So I'm not very excited by the iphone5 news.... What should I buy instead?

[Tobermory]

Im an apple fan.
I have a mac. And an iPad. And have had an iPhone since the beginning.
But the love affair is over.... At least with the phone.... I think!

I've been waiting for the 5 to arrive, in order to replace my dying iPhone, for the best part of a year. But now wondering if there's a better alternative.

I like to take photos, mumsnet surf the net, text/call.....the usual.

My brother was talking about a new Nokia. Or the most recent Samsung?

What else could I buy?

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

Ah well, I was debating this today with someone. Are you too locked into Apple to change? I'm the same as you, iPhone since day one, every model. iPads, Macs since the early 90's. I've no wish to ditch my iPhone but if I did, I've got hundreds and hundreds of apps that have been paid for, tons of music from the iTunes store etc. It'd be shitloads of hassle to change allegiance.

[Needalifeagain]

Me too.
Have been nursing my very knackered iPhone 4( toddler damage) but think its past it now.
Again Apple fan but not enthused!
What to do?!

[Tobermory]

Glad it's not just me!

Any apps I have a also on the iPad, which I love and won't be parted from.
iTunes- on mac and iPad.... Don't use my phone for music.

I guess I need to think about how it would affect me.
Could I load photos on an alternative phone another way?
See, I'm soo apple field that I don't the answer to that v basic question!

Needalifeagain, have you looked at any?

[Theas18]

I am /was n apple fanboy from early on- typing this on my 1st gen iPad after all. Had a 3G and iPhone 4.

Got gradually disillusioned - many around the apple stranglehold eg crippled blue tooth , iTunes/apple device only etc etc

I defected in may and bought a galaxy note. I use note taking/ minor document work a lot for work ( I evn av the apple blue tooth keyboard to use with the iPhone/iPad!).

Well, 4 months down the line I'm pretty happy with my note. It's been a bt of a learning curve of course. Something's it does loads better - free from iTunes - yay for google sync ( was already running a family google calendar anyway) schedules wireless podcast delivery etc etc . Odd things is n so good - I haven't found a time sheet app I like much- but that's maybe the niggle I notice - so not a biggie.. It might be a little more unstable as a platform , but with different developers aps that's inevitable.

Best of all probably the huge memory from a 16gb phone with a32gb card in, and the joy of spare batteries- I can take notes at meetings all day and not have carry a charging cable and by the socket !

I did fear the5 might have me rushing to flog the note and buy a 5 but it's frankly underwhelming.

The note also works well as a phone despite it's size, and the handsfree is great- I can converse with it sat on the desk at work without any problem. The 4 couldn't do that.

Oh and so much cheaper too!

( of course you can load photos into the note it's beautiful to show them off. I have mine on picasa in the cloud and the albums sync with the phone )

[Theas18]

Btw, it wasn't " shitloads of hassle to change allegiance" either, though I don't have many paid apps anyway ,a huge iTunes library would be annoying, if you needed music to be mobile I guess. Im mainly a podcast gal.

[SunWukong]

Don't understand you people, do you still have every cd you ever bought, every book?, did you one day decide you needed a clear out and you don't listen to that anymore, you've read that enough times etc.

What's the difference between all the shit you've bought off apple and all the shit you buy in real life.

[RunRabbit]

Buy the Samsung Galaxy S3

Android is the way forward. I have never had an iPhone but do have a Mac and iPod.

TBH I regret buying the Mac because I could have bought a laptop with better specs for cheaper. For this reason I would not buy the iPhone because frankly there are better phones on the market.

[WingDefence]

I've got an iPhone 4 and a iPad3, plus DH and I have had iPods since the start. We have tons of music all in iTunes, docks in every room etc. We have bought quite a lot directly from iTunes as we have thousands of CDs in our household and buying digitally saves space so no, we don't still have every item of music we've ever bought in a physical format. Also it would take a bloody long time to reconvert everything into another format.

