Apple September Event

September 11, 2019
8 min read

Yesterday Apple held its biggest event of the year. As was rumored we’ve seen three new iPhones, watch and so much more. Luckily this time not all rumors came true, we’ve had a couple of surprises. On the other hand, some were expecting too much, so as always my strategy of not reading rumors before the event pays off.

 Arcade

If you didn’t notice, Apple is services company now, so it started with two of them. Apple Arcade is gaming service, starting from 100 exclusive high quality games. You will pay the subscription fee and play whatever game you want on iPhone, iPad, Mac or Apple TV. The games in the trailer look amazing. Considering that Apple announced support for xBox and PS4 controllers, this could be a very big deal for many.

As it often is, game demos are the weakest part of Apple presentation, after Tim Cook said “I won’t waste your time with usual updates” we’ve watched three game demos in a row with one of them being Froger, in 2019.

It will be available September 19 in over 100 countries around the world for a price of $4.99 per month for the whole family. And Apple will give 1 month free trial.

Considering the price, I feel like this is the one to at least try. As I said games look good, the lineup of developers looks strong with some big names and indie.

tv+

As every company under the sun Apple is launching original content. tv+ will have three shows at start adding more every month. Tim Cook was so excited that the trailer for the Morning Show was “one of the most watched trailers ever” it wasn’t even funny.

We also saw a trailer for the TV show See, which looks very promising.

It will cost $4.99 per month for family and will be available in over 100 countries. What was surprising, you will get 1 year of the service included with the purchase of any Apple device. Considering Apple only has a couple of shows at the start and doesn’t have any backlog this is very smart strategy.

iPad

This one was a surprise. There were some rumors about new iPad, but most thought it would be shown in October event later this year.

What Apple did is update it’s most popular iPad, the original size one. It is now 7th generation iPad, they’ve changed screen size a bit, increasing it to 10.2 inches (instead of 9.7). It has updated specs and is shipping on September 30 starting from $329.

Interesting how Apple doesn’t compare it to other tablets (because that market doesn’t even exist), all of the comparisons were with top selling PC and of course iPad beat it in every aspect.

Up until now, this was The iPad to get, considering the price and power you get. It remains the one device in Apple lineup which you can consider inexpensive and well worth every dollar you spend.

watch

Tim Cook started with the video showing how Apple Watch save lives with its ECG function. What was nice this time – it also showed how Apple Watched helped get healthier by asking you to close your rings or stand. Those videos are always Apple at its best.

There will be three new studies – Hearing, Women’s health and Heart and movement study. Those are great, but unfortunately available only in the United States.

And here is the announcement I was most surprised by – new Apple Watch. Watch Series 5 will have THE feature, the one many asked for from the very beginning – always on display, while still having all-day 18 hour battery life.

All the watch faces were optimized for low-power mode when it shows time, so you don’t have to tilt your wrist or tap the screen. This is the feature for getting a new watch, especially if you didn’t upgrade to the Series 4 last year.

As everything in the US, Apple Watch now has a compass. As most of the cities in the US were built considering the directions, this will be helpful to Americans, but also around the world, Maps app will now be able to show where are you heading more precisely.

There will also be international emergency calling in more than 100 countries if you have cellular Apple Watch. Amazing feature, which I hope nobody has to use.

This year Series 5 is available in a couple of new finishes – two Titanium models and white Ceramic. They look great, but will cost accordingly.

Apple Watch Series 5 will start at $399 for GPS model and $499 for cellular. You can already order one and it will ship on September 20.

What also interesting, Apple leaves Series 3 in its lineup for $199. It is great entry price, but only if you don’t care about the look and newest feature. By itself it is ok, but if you ever come across Series 4 or 5, two year old model looks very old and dated.

iPhone

The main star of the event – iPhone. Last year, I think Apple confused buyers with releasing three models which were hard to differentiate for average consumer (believe me, I know, the amount of questions I got about which one should someone buy was like a customer sat – through the roof). Fortunately this didn’t stop iPhone XR to become the most popular iPhone and smartphone in the world.

This year the lineup is much more clearer. First, there is iPhone 11. Which you can consider the standard one – everyone who wants to buy an iPhone this year should get this one. It has 6.1 inch display, Haptic Touch and Spacial Audio.

It also has two cameras this year, but instead of adding telephoto, the second camera is ultra-wide. This will allow you to switch to x0.5, which means you will be able to capture 2 times more of the scene from the same point.

This is also shown in the new camera interface. When you launch it, it will look more immersive, showing you the whole available picture instead of black bars.

