the equipment being responsible for them.

 

I take a less is more approach to personal belongings to avoid living the myth that I own things, when ultimately they will own me... and all said and done... I can't take them with me.

 

"I only ask to be free. The butterflies are free". - Charles Dickens

 

For better or for worse, and likely to be widely viewed as dishonorable, ironically I'm probably not much different than the character in his novel for which this line is applied.

The cost of the phone wouldn't stop me from getting it if I had to have a new one. I mean there is no other devise in my life I use more than my phone. I didn't hesitate a bit to pay $1500 for a TV or $700 for a computer. I don't use either a fraction as much as I do my phone.

 

That said I can't justify the spend when my iphone 6 was just fine. Before when you could get the latest and greatest at discounted price with a contract I always upgraded when eligible. Now my phone will have to crap out first.