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128 GB iPhone 14 "Starlight" my new Smartphone

After about 3 years with the iPhone SE2 it was time for a fresh start in the bigger iPhone 14. Using the old iPhone to transfer all its files & settings to the new one took about 40 minutes over Comcast Xfinity wife at home and was very simple and intuitive.


Setting up the Mint Mobile e-SIM required 3 phone calls, the use of my wife's iPhone 12 since my iPhone SE2 sim was bricked after the second phone call disconnected. 3rd phone call to the Philippines help center resulted in a completed electronic subscriber identify module installation via an EMAIL installation link & copying & pasting different codes into the related Mint Mobile app activation interface screens during Setup. 

Meg called the iPhone 14 "very beautiful, and I should hope so given that it cost $912 Unlocked at the Apple Store in Bellevue Square, Bellevue, Wa, USA. They promised to give me $100 for my iPhone SE2 when I bring it back. On that now :)

I went back & turned in the iPhone SE2 to the Apple Store where a younger man helped me do a full diagnostic test & factory reset the phone within about 10 minutes. He gave me a sim card tool to take the physical sim out of the iPhone SE2 since the iPhone 14 utilizes a software-based E-SIM or electronic subscriber identifier module. This means that iPhone 14 onward are able to hold up to 8 different E-SIM with up to 2 active E-SIM, one for home & one for business for example with two different phone numbers, but while traveling worldwide it is possible to load a pre-paid time defined or data defined electronic SIM so that you can use mobile broadband on your latest iPhone while on vacation for pleasure or business or both. 

I am not a professional Youtuber for example but have a YouTube channel. See below!

Aaron Schwarz - YouTube <click to visit my channel on YouTube :) 

Now closer to monetization, but I need more total viewing hours & subscribers to put ad revenue generating features onto my channels so that I can get paid for making content. I have been making videos with my cameras, computers & smartphones lately for more than 12 years. I have been working on this blog for a long time too. The blog makes a small amount of money via ads, something like $100 per year if I publish a lot. 

iPhone 14 thoughts after installing iOS 16 this morning 3/6/23
Love how the OLED can dim to nearly off, so using it in very low light does not flash blind your eyes like the older LED backlit TFT LCD of iPhones of yesteryear, though they can still be found on the iPhone SE3 the latest affordable iPhone for $400+ that was very similar to the iPhone SE2 that I traded in for the iPhone 14

So why would I spent $812 USD 2023 on an iPhone 14, since the SE2 did most of the same thing?  Especially given that the iPhone 13 nearly identical with the same SOC stack or A15 CPU, RAM, GPU logic chip brains that makes all the software magic work fast & efficient. Lets be clear, the iPhone 14 is the 16th version of Apple's iPhone lineup and comes in a + size, then a pro & pro max version with even better cameras and larger batteries & screen with slightly longer useful runtime per charge in the large versions at progressively higher prices as the basic 14 the base model of the latest generation of iPhone in early 2023, the 4 models were actually launched in late 2022.

E-SIM only in the USA and Canada, While Europe gets E-SIM + a nano-sim tray & Chinese market models have a dual nano-sim tray & no ESIM support! That means there is actually 12 different iPhone 14 models, depending on the market where they are sold. Having nano-sim tray would have match switching from my SE2 a lot faster & easier. 

Calls to Mint Sims support landed me in ESL call centers abroad & had to call back 3 times because the calls were dropped. They also bricked the sim in my existing SE2 so I was unable to get the security code text to setup my new phone & had to resort to using my wife iPhone 12 to call a 14 time when we finally got everything working. Took about an hour to get Mint-Sim working with ESIM mode on the 14, then I took the SE2 back to Apple for a trade in which went through in 10 minutes as the young man who helped me did all sorts of tests. I also had to log into my Apple account on the SE2 to remove "Find My iPhone" as a way of unlocking it for a factory reset. 

~L & S band Satellite SOS communication with 24 mo. access included. No funky thick antenna like a conventional Sat Phone either & the cash the Apple invested gets shared with Globalstar Inc. so they can continue to upgrade their satellite constellation. Its 15 seconds to send a 3x compression reduced data size text message with a clear view of the sky & holding the phone up to the sky, if you under light foliage the same message can take over 1 minute to send. These ultra slow data speeds mean the emergency satellite SOC mode that helps the user onscreen to point their phone in the right direction really only works in a pinch when there is an emergency need to communicate and no other practical way to connect. 

~5 forms of global navigation on iPhone 14 vs 2 on the SE2, though the 13 does this too! GPS, GLONASS, Baidoo, GNSS, Galileo / AGPS / DGPS/ UWB 5GNR triangulation & the 13 & 14 can even do inertial and celestial navigation with the correct Apps. I like the number 14 better than 13, though 12 was coolest since its an integral multiple of my favorite single number 4 :) which also reads as "for" in English and I am all for the iPhone 14 which entered my mind via a JerryRigEverything YouTube video about 4 months ago.

~Apple improved the reparability of iPhone 14 and having worked as a WISE certified LEVEL 2 professional device repair technician for years, I personally greatly appreciate a more easily reparable smartphone, since many become E-waste in short order because many are impractically expensive to repair, like $500 back glass repairs of iPhones from the recent past. 