Although there is no telephoto camera, Portrait mode is still made using hardware, so it will work on animals, unlike the iPhone XR.

Apple also showed Night mode, which in presentation looked great, but we will need to see comparisons with Google Pixel, where night mode is just out of this world. Hope Apple delivers.

If photography is something Android manufacturers, especially Google, mastered, in videos Apple is still unbeatable. Adding to that ultra-wide and cinematic stabilization, makes it even more impressive.

Front camera was also updated, it is now wider 12MP sensor which will take normal selfie, until you rotate it sideways and it will get wide.

Apple also added 4K video support and slo-mo to the front camera and invented the word Slofies – which is probably officially the worst word of 2019.

A12 processor leads the industry, the overhead it has is not even funny, it is still faster than all the newest Android phones and Apple made it even faster. A13 Bionic is the new processor inside iPhone. It is so ahead, it will take Android manufacturers a couple of years to catch up.

What iPhone XR did have, was amazing all-day and then some battery life. In iPhone 11 it was improved – adding 1 hour.

It will be priced starting from $699 and as I’ve already mentioned, this is the one to get.

iPhone 11 Pro

As Phil Schiller said – this is the first phone Apple called Pro and it is worthy of its name.

There are four new colors – Midnight Green, Space Grey, Silver, Gold. And at least on photos the green looks amazing, I will be surprised if it will be available on first day in enough quantities. The back has a nice matte finish now, which doesn’t even look like glass anymore.

There are two phones iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max, with the same sizes as last year of 5.8 and 6.5 inches. It will also have A13 Bionic processor, but one of the biggest improvements is battery life. 4 hours more for iPhone 11 and 5 hours more for iPhone 11 Pro Max. As a XS Max user I can tell you this will be amazing, it will bring phones closer to the main iPhone 11. It will also have 18 watt adapter in the box, so you will be able to charge it faster.

There is now three cameras. The ultra-wide was also added to the Pro models. One amazing thing 3rd party developer Filmic Pro demoed, was shooting video with two cameras at the same time. So you have more different footage for the same moment.

Apple also showed sneak peak for a feature coming later this year called Deep Fusion. What it does is it takes 9 photos (8 of them before you even press a button) and combines them to bring a lot of detail. On stage it looks great, we will have to wait for it to come out.

The iPhone 11 Pro will start at $999 and iPhone 11 Pro Max at $1099 with pre-orders this Friday and shipping on Septemver 20th.

Apple will also keep in it’s lineup iPhone XR for $599 and iPhone 8 for $449.

Some already are saying this was the weakest Apple event in recent history, but I think it was good. Making already great iPad even better, always-on display on the Apple Watch making it even better in the market with almost no competition. And iterative update on the iPhone, which should be expected, as this is a mature market already.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions

June 11, 2019
2 min read

Most people jot down some notes about keynote overall and then write or talk about each release in more detail. I’ve went my own way, first going through impressions for each OS – tvOS, watchOS, iOS, macOS, iPadOS and also for Mac Pro.

Now I want give my overall impressions about presentation. I mostly agree with Marco – Apple started listening again. And the reason is pretty simple on it’s surface – iPhone sales. Although thanks to increasing prices for a couple of years revenue from the iPhone didn’t fall, but unit sales plateaued. So now Apple has to sell iPhones more aggressively and give more attention to all other products in the lineup.

This was noticeable in every announcement, it wasn’t apologizing per se, but it felt like Apple was overcompensating. There were ver big changes that got at most one sentence mention during the Keynote and a lot of them were just a text on the slide with “everything else that’s new”. 

There was something for everyone, be it developers, users, professionals. We’ve got new OS, new hardware and new frameworks. We’ve even got the trailer for TV show. All of this in just 2 hours. The pace was unbelievable. Presenters were very proud of the product, just look at the display demonstration. 

I like how passionate, knowledgeable and funny Craig Federighi is. I’ve seen some of the first of his presentations and it’s not even close. It’s a very big growth in presentation skills. This year the biggest joke was about iTunes and with Craig delivering it – it landed perfectly. 

Overall, this was very strong keynote, one of the best in recent years actually. And this gives hope that Apple is able to make products and also improvements to those products afterwards, even if those aren’t iPhone.

WWDC 2019 Keynote Impressions – iOS

June 6, 2019
5 min read

One of the most notable changes of the last year was the focus on iOS 12 working better and faster on older devices. You could see the improvements even on the one year old iPhone X. This year Apple also talked about iOS 13 being more optimized. Apps will launch 2x faster, smaller downloads from the App Store and Face ID now unlocks 30% faster. 

