iPhone: The Missing Manual, 11th Edition

Appendix A. Signup & Setup

You gotta admit it: Opening up a new iPhone brings a certain excitement. There’s a prospect of possibility, of new beginnings. Even if you intend to protect your iPhone with a case, there are those first few minutes when it’s shiny, spotless, free of fingerprints or nicks—a gorgeous thing.

This chapter is all about getting started, whether that means buying and setting up a new iPhone, or upgrading an older model to the new iOS 11 software that’s described in this book.

Buying a New iPhone

Each year’s new iPhone model is faster, has a better camera and screen, and comes packed with more features than the previous one. Still, “new iPhone” doesn’t have to mean the iPhone X ($1,000 or $1,150, either up front or spread out over two years) or even the iPhone 8 ($700). You can still get an iPhone 7 for $550, an iPhone 6s for $450, or an SE for $350. (Thank heaven, the U.S. carriers no longer obscure the true price of the phone in two-year contracts.) And, of course, you can get even older models dirt cheap, used.

In any case, once you’ve chosen the model you want, you also have to choose which cellphone company you want to provide its service: AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile, or Sprint.

Research the coverage where you live and work. Each company’s website shows a map of its coverage.

You can buy your iPhone from a phone store (Verizon, Sprint, T-Mobile, AT&T), from an Apple Store, from a retail store, or from the Apple website. You can buy the phone outright, or ...