My iPhone 5S

I first had my taste of iOS back with the iPhone 3G with AT&T. The phone experience was great, but the service coverage was horrible. Unfortunately, that tainted my feelings towards iOS and ever since then I changed cell phone provider and used Android OS. Years later and a handful of frustrations, I decided to go back to iOS. I felt it was a good time being iOS 7 is releasing along with the iPhone 5S.

I’ve had the phone since release day (September 20, 2013) – been very busy with things so I couldn’t blog about it. Plus I wanted to spend a few days (weeks) before posting and get familiar with it. So, release day I waited in several lines. The first line I tried was a Verizon store near the house. I arrived before 8am but the staff informed me that they are only selling to new customers, upgrading customers, and add-on customers. Basically, those who will sign a contract. I didn’t want a new contract since I’m currently in one and would not qualify for an upgrade. Leaving upset, I tried another Verizon store.

To my surprise, this Verizon store didn’t care what your situation is. I told them I will be buying full retail, will they sell me one? They said yes. Apparently it was only that first location that was doing this. I called Verizon and complained. Hopefully someone got in trouble. So now I’m in line but it’s taking way too long and I had a meeting to attend. I decided to try my luck during my lunch break. This line wasn’t as bad as the Apple Store in the mall. The line wrapped around several stores – I’d say it was at least 2 blocks long with over 200 people outside and probably another 50 inside.

Lunch time came around. I tried Best Buy. Did you know that Best Buy’s retail price of the phone is $50 more than everyone else? Well, it didn’t matter as they were putting names down rather than lining up. So I got my name listed and went to get some food so I can eat while I waited.

At the same plaza, there was a Verizon store. I figured I’ll line up here and see which will come first – Best Buy or Verizon. Best Buy said they would text me when it was my turn. Almost 2.5 hours later, I finally got it. The only color available was the space grey. The silver was sold out as with many retailers and the Gold was never available. Only Apple had the Gold on release day. I didn’t care much for the color since I’ll be using a case anyway. So I went with the space grey 16GB. Here are some pics.

After a few weeks of using iOS again, it felt great compared to Android. I’m finally back using a software that will get updates – unlike Android, unless you get the vanilla package (which is limited to GSM phones) or rooting it – which makes it even more unstable.

I’ll be posting about my experience soon.