On Wednesday, September 13, 2017 at 9:33:05 PM UTC-4, wrote:
trader_4 wrote:

On Tuesday, September 12, 2017 at 11:07:17 PM UTC-4, wrote:
trader_4 wrote:

For phone functions (talking) my wife and I have identical flip phones
which cost all of $200 a year for both (carrier cost) and they do text
messaging too..wow. I only found out about the latter when my son, the
proud owner of about 4 super-duper smart phones, borrowed one to send
a really urgent (!) text and they were all on charge or at home. I had
to suppress a giggle. Don't you people have spare fully-charged
batteries?

There is supposed to be a study on what people use their cell phones
for but I've never been able to find it. Maybe Apple paid to have it
suppressed? Any ideas?

I just gave you some good examples. Being able to reply to emails from
anywhere is another one.

You miss the point. I too can dream up examples where people "might"
use a cell phone.

I didn't dream up anything, I merely pointed out actual examples of
how I use my smartphone, how it's useful to me.



The study that I saw referenced an ongoing
categorized list containing quantities of people over a period of
time who (say):

Talked to b/f g/f about a previous date,
Made arrangements for a future date,
Moaned about the customers at their workplace,
Made appointments with Dr, Dentist, Optician, etc,
Gave excuses for failure to get to work on time,
Ordered a pizza/big Mac etc
Called in an order for a product (salesman type at the customer's
business),
Rang for a tow truck,
...
and on and on and on.

And all those can be done with an ordinary cell phone too,
yet you have one and it's OK. Go figure.





A few of these above are good use for a cell phone: the rest are a
failure of inter-personal relations, especially when they're done in
text messaging.

You're free to do things your way. That doesn't make the way other
people do them wrong. And one difference, if you text something to
someone or email it via a smartphone, it's not subject to their
mixing up numbers, getting the time wrong, when they write it down.
You have a record of it too. You may prefer getting a phone call,
having people interrupt you, having to take the call to find out
that someone just agreed that Friday at 2PM is OK to meet. I'd
prefer it in an electronic communication and don't see it as some
kind of failure at inter-personal communication.




As to your description of the restaurant use. Yikes! A discount? Yikes
again. Remind me never to eat with you g. Who was is who said: "If
you have to ask the price you can't afford it"? I think he was talking
about a yacht but a similar rule could apply to food. If the
restaurant applies a discount it's saying: "We want customers who
worry more about the cost than the quality of the food. We'll just
shove that past-its-prime fish off to them. They'll be counting their
saved dollars and they'll never notice."

You're free to do as you please. Feel free to pay full price. And
again, you're criticizing that which you don't use, so how would you
know? There are local restaurants that are on Groupon, that I had
been to before there was a Groupon. The food is very good. They
have good ratings online. They regularly offer Groupon deals for
half off. You can be at the other table paying full price, I don't
care, it's your choice. But you might want to at least look at
what's there, before you start jumping to totally unfounded conclusions.
I've used Groupon many times. Some food is excellent, some is OK,
a few aren't so good. It's a way to try new restaurants, try new
things, and even eat at some regular places at half price. I've had
great food at 3 star restaurants with world famous chefs and I've
had great food from a shack or street vendor in China. Price
one way or the other doesn't mean it's good or bad.





Your trial of new cuisines is commendable but go to restaurants that
are the top of the line within the category. Or at least above average
as best you can determine. Look at food quality not cost. Very often
they track though.


I don't need your condescending advice on what makes good food.
And I don't just look at cost. But I think it's nuts to pay full
price like the table next to me, when I can get it for half price
and it's all the same excellent food.

You really take the cake. This was a thread about whether the features
of the new $1000 iPhone are worth it. You don't use a smartphone, yet
here you are telling us the whole category isn't needed. Obviously
hundreds of millions of people, including many in third world countries,
disagree with you. Your comments would be like me coming into a
discussion about whether a high end Beretta shotgun is really worth the
price and bitching about who needs a shotgun anyway, when I don't own
one. And then you imply
that I'm trying to be cheap by taking advantage of Groupon deals,
something you again have no knowledge of,
while you freely brag about how cheap you are, paying only $200
a year for basic cellphones. Go figure. I pay a little more, find
the value proposition well worth it, and you have a problem with
that. Nobody here is criticizing you for doing it your way.