Saying all that, I'm really hacked off with Apple for changing the docking/charger socket for the new iPhone so that everything else we have (car chargers as well as the docks etc) becomes redundant in time. We only got our iPhones this January so should hopefully last a bit longer but I'm just annoyed about it.

[PropositionJoe]

The S 3 is the answer, I think

[MissPerception]

I am revolting (ahem). I have a Nokia something. I detest all this I phone crap and will not, ever, have one.

I bought an Apple fancy ipad thingymebob computer and it's "not all that" as they say in North London, I believe.

[MissPerception]

Oh shit..is an I phone different from an Apple phone then? I'm so confused by this "new fangled terminology: (can\t even find the correct buttons on the keypad here+])

[SunWukong]

But would you really care if you lost it all?, everything gets chucked out eventually with you having the view that you've had your monies worth out of it.

What's the difference if you don't want the products don't buy them, why the obligation to continue the brand loyalty over some songs that you've listened to and didn't cost that much.

Shouldn't you just chalk it up to experience you know how much you are locking in now and that if you downloaded them elsewhere they wouldn't be locked and move on.

[MurderOfProse]

I had a 3GS, and got a 4S in November. Contract was only 18 months, and I'm now 90% sure I'll be ditching Apple when it expires. They're not the innovators they once were, not at all. Android is taking over now.

Back in the day I used to adore Symbian smartphones (so much so I ended up working for them writing the software!) and it felt so sad to see the innovation disappearing, swallowed under a pile of basically bureaucracy. We still had the same talent working there, but nobody really came up with anything new or if they did it was stifled further up the chain. I left the company after Nokia took over and I took voluntary redundancy, but by that point I'd already bought my first iPhone so I knew the writing was on the wall if a diehard fan and employee like me would switch brands. I sense history is repeating itself with the iPhone now, although I should point out I most certainly do not work for Apple unless you count feeding them to my apple-obsessed DCs!

I still have my iPad so I won't be losing my apps, and most of the apps I regularly use have Android equivalents. I only ever used iTunes in Windows for playing music and I still have that. Am hoping for an exciting Android phone coming out around the time my contract expires next May!

[NetworkGuy]

Little bit of tunnel vision, I think, SunWukong, if you think people are really willing to 'throw' hundreds or thousands of pounds worth away (eg a music collection bought via iTunes).

I know it may, in hindsight, have been a regrettable decision, but one they took some time back, and not everyone can simply afford to 'throw' and buy fresh.

OK, for myself, I tend to listen, via internet/radio, to lots of music, but stopped buying any CD over 8 quid back in 1995, when I bought a few CDs on holiday in USA.

I would not use iTunes to buy music, personally, because (a) I didn't much like iTunes anyway, and (b) because any old MP3 can be easily moved to any device I own, but once you've locked into iTunes you'd have to spend time converting.

Some time back a friend showed me the MusicM8 (a repackaged PC which can 'rip' CDs). Same firm that produced it came out with Rip Station Micro (from memory - not on this Apple iMac [!!]) as a freebie, which can do multiple format ripping in one pass (so a high quality one for home network and a 192kbps sample for a phone or MP3 player). Great for anyone with CDs to hand.

I can see why people with existing kit won't be especially pleased about the iPhone 5's new connector, but that's a minor factor considering that Vodafone and O2 are locked out for some time anyway, at least for anyone wanting to be able to use higher-speed internet on 4G. Pricing is another factor, and it may be that people are waking up to why Apple is leaping over the heads of other big corporations in the financial stakes... they simply charge so much more than their products cost to make, while many Android phones are rock bottom price wise, and contracts reflect that.

[GwendolineMaryLacey]

Do you really throw away your music collection SunWuKong? Listen to an album once or twice and then ditch it? Goodness, what a strange thing to do.

