iPhone: The Missing Manual, 12th 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. There are those first few minutes—even before it’s in a case—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 12 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 XS Max ($1,100 to $1,450). You can still get an iPhone 7 for $450, an iPhone 8 for $600, and so on. (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, from the Apple website, or even from the Apple Store app. You can buy the phone outright, or you can opt to have the price spread out in monthly payments. Or you can lease ...