18,000 jobs is a stunning number to be cut. I hope all affected folks and families are able to find meaningful employment in short order. It's difficult to stay enthused for the new OS update knowing in the back of my mind that many employees were laid off to bring it to us.
On an unrelated note, does anyone have experience with upgrading a phone while on contract -- but before the two year agreement is complete? My mom still has a year left on her contract with Verizon, but her phone is near useless, and I'd like to buy her some flavor of Lumia for her birthday (she loves the way my 928 works).
I imagine I'd need to purchase an unlocked Lumia, swap in my mom's SIM card, and then activate the new device online (which I believe is free of charge). But my mom doesn't have a data plan -- would that complicate things? I seem to recall Verizon telling me at one point that in order to use a smartphone on their network, you have to purchase a data plan, but hopefully that only applies to phones subsidized by a contract. My mom never uses data (outside of MMS, which is wrapped into her overall messaging allotment), so it'd be ideal for her to keep her current plan and deactivate the data services on the new phone. That way she could use the phone for calls and texts, and also potentially use Wi-Fi for fancier tasks.