Before the keynote, it looked like this year would be quiet for the iPhone and most of the improvements will come to the iPad, as it was mostly ignored last year. During the iOS segment, iPad wasn’t mentioned at all (later about that), but the segment itself was long and not because they tried to make it that way, there was just too much to show.

Mostly those were some little things, like the ability to download large apps over cellular (not all the countries in the world have limited mobile internet), low data mode (which is nice in Europe, where we don’t have roaming, but data is a bit limited when you travel to other countries) or emoji button which is now separate from the globe (very welcome addition in this part of the world, where almost everyone has 2 or more languages added). I will also add QuickPath here (that’s Apple version of the swipe typing. This is a feature Android had for years and I’m using Gboard on my iPhone right now, but would love to dump it, if Apple also adds haptics to the key presses).

But there were also some monumental changes, like the ability to select Wi-Fi network and Bluetooth device from the Control Center. This was on a lot of wish-lists probably from the day Apple showed Control Center. The other one – Volume Control is now on the side of the screen, I think even John Gruber would agree, this one grants a big fat finally.

The feature Apple started presentation of iOS with was Dark mode and it did look cool. Right now there are a lot of apps that feature dark mode on their own, but I don’t use it in all of them. I’ve realized that I’ve turned off dark mode on almost all “content” apps, like Pocket, Twitter, Bear etc. But have it turned on in Overcast, for example and I like the dark interface on macOS. I think here will be something similar. I’m sure I’ll use it, but hope I will be able to change it app by app.

Two apps that received big updates this year were Photos and Reminders. If in case of Photos there was the whole demo of the app, surprisingly reminders got a short mention. It looks like totally different app and I think it could be a great choice for someone in the middle – current Reminders are too simple for my needs, but something like OmniFocus is a total overkill. As I’m using GoodTask right now and it uses Reminders as a backend it will be easy to try new reminders out when the app comes out.

I didn’t like how Photos app looks, but that may just be presentation, will need to check it myself. The much better photo editor and the ability to edit video are great new additions. I liked the Years views, which is something similar to On This Day, but more discoverable. Also the ability to hide duplicates is nice, I wonder if later Apple will let you to remove those (after review, of course).

The other feature I loved was sound sharing through AirPods. This is amazing for travel. Last time we’ve had 10+ hour flight, I’ve had to pack two pairs of wired headphones and a couple of dongles, it looked bizarre. I also don’t share headphones with anybody, so from that point of view it’s amazing, sometimes I want to give my colleagues to listen, I can just share the sound. 

Privacy and Sign-in with Apple

I was thinking of making it the whole separate post, but decided to leave it here. As always Apple is very straightforward about privacy – they don’t need your data, so you can trust them. One great example is location permission, in iOS 13 users will be able to grant access just for one time and you will receive notification if some app uses location data in the background.

The other privacy focused addition sounded great during presentation, but when some details came out a lot of questions were raised. Sign-in with Apple – a lot of apps, when you are signing-in using Facebook or Google, get more information then they actually need, so using this feature Apple will provide only the most necessary and you can even choose if you don’t want to share some information. Additionally, if you don’t want to share your e-mail, you can sign-in using randomly generated e-mail which will forward messages to the real one. Again, sounds amazing. But then, after the Keynote it was discovered that this feature is mandatory if your app uses any other “sign-in” provider. I’m all for new privacy focused features, but here one of the biggest companies in the world uses it’s power to dictate their service. 

This is a very dangerous territory, right now it feels like the trust in Apple is unimaginably high, but what will happen when some key people will be changed? Do we really want to grant so much power to one big player? I think there are only good intentions from developers inside Apple who made this feature and people who decided it will be mandatory, but there is a little of fear for the future. Hope this fear is unreasonable.

Podcast Listening Speed

May 31, 2019
2 min read

Yesterday I’ve wrote about the year of less, one of the last things I’ve changed is the podcast listening speed. Not long after I’ve started listening to the podcasts, I’ve subscribed to a lot of them and in order to even try to keep up, I’ve had to use Smart Speed function of Overcast and also listen at 2x speed. Most of the shows I’ve listened to sounded good, especially with Overcasts sound engine.

But after about 5 years I’ve realized, like with TV shows, it’s just not possible to listen to everything and so it’s better to up the quality of the listening. I also now think it’s much healthier to listen at normal speed. Unfortunately after such a long time listening at 2x speed it’s hard to get back. I tried to listen at 1x from the start, but it’s not possible, so I just reduced a speed bit by bit. Right now, I’m listening at about 1.25 – 1.5x, but podcasts in Polish I listen at 1x. I feel how much easier it is for my brain to process the information. In today’s world we are bombarded with information from every corner and reducing the amount of it when you can feels nice.

