iPhone 4S

[cool breeze]

I thought icloud covered that?

[TakingBackSunday]

Some of it.  But if you want to have more control over shit -- contacts, mail, pictures and videos -- you need to connect it to iTunes.

[cool breeze]

well, I'll just do those things once in a while then.  I have the latest itunes installed on my ~6 year old laptop for this purpose.  I just don't want to install it on my current PC.

oh, and is there a list of all shortcuts? I just learned that double clicking the home button on the lock screen brings up music controls and quick camera access, and home+power takes an image of the screen.

[Shaka Khan]

I think iCloud takes care of everything, BN. You can either do iCloud backups OTA, or when you connect to iTunes either wirelessly or by USB (iTunes itselt basically asks you which method do you want to use: iTunes or iCloud backups).

Right now, iCloud takes care of "Mail, Contancts, Calenders, Reminders, Bookmarks, Notes, Photostream (photos and vids), Documents and Data, and Find My iPhone settings." So basically everything iTunes used to do. The only drawbacks are the 5GB space limitation (you have to buy more), and the fact that you can't pick which backup instance you want to restore from.

[TakingBackSunday]

Hrm.  I thought it only did a few of those.

Well whatever, I hardly ever plug my phone in  to iTunes so no worries, linkzg.

[chronovore]

can you get applecare after the fact? I didn't bother getting it at the store

You can buy AppleCare anytime during the basic warranty period.

[AdmiralViscen]

Applcare+, which covers physical damage, has to be purchased same day afaik.don't know if they budge on that

[originalz]

There isn't any ApplecarePlus in Japan from what I can see.  The normal Applecare is around 7500yen, which is close to $100USD, seems like a lot for one extra year of coverage.  Is the default 1 year warranty worse than the Applecare one or something?  I don't really care about the phone support.

[chronovore]

Apple's repair prices are worse than Japanese automobile part price gouging.

They calculate a flat-rate based on a percentage price of the unit, at launch. So if you had a 16GB iPod Touch from when it was first introduced, though they are cheap as hell now the price to repair it would likely be as-or-more expensive than buying a new 16GB Touch.