Headset… isn’t happening.
Can’t exactly have a headset while wearing a welding helmet..
can’t exactly wear a headset with a stocking cap covering the ears in the winter..
can’t use headphones to get in the way while you grind, weld, use a chop saw etc..

think of using the phone in an industrial setting.

I use a headset, Jabra Icon HD which works great with Siri.. But Using a headset is not an option for my dad, neither is wired headphones.
Hardware button is pretty much it.

My only option is one of the android/blackberry phones so he can text/email with it (he does on his iPad already) or iPhone and jailbreak it and enable the home button to answer a call.

or some flip phone and no email/text.

Either that or hope that the iPhone 5 updates siri to answer calls…
Any iOS 6 beta user know if that may be coming?

(then again, his current phone is shot. his contract is gone.. and i’m not sure he can wait till sept for a phone.)

End result: more Android sales. The dedicated base won’t mind waiting, but there’s more than enough “casual” iPhone users who aren’t that locked into apps and are lured by the bigger screens, etc.

Blackberries still have the hardware button though, thats a thought… sad one, but still.

the flip phone is pretty much why he’s going to have to do i’m thinking.

@Bizlaw
having two phones won’t work for him, he’d quit using one after a day i’d guess. too much of a hassle to always swap.

I’m just trying to get a decent phone for him that can email and text. I would prefer an iPhone obviously for iMessage etc.
I have an iPhone, my mother does, my brother in law does, as does my niece. Next week is my other nieces birthday, both her and my sister are getting iPhones that day. (Was planned for a while, but the niece doesn’t know yet)
So in my immediate family that I speak with regularly, everyone has an iPhone. Except my dad…

He uses the iPad, and loves it. But that may as far as he goes with Apple though.

As others have reported here on MDN in the past, this is AT&T reps weren’t pushing MicroNokia phones, favoring Android or Apple.

As was mentioned above, a first had account that sales folk get more commission for selling Android. These folks are generally poorly paid; I can see how that would sway them.

Maybe Apple needs to restrict iPhone 2012 shipments to Verizon, AT&T, and any other carrier that engages in such behavior. But then, it would be cutting off their nose to spite their face.

and Siri doesn’t answer calls. (Yet anyway)

Another potential might be if he could get a second flip phone or other feature phone and have either his iPhone forward to it when he is in the shop or maybe he could get both to ring on the same number through the provider.

Not sure what the iMessage system is supposed to do; store the message if it can’t reach the other? SMS isn’t guaranteed delivery, but in my experience those at least those get stored and delivered whenever the system catches up or your phone comes online again (if it was in airplane mode for example).

It is true that Android recovers money faster, due to the substantially higher subsidy on the iPhone. However…

Customer churn is probably the biggest problem carriers have. Acquiring a new customer is a great thing; holding onto him is infinitely greater. When such customer buys an Android phone, it is more than likely that he’ll buy another phone as soon as that subsidy expires. This doesn’t work well for two reasons; number one, he may easily go to another carrier; number two, the sweetest money comes from contract customers whose contract has expired, but are still on the same phone (the subsidy portion is essentially free money for the carrier).

When a customer buys an iPhone, the carrier will initially take longer time to recover that upfront subsidy. However, that iPhone customer will remain fiercely loyal to the iPhone. Many hold on to their 3Gs and 3GSs, even though they could have upgraded them long ago. Meanwhile AT&T continues to get full monthly subscription (portion of which is to recover the subsidy, which has been recovered long ago).

Selling Androids is a very short-sighted strategy. People who buy iPhones stay on longer, don’t jump carriers and often let their contract expire long before they upgrade their phone (because they are SATISFIED with the device, unlike Android sufferers).

Why? Because while the users pay the same, iPhone users tend to consume more resources and force the carrier to spend money to actually improve service/capacity (scandalous, I know).

