Look, you can keep repeating this mantra all you want. But, all it does is show you are missing the point.
Mobile phones have evolved way beyond just making phone calls. If that's all you do, then a simple flip phone meets your needs. But, your needs no longer drive the mobile phone market.
Some days, I use my phone for 5 minutes. But, for others I may use it all day, especially for email. I don't carry my laptop from meeting to meeting, but I have to deal with high-priority issues that arise, or someone will be waiting all day for my response.
Phone calls can be very disruptive. I can't take one without bothering the people around me. I can't make one without doing so, either. But, I can email or text to deal with both mundane and important things, without imposing my life on everyone around me. You may think that's a waste of time, but I consider it to be polite.
With all the applications that are available, people use their phones for things we couldn't even imagine 10 years ago. You can choose to stay in the past decade, but most other mobile phone users have moved on. You've made your choice: let everyone else make theirs, and stop whining.
Texting or emailing while you are in the presence of someone else is most rude (I can understand if you're on a bus or something where you are surrounded by people but not with them, but if you are in a meeting, at dinner or where ever with someone, then your attention should be on them, not on your phone.) I've been trying to get my daughter to realize this for weeks. People today have become so incredibly socially rude.
You've made your choice: let everyone else make theirs, and stop whining.
I'm not whining, I'm asking. What makes the Iphone 5S any better of a phone than any previous cell phone. Even if you include the secondary uses of it, how is it worth the extra money. Did the Iphone 5 not do these things? (and if so are those things really worth that much money?)
Or is it just another scheme by apple to separate 'people' from their money?
If people want to throw their money away that's fine. I just don't understand why they would do such a thing.
(Obviously I'm not a cell phone fan. I'm also not an apple fan at all. Their stuff doesn't work (unless of course you want to work exactly as Steve Jobs wants you to work and no other way). But then I have the same complaint about the last couple releases of windows and almost all other Microsoft applications)