Akpparently this won't help you, but this is my DD's recent email: "This is why technology is awesome: I lost my phone at a concert last night. As soon as I knew it was gone, I started calling it. Whoever had it was not answering. I set it to "lost phone mode" from a friend's phone, which sent a display message to my phone saying that it was lost and giving a contact number to reach me. This morning I used the Find My iPhone app, which pinned it to a house in Littleton, giving me an address and a map. After I filed a police report online, I called the Littleton police, who went to the house (which turned out to be a duplex, but Find My iPhone was pretty specific, pinning my phone's location to the northern unit in the building. I took a screen shot of map and texted it to the officer.). So the cops walked into the apartment and let the ladies living there know that they'd tracked a stolen phone to their house. There was some go-around, but after they were told that a stolen phone carried a grand larceny charge (which actually isn't true, the cop was bluffing), they managed to find the phone and give it to the officer. So I got my phone back and didn't have to drop $400 at the Verizon store"!

Ahhh, that's really sweet. I've forgotten, how old is he? Shirley

"I can use Google apps on my Apple iPhone, and sync that iPhone with my Microsoft laptop running Windows." Apple products are still less, not more, interoperable with third party products. A friend of mine, a pretty consistent Apple products user, has to maintain a Windows PC to use three very common financial products - Turbo Tax, Quicken, and Quickbooks. One of the three-maybe Turbo Tax - has a Mac version but my friend says it sucks compared to the Windows version. I think two of the others aren't available at all in Mac versions. These are widely used programs, with tens of millions of customers. As far as Apple compatibility with other standard products, well, duh. Maps are another good example. The iPhone map app has struggled, playing catchup for years and years and (according to iphone users I know) still isn't there yet. They could easily encourage use of the Google Map app to give users a more useful capability but they won't do so. My immediate thought concerning what lars was talking about when he said "I prefer to have more choices than what Apple offers". is how in the Apple world, there are few user configurable options and no alternative sources of equipment manufacturers (which keeps prices somewhere in check). As an example of inflexibility, I use Itunes as a "podcaster" or podcast aggregator. In it I choose what podcast series I want to receive regularly and when I trigger an update, it does the download. Itunes has this annoying feature that it periodically unsubscribes me from podcasts I've set up to have downloaded. . I called Apple support and asked why. The support guy asked "Do you ever listen to the podcasts on your PC?" I said "No". He said "That's one of the most useful features - when you haven't listened to the podcast in (I think he said) 2 weeks, we know you don't want it anymore so we switch the status to "not subscribed". I said - "No, not at all. I download the podcasts to the PC but then transfer the files to two different portable players that I use to listen to them. In doing that, I never listen on the PC. How can I change the setting so that it doesn't keep unsubscribing me". He replied- "You can't change that setting, it's made that way to be most useful to our customers" I got what I should have expected - a BS answer akin to the joke from long ago in the consumer-market software industry - No, that isn't a bug, that's an intentional feature. WIndows PC and Android device users are accustomed to being able to choose configuration options so that the devices behave as they prefer. I understand that at first pass sometimes for beginner level users, this can provide some difficulties and frustrations but all of it is well documented and can be learned. Apple products often don't offer options.

My phone finally arrived on Oct. 26. In the meantime, the exact same phone became available in several Apple stores, but I could wait a few days for it. I like it and am learning the new features. Its such a luxury to have enough memory to download my apps. My son helped me transfer from my old phone to new, so I didnt have to go to the dreaded Apple store. I like the size. It took me a few days to get accustomed to the slightly heavier weight. Oh, and UPS tossed the box on a bench by my front door, no signature. I kept an eye on it via my doorbell cam until I got home.