~Superior OLED screen in iP14 vs LED LCD on SE2, brighter & dimmer & better color quality & contrast radically improved with superlative black & better color accuracy. 


~Faster battery charging & longer battery runtime per charge, nearly double the performance. I am a light smartphone user & do not use a lot of mobile data either. I rarely use much of my 4 GB monthly data plan, the smallest cheapest plan $180 per year or $15 per month. 


~Radically improved imaging technology in every respect with 2 cameras & better low light performance, sensor shift image stabilization faster responsiveness, faster autofocus, more modes for AI assisted photo enhancement in real time. 


~Stonger, better water sealing, better dust protection, enhanced IP rating for sealing against the elements, outdoors, while swimming or splashing or in the bathroom. Being able to warm rinse with soapy water to clean up the phone more practical than always needing IPA wipes or isopropyl alcohol, the DeFacto electronics cleaning solvent of choice by most techies and nerds. 


~Bigger better screen to body ratio, improved usability, on the border of being too big for one hand use, I am even reminded of the Samsung Galaxy Note 3 that I still use at home as a MID or mobile internet device to stream music through physical headphones connected by a wire to the stereo 1/8 headphone jack, specifically exceptional DT 77 Pro by Beyerdynamic. The only thing I dislike about iPhone is the lack of the headphone jack on recent models. I have wireless earbuds to solve that problem and refuse to buy Air Pods from Apple because they removed the headphone jack from iPhones to intentionally increase sales of their expensive good quality wireless earbuds made in Hong Kong by a hearing-air manufacturing company to exceptional quality control standards, but have sealed batteries that turn them into very expensive e-waste within 3 years of operating. Physical headphones with a wire can operate for decades, especially when made of metal & leather & strong durable polymers that hold up well over time. 

~MagSafe & Qi charging
~Holds value for trade-in for iPhone 16, let take $814 as the CPI for the iPhone 14 in inflation value losing united states dollars. The iPhone a tangible COTS or consumer off the shelf technology. iPhones are a consumer electronic, smartphone, but they also have an iconoclastic brand value proposition that Apple leverages to generate amazing revenue streams.

Lets suggest that I keep the iPhone 14 as my daily for 814 days, that would be $1 per day for the mobile internet device hardware. Internet the major App that people leverage over QUALCOMM technology licensed to all the wireless carriers. QUALCOMM known as the "unseen God of the tech sector, because it does not enjoy the same global fame & FanFair as popular company brans like Google & Microsoft & Ebay or Amazon or Alibaba. What has more an effect on your budget is your wireless plan. Meg & I for example both roll with $800 iPhones, Her's is a 12 mini from back then, an upgrade from the OG SE she operated previously. 

Back then (before 2017) we were using Versions smallest data plan & were paying $160 per month for 2 iPhones that we owned, purchased unlocked from Apple stores, so no phone mortgage fee or leasing of the devices. We now use Mint Mobile owned by Actor Ryan Renolds *Deadpool* & they have a funny way of communicating with customers, even in the Mint Mobile App. We each pay $180 per year or $15 per month, so that is $30 per month for both phones. Thats $130 monthly savings, which means many tens of thousands in lifetime savings on mobile data plans :) vs one of the big-name carriers like Verizon or Team Mobile or AT&T. We similarly switch car insurance to Geico, bundling both Toyota Prius, our Honda Scooter & Yamaha motorcycle, its 3x cheaper than our old State Farm plan :) 

Between data plans & vehicle insurance coverage cost optimization we setup a way to save over $25,000 in out-of-pocket costs over 10 years :) This explains how I even have money to buy an expensive new iPhone unlocked directly from Apple! I always buy phones unlocked. I resent the idea of being carrier locked and want to feel free to switch at any time if a better value comes along. Right now in America Mint Mobile offering me the lowest cost way to enjoy 4G LTE advanced and 5G + mm~Wave satellite access in emergency use case backup via the exceptional transceiver technology in iPhone 14 & newer! 

The iPhone 14 also works with my Apple Watch Series 8 better than SE2, because they utilize a newer more efficient communications protocol that uses less battery energy and has superior signal strength to form an body local area network. 

When you wear a smart watch, smart ring, smartphone & Smart clothes or smart shoes or smart jewelry you are forming a wireless data network around your body between these devices. Apple's ecosystem means that Apple Watch and iPhone play well together since they were designed to work together in their "walled garden" App ecosystem development philosophy or theory of operation as implemented in the circular headquarters or spaceship Apple down in California dreaming tax burden land on the lower west coast of the USA. 

While some RF not great for DNA or other cells of the human body, low energy Wi-Fi & Bluetooth have nearly no effects on human cells or DNA. HAM radio & RF tech history shows that some microwave frequencies at higher power levels & 50 MHz have higher biological effects by heating human tissue at higher RF power levels. Data to and from smartphones & other IOD wearables pulsatile or sporadic in nature, such that now CW or continual wave of RF impacting the body like it does when your making a voice phone call that continually beams data to & from the towers or over Wi-Fi since Wi-Fi calling features been available for some time now to help with dead zones & other tower signal shades & RF valleys & no coverage spots where WIFI routers hooked up to highspeed internet are common. Using a Wi-Fi signal analyzer at our Apartment shoes 20+ private locked WIFI networks in 2.4 & 5 GHZ on many different channels. 




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