I want to get an iPhone, now what?

Let me just say I'm completely new to this whole "smart phone" thing. I've had my trusty little flip phone for about 8 years, and now I finally think it's about done for. I want to get an iPhone, but I have no idea what to look for, what all this iPhone 4 or 5 or 6 business is or what it means, and what plan to get. If anyone knows the inside and out of these little phones and doesn't mind helping an old fashioned lady out, I'd really appreciate it. I need a relatively inexpensive plan that will allow me to do what I need to do (get on the internet, check emails, etc.) A few friends of mine said something about group chat, does that come with it or is that an app(?) you download or something? Oh and they mentioned the cloud. What is that? Clearly, I'm lost on this subject.

1) Don't be scared of change (the iphone is miles better than your flip phone once you get used to it)
2) Depending on which carrier you choose (T-Mobile, AT&T, Verizon, etc) you will have different deals to choose from in regards to internet access, texting, and calling.
3) If you want to send emails and group chat you will need a plan with internet (unless you have a Wi-Fi router at home, and even then you will be limited to only being able to use internet at home).
4) The iPhone will most likely come with an email application pre-installed, and it will walk you through the steps of getting your email account connected.
5) In order to get a group messenging app you can either use the default sms texting method (not recommended) or you can install a 3rd party application such as "What's App" that has more features and is generally better for group messages. The reason why the default sms texting is not recommended is because if you want to stop receiving text messages you will literally need to block the numbers who are in the group chat because the way it works is once you are in the group chat you can't leave. With a 3rd party application you can leave at any time so nobody can bother when you do not want to be bothered.

Get iphone 6 or 5S, or if you want a really big screen then 6+ … The rest is really up to you to determine which one you want but 6 and 6+ is the latest.

The iPhone 4, 5, 6 are 3 generations of the iPhone. The 4 came out in 2010 (since been discontinued), the 5 came out in 2012 (also no longer made) & the 6 is the latest (along with the 6 Plus).

As far as plans that would depend on what carriers you have available to you. http://store.apple.com/...com/iphone should be able to help you out.

The cloud is basically online storage. Apple's cloud service is called iCloud.