[Wordsmith]

I got rid of my iPhone 3GS in July as it was costing me £35 a month and I wanted something cheaper. I did an online search for the best rated smartphone and it was the Samsung Galaxy S2 (although the S3 has now taken the top spot). I spoke to a few friends who had the Samsung S2 and they said it was fab. Plus I found a deal with Vodafone for £20 a month and free phone so it was a no-brainer.

Can't say I've been disappointed. It takes a while to get used to it when you've had an iPhone but the screen is amazingly bright, photos and videos (HD) are incredible and it does everything the iPhone does and more. The only drawback was I couldn't upload my iTunes music (or so i thought) but then the other day - ta-dah! - I found the easyphonesync app which you can download from the Android Marketplace (or whatever they call it now). You also install it on the computer that has your iTunes on it, plug in the phone to synchronise and that's it!

So free yourself from the iTyranny and come over to Android!

[niceguy2]

I fear judging from the responses on this thread that Apple are heading into trouble.

Like Theas18, I jumped ship to a Galaxy Note some time ago having been a loyal iphone fan since the 3G.

I haven't looked back at all. App-wise, I found that the apps I used the most such as Facebook, Whatsapp, Evernote, Flixster etc They were all free apps anyway on Android. Of the paid apps I used, very very few I actually needed and even fewer I couldn't find a free replacement from the Android store.

The screen on the Galaxy Note is simply sublime. Viewing photos on it is a dream, the blacks wonderful.

The iphone 5 is simply a slight improvement over the 4S with a slightly bigger screen. Sorry but it's too little too late.

Instead of chasing Samsung around the world and dragging them into court, Apple should be focusing on better design and innovative features.

A slightly thinner phone....big deal. It's hardly like the 4S was a heffalump.

Lastly unless I'm missing something, I thought you could export music purchased in iTunes to MP3?

[Lisatheonewhoeatsdrytoast]

I have the Galaxy S3 and i adore it, i'm right put off apple, since i had numerous problems with itunes and my ipod :(

[duchesse]

I still have a 5 year old 3gs that I'm perfectly happy with, never tempted by the 4, so the 5 is just anathema to me.

[duchesse]

Wordsmith- you could have renegotiated your old iphone contract if it had reached the end of its tie-in period. I did at the end of mine and went down to £15/month with more minutes, more texts and the same data allowance.

[mimimomma]

I had an iphone, but got bored of it. I didn?t want to get an Android phone, because I don?t like the idea of it selling all of my usage data to advertisers so I went against the gain and bought a Nokia Lumia and LOVE it. I was able to transfer all of my contacts and itunes library really easily so it wasn?t the burden I thought it would be. I use it for pretty much, everything now. The interface is so much more modern than the iphone and doesn?t look like a messy desktop of icons. I?ll defiantly be upgrading to the next version of Windows Phone, and it will probably be the next Nokia Lumia as well. Plus it's white...mmmm lovely.

[ilovemydogandMrObama]

so, what would happen if I got the 3g?

[Lolwhut]

I was going to buy an IPhone 5 and give my old iPhone to my eldest DS coz I am a cool Mum but, having read the spec of the new iPhone I am not going to bother. The fact I would need a £25 adapter for all my apple leads, camera adapters etc pisses me off too much. So greedy of them. Also, the new screen still isn't big enough. I am still an apple fan but I am giving this one a miss. I am just about to tell DS I will get him an IPhone 4 he is going to be so excited. He is 20 and his current phone doesn't even get the Internet.

[WingDefence]

Aha Lolwhut there'll be an adapter? That'll be good (when DH and I ever upgrade).

And Sun we are massive music fans in this household. 2000+ vinyl records that still get played, thousands (as I said before) of CDs and more besides. We certainly don't feel trapped by Apple: we like our iPods and iPhones thanks very much for apps and phone capability as well as music. But it does limit choice for the future.

(Saying that, we're also now Spotify subscribers so that has cut down ont he music we are actually buying.)