Creating New Habits

May 29, 2019
3 min read

Imagine doing something every single day for a year. Sounds intense, right? You do something today and then tomorrow and then the day after that. Like that you will be surprised how fast the year of doing something will pass.

One day in May of last year I’ve decided to take a cold shower in the morning. I liked it so much I decided to do it every day, but I’ve also wanted to track the progress. I thought about how I felt about the Apple Watch Activity rings (I’ve been closing all of them for more than 600 days in a row), so I wanted something similar for my new habit. That’s when I’ve got Streaks 3, very simple, but functional app. Day, after day, after day I’ve been checking off every morning that I’ve taken cold shower until I’ve seen the number – 365. I was amazed that I was doing something for the whole year, every single day.

The app is very straightforward. You can track your habits manually (after finishing doing something you can check the item) or it can track them automatically (it connects to the Health app for automatic tracking). There is also the ability to create items that are checked automatically and you manually change the status if you miss the habit. I also love the Apple Watch app and complication – it shows your progress right there on the watch face and I do almost all of the tracking using the watch app.

Along the way I’ve added some new habits I wanted to make. First – getting up without using snooze button, but I’m deleting it today as I can’t do it. Just can’t right now. I believe I will return to this one after some time, but I’ll need to rethink many things about my sleep habits before I do that.

The third one was health related – drinking 8 glasses of water every day. I feel great about that one, since I’ve started I didn’t miss a day and I feel much better now. Also, when I’ve visited the doctor and showed her my old blood tests vs new ones, she immediately noticed difference – they were much better now.

Next one is mostly for self-improvement – I’m posting at least one photo to the Instagram every day. I wanted to get better at photography, so decided posting something every single day would be a nice practice in shooting and editing. Unfortunately, I wasn’t taking photos every single day, that could be my next challenge, but I was editing and posting one photo every day.

Two more are somewhat connected. One is tracked automatically by Streaks, it’s closing all the three rings every single day. I’ve added it, just to see all the streaks going in one single place. The last one is exercising every day. I’m having some problems with my back and have to do some exercises every day, otherwise the pain becomes uncomfortable. Some days the exercise is harder then the others, but every one of them counts.

Today I’m adding another habit for tracking. I will try to write 200 words every single day. I will try to write posts for this blog or some days it would be something private. I want to improve writing and my English. I think practicing every day will be the best way for improving the skills.

iPhone XS Max – Coming Home

September 27, 2018
5 min read

Five years ago when Apple released the iPhone 5S with the same screen size as the one before, my yearning for a bigger screen was so strong, I’ve left iOS ecosystem and bought myself an Android phone with 4.7” screen and actually used Android phones for a couple of years. I’ve come back to Apple when they’ve released the iPhone 6S Plus, as it was finally as big as I wanted and it was the second generation of the bigger phone, so I was sure it would be good. That’s how my love affair with the biggest iPhones possible started. I’ve upgraded the phone next year and got the iPhone 7 Plus. This time two cameras and Portrait Mode were big additions. Now I’ve had not only the biggest phone, but also the best one.

A year ago after watching some hands-on videos of the iPhone X, I’ve had the sad realisation – this time the biggest phone wasn’t the best one and the best one wasn’t the biggest. But it was an easy choice – of course, I wanted to see what the future of smartphones will be.

Unfortunately, although I’ve loved the device, something about the screen size wasn’t right. The keyboard was too small for a convenient typing, videos felt cramped and it was easier to read books on my Kindle device.

This time when Apple introduced the iPhone XS Max, I didn’t need to watch the presentation until the end, I was already sold – the phone I love with a bigger (much bigger) screen. It also helped that the new iPhone shipped the day we were supposed to arrive at Berlin, so the minute pre-orders started I’ve ordered the iPhone XS Max to pick-up in the Berlin store 1200 km from home (this included changing the location of the Apple Store app to Germany and translating everything to English, as I don’t speak the language).

The minute I’ve turned on the phone I’ve had a big smile on my face – it felt like home. The size of the phone was just right. When I typed the first letters it felt great, my fingers landed perfectly on the virtual buttons, which was a struggle with the iPhone X even after a year.

Camera

After the presentation, I wasn’t impressed with the camera improvements. Of course, it was better, but Apple didn’t advertise those improvements enough in my opinion.

So I was surprised to learn how much the camera has improved year over year after reading John Gruber review.

Being in the different city for the first time it was a nice place to test the camera, especially after I’ve forgotten to charge the camera and it had died in the middle of our walk.

