After picking up my iPhone X on Friday it was immediately apparent that the new Apple device is not going to be everyones perfect device. Despite sporting a fantastic 5.8” OLED screen, the iPhone X is going to frustrate users of Plus model phones – and there is still a huge case for the iPhone Plus.
The bigger sibling of each model of phone since the iPhone 6 is a love it or hate it device.
As you may or may not know I don’t bother writing reviews anymore. There are hundreds of great videos and long form pieces out there to satiate your appetite for that kind of thing. However I usually share my initial thoughts on using new devices – and here are mine on the iPhone X.
This unwillingness to spend hours wiring a full review is further exaggerated by the hype surrounding Apples new device.
Don’t worry. Nothing PG here. Merely the fact that at any hardware launch it’s important to really appreciate the lengths Apple go to to make the phone feel the best it can. Even while picking the phone up in the Apple store I am steered towards the cases that are marketed in a colourful display near the back of the shop. Clearly cases have become a necessity – but I’ve spent at the least the first few hours with the phone ’naked’.
The once relied upon tech journalists that influenced purchasing decisions are up in arms that Apple let some lesser known people be the first to release their videos.
Videos by channels such as Booredatwork.com, UrAvgConsumer and even streetwear channel HighSnobiety have made traditional tech reviews act like entitled rich kids. Quite a few You-tubers were invited to what appears to be Apple stores and allowed to release their videos a day or so before everyone else.
Since pretty much the dawn of time we have been looking for ways to make sure we are different from each other. Understandable when you’re competing for limited terrain or food sources, yet we still do it whilst wrapped up in an easy existence.
What once was tribal warfare, evolved into splitting ourselves based on arbitrary drawn country borders, and now the lines are draw over some of the most stupid reasons you could imagine.
For the last few days my Twitter feed has been awash with comments about the new Google Pixel XL 2 (or the Pixel 2 XL, I forget!). All of a sudden Android writers have split into two camps. Those that criticised the poor quality screen, and those that lept to its defence. The truth is usually somewhere in the middle, but this screen debacle is only the tip of a very worrying trend creeping into manufactures.
Just incase you hadn’t gathered already, I really like Apple products. Not because I am some obsessive fan boy, but because (generally speaking) they all work together and achieve exactly what I want from my devices. Given this meek attachment I never feel the need to jump to Cupertino defence when they release products I don’t like, or do things that I think could be better. This is why the podcast walks that line, and in actual fact I recent post on the Outline that is very anti-Apple makes many points I agree with.
My health and well being has always been a huge focus for me. I have been an avid runner, professional footballer and sport scientist but being active and healthy is increasingly hard in the modern world. The one thing that has helped me move more and weigh less is the Apple Watch.
Not to mention that when you have health complications and your doctor asks how active you are, it has proved invaluable to just pull out my phone and point to the screen.
There has been lots and lots of noise following the iPhone event on Tuesday, Which is one of the reasons I have left this post for a few days. As normal falling into two camps of opinion, which is always to be expected, however the prevailing narrative is that the iPhone x is the future of smartphones in a product made now – unfortunately this simply is not true.
The truth is that once phones like Samsung’s Galaxy S8, the LG G6 and various others from Chinese OEMs started hitting the market the traditional iPhone design became old.
As the saying goes, “Everything leaks”. Even as Apple attempts to double down on their security surrounding information leaking, readers of technology websites have been bombarded with information on the new handset. This started even before the iPhone 7 launched, but only a few days before the press event, the iOS11 build for the new phone found its way out, and apparently website shouldn’t be covering it.
For the last few weeks I have definitely been experiencing leak fatigue and admittedly the rate of leaks does spoil the event somewhat.