Advice for International iPhone Use
I just got my 8GB iPhone, (which I love), and will be heading for a 2 week Baltic cruise next week. AT&T confirmed that it will work in Europe and I have had International Roaming enabled on my account.
But this is damn expensive stuff. $1.99/min in most places ($4.99 in Russia!
) Not to mention almost 2 cents per KB. So my question is what is the best way to disable all this stuff to minimize my roaming charges. I really plan to have this only for emergency use.....in case someone needs to get a hold of me from back home. So I'll most likely turn the phone on once or twice a day to check messages and leave it powered off the rest of the time. But when I turn the phone on, I don't want it to start downloading my email, updating my weather widgets and any other "hidden" data transfers. So I'll be doing the following:
1) Set the Mail auto-check to "manual" (right before leaving).
2) Don't touch Safari.
3) Use SMS vs. phone when possible.
But what else? Do I have to remove all my Stocks and cities from World Clock? I don't see a setting for the widget updates.
And what about Visual Voicemail? How exactly does that work? Do all messages get downloaded to the iPhone? Or does it stream just the one you choose to listen to? I assume some kind of data transfer is done to show you how many messages you have and who they are from.
Any advice would be appreciated!
But this is damn expensive stuff. $1.99/min in most places ($4.99 in Russia!
) Not to mention almost 2 cents per KB. So my question is what is the best way to disable all this stuff to minimize my roaming charges. I really plan to have this only for emergency use.....in case someone needs to get a hold of me from back home. So I'll most likely turn the phone on once or twice a day to check messages and leave it powered off the rest of the time. But when I turn the phone on, I don't want it to start downloading my email, updating my weather widgets and any other "hidden" data transfers. So I'll be doing the following:1) Set the Mail auto-check to "manual" (right before leaving).
2) Don't touch Safari.
3) Use SMS vs. phone when possible.
But what else? Do I have to remove all my Stocks and cities from World Clock? I don't see a setting for the widget updates.
And what about Visual Voicemail? How exactly does that work? Do all messages get downloaded to the iPhone? Or does it stream just the one you choose to listen to? I assume some kind of data transfer is done to show you how many messages you have and who they are from.
Any advice would be appreciated!
Comments
I just got my 8GB iPhone, (which I love), and will be heading for a 2 week Baltic cruise next week. AT&T confirmed that it will work in Europe and I have had International Roaming enabled on my account.
But this is damn expensive stuff. $1.99/min in most places ($4.99 in Russia!
1) Set the Mail auto-check to "manual" (right before leaving).
2) Don't touch Safari.
3) Use SMS vs. phone when possible.
But what else? Do I have to remove all my Stocks and cities from World Clock? I don't see a setting for the widget updates.
And what about Visual Voicemail? How exactly does that work? Do all messages get downloaded to the iPhone? Or does it stream just the one you choose to listen to? I assume some kind of data transfer is done to show you how many messages you have and who they are from.
Any advice would be appreciated!
You can disable the antenna with "Airplane Mode" accessible from the Settings Menu right at the top. This would keep you from transmitting or receiving any data or voice unless you turned it back on to do what you had to do
You can disable the antenna with "Airplane Mode" accessible from the Settings Menu right at the top. This would keep you from transmitting or receiving any data or voice unless you turned it back on to do what you had to do
Right, but I need to turn airplane mode back off at some point over there to do SMS and get voice mail. I'm looking for advice as to what/how to disable the other stuff so that when I do turn airplane mode off, my iPhone doesn't flood the airwaves with unintended data transfers.
I'm traveling to London in a few days. I plan to purchase a prepaid SIM card and pop it into my unlocked RAZR. I can live without my iPhone for a week. I can get a prepaid SIM card with rates as low as 15c/min with free incoming calls.
I plan to purchase a prepaid SIM card and pop it into my unlocked RAZR. I can live without my iPhone for a week. I can get a prepaid SIM card with rates as low as 15c/min with free incoming calls.
Wow. I did not realize this was being done... makes a lot of sense. What are the biggest companies for this kind of product?
What's the sense of the iPhone being quad band if you can't pop in another (local) SIM card while traveling? I can see it being locked to ATT in the US, but you should be able to use it with any other carrier outside the US.
If it wasn't quad band you couldn't use it oversees, even with ATT simcard and roaming, since the phone wouldn't be able to receive the 900 and 1800 MHz used in Europe.
T-mobile unlocks loyal customers, if you tell them you want to use your phone in Europe with a local simcard, but I doubt that AT&T would do that for their iPhone customers.