Then of course there’s the bigger subsidy the carrier pays Apple for the iPhone. We’re talking maybe $100 more per user when compared to an equivalent Android phone, but the math quickly adds up (1000 iPhone users = $0.1 million in “lost” profit).

As a company they want users to pay for service/resource but use it as little as possible.

Vast majority of android phones DON’T have a hardware button for answering the phone. In fact, most Android phones today don’t even have the standard four buttons (Home-Back-Menu-Search) as physical (they are often virtual, but always present on screen). The few that do have the physical green-red buttons are the bottom-of-the-barrel, cheap devices by Huawey, Pantech and similar Chinese brands. These are definitely not recommended for someone like your dad.

This pretty much leaves you with the old-school “featurephones” (such as the low-end Pantech devices on AT&T). These don’t require data plans, have reasonably large red and green buttons, large screens (for easier reading) and decent battery life (as they aren’t Android).

Just the other week my wife and I were in an Apple store talking to a Genuis, because she spider-webbed her screen, and he checked our upgrade date, found it it’s this Nov. and he said just to come into the Apple store and you can do all that stuff there and avoid the Verizon store altogether. That’s our plan. Last time I upgraded, I called Verizon’s corporate sales line and upgraded direct, bypassed the store and it was so easy.

1: these companies make more money selling other handsets. Apple is greedy with their price (and they should be because it’s the best)

2: the 3G networks are getting bogged down (at least in the Boston area) so they are pushing 4G phones (at Verizon anyway).

I disagree with lying but the sales people get spiffs and bigger commissions selling other products. If you want honesty maybe a place like best buy where the employees don’t get commissions. Even there they have geeks that will tell you lies…. It’s not a perfect world!!

Don’t discount voice activation…

Siri: “Call from ‘Billy the Fish’”.
FTB’s Dad: “Answer call”
(Siri answers call)
FTB’s Dad: “Billy, you’re an idiot, go away”

it’s not that he’s disabled, 99% he’s wearing GLOVES. and NO don’t mention putting those addend to gloves so he can use the touch screen. rough LEATHER or RUBBER gloves that he’s have to replace those pads daily. it won’t happen.

He uses his iPad in the house all the time, He just can never answer the iPhone in time. (He had an iPhone for 20 days once) He has to take his gloves off to answer it… and in the middle of -10 weather… his hands can’t unlock the screen cause they are cold along with the screen. My dad does not work indoors.. even though he’s retired, he’s either working on his ’23 T, ’37 Chevy, any of his Boats, yard work, welding, woodwork etc.
an iPhone won’t work for him, sadly you CAN answer a phone with a hardware button on android.
and his hands are huge, typing on the 3.5 screen is rough for him, it’s a one finger deal.. a slide out keyboard is actually better for him.
I even looked into one of those bluetooth keyboards that slides out for the iPhone. Still can’t answer a call with a button though.

his old POS phone is on it’s last leg he needs a new phone. it’s an old flip phone, and the screen on the outside isn’t even there anymore.. it broke, and it finally fell out.

and yes I know that if I jailbreak it, he CAN answer with the home button.

I’ve been down this road multiple times here on MDN, everyone thinks they have the answer with bluetooth or those tech gloves/dots. but what nobody understands is what my dad does. he’s not your typical old fart. he has a 40×60 shop and a 2 car garage FULL of tools. And I mean full… there are only paths to walk through. Lathe, Milling machine, multiple presses, 3 different welders etc.
If he got an iPhone, he’d have to jailbreak it to be able to even answer half the time, and one of the defender cases.

When AT&T had the exclusive on the iPhone in the U.S., it brought in lots of new post-paid (contract) customers. But AT&T gave an unprecedented level of power to Apple for that privilege. Now AT&T has to compete with Verizon and, with the Android phones (particularly the Samsung iPhone copies) gaining a bit of steam, both AT&T and Verizon would like to take Apple down a notch and recapture some of that lost control. That’s how I read it, anyway.