Unless you've been living under a rock, you probably have heard that there's a new most-awesomest-smartphone-ever available -- the iPhone 5. It boasts a bigger screen, 4G LTE connectivity and a brand new, custom-built "A6" processor. The hardware is 20 percent lighter and 18 percent thinner than the iPhone 4S. It's a must have for all us iPhone users, and in a perfect world we were all able to upgrade this past Friday when it became available. Sadly, it's not a perfect world, and some of us who want to upgrade can't -- at least right now.
Maybe you have a dozen iPhone accessories that all use the old dock connector standard, and aren't keen on losing them or paying $29 for the adapter necessary to work with the iPhone's new connection port they refer to as "lightning" (it would have been nice of them to include one in the box), which won't even be available until October. Maybe (like yours truly) you have an old unlimited data plan with Verizon and don't want to pay the full retail price of $650 dollars for the iPhone 5 just to keep said plan. Maybe you are only really interested in the new software features available in iOS 6, most of which will run just the same on your iPhone 4S or iPhone 4 and is a free update. Maybe you're just happy with what you have already.
And yet ... Apple sold 2 million iPhone 5s in the first 24 hours it was available for pre-order. Two million! That's an absurd number for a single day, and shows a great deal of pent-up demand. So, since a great many of you will be upgrading or already have, this begs the question of what to do with your old iPhone.
Morgan Bonner is pre-press manager and a systems administrator for the Packet and Gazette.