You can just look at the photos of other reviewers and see how much better the photos are. Here are a couple of examples straight from the camera (default Camera app, no edits). This is an amazing improvement even if you compare it to the last years iPhone X. The most prominent feature you can definitely see is Smart HDR, it just makes the photos look way nicer.

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Power and Battery

Two years ago Apple started naming the processors inside iOS devices and last year it was called A11 Bionic. This year though, Apple decided not to change the name, but only the number, it’s A12 Bionic, so one could think the improvements are small and you would be wrong.

Everything feels way snappier, apps open quickly and share sheet opens up instantly. But this could be attributed to the iOS 12, which brings improvement to the performance of the older devices as well and I can’t say that my iPhone X was so much slower.

The thing that is definitely different – it doesn’t get hot after heavy load. Previously, on the iPhone X, turning screen brightness to the max and opening a couple of photo editing apps would make the device uncomfortably hot (especially the area around the camera) and I would look at the battery indicator draining right in front of my eyes. With iPhone XS Max, I can edit photos or do some other power hungry tasks and the phone gets just a bit warmer if you are doing it long enough.

The battery life is much better, after all-day heavy use of listening to podcasts and music, editing photos, reading, surfing the web, watching videos, playing some games etc. I come home at 7pm with about 40% of battery left.

Miscellaneous

  • Speakers are louder than ever. I often listen to podcasts using speakers at home and before I’ve had the volume turned to the max, but not anymore, it’s loud enough even at about 60-70%.
  • FaceID is way faster. I’m not sure if it’s iOS 12 or the new hardware, my guess is it’s both, but you can definitely feel the improvement. I would even say, the difference is almost like the one going from TouchID v1 to v2.
  • I’ll have to reconsider the home screen set-up, as the highest row is harder to reach (the device is the same size as iPhone 8 Plus, but now you have screen all the way up).
  • The LTE is crazy fast. Here is just one random test done this morning.
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Conclusion

If you’ve watched the presentation and weren’t totally impressed with what Apple showed this year, I think you will be surprised. This will be an amazing upgrade from the iPhone 7 or older.

For those of you upgrading from the last year models – camera improvements will be the most noticeable ones

If you’ve been frustrated with the screen size of the iPhone X, XS Max is a no-brainer and will make you feel at home.

P.S. This review was typed entirely on the iPhone XS Max and I loved it

iPhone Xs – why?

September 13, 2018
2 min read

This year Apple announced three NEW iPhones with different screen sizes and during the event I’ve liked them all, but after thinking more and more about them I can’t understand who the Xs if for.

I’m the owner of the iPhone X and after looking at the specs of Xs there is absolutely nothing that feels like it needs upgrading. My phone is fast, the battery is good (more on that later) and a lot of improvements that were announced yesterday will come in software when iOS12 gets released.

The iPhone Xs Max is completely different story. Before iPhone X I was using iPhone 6s Plus and iPhone 7 Plus. I liked big screen and bigger battery, and better camera was a nice addition. So after watching the event and considering that one of my family members needs an upgrade (this will bring a chain of 4 people changing phones) I will be getting iPhone Xs Max because of that screen and battery.

For everyone else who is upgrading from the old style iPhone, I would suggest buying iPhone Xr, as it’s very close to iPhone Xs, but the price is so much cheaper. Maybe this is the reason why Apple delayed the shipping date of iPhone Xr for a month – my guess is the demand will be very strong.

So this leaves the regular iPhone Xs, who is it for? My best guess it’s a model that is not intended to sell in large quantities, it’s biggest intention is to show – you can have almost everything there is in an expensive iPhone for a lower price and if you want something bigger – go with an iPhone Xs Max.

Notches and doing it right

June 19, 2018
2 min read

When the iPhone X was announced, I was among those criticising the notch, it looked stupid in photos. I hoped apps would hide the notch by making black status bar and feared they would all “embrace the notch” (they’ve had a powerful incentive – those apps would be featured everywhere, from blogs to magazines, to Apple itself). Regardless, I’ve ordered the X the second pre-orders went live and then begged my carrier to deliver it for my birthday (they did and this is one of the reasons I don’t change it for something cheaper).

So why all of this 8 months after the release? I was sitting on the roof, reading some articles and it dawned on me – the power of the iPhone notch – no chin, it feels like you don’t have a phone, but you are holding the information itself in your hand. It’s truly amazing. I don’t see the notch, because mostly I look at the lower half of the screen and all I can see is this beautiful peace of glass in my hand with the text going from edge to edge and all the way down.

That is what Android manufacturers can’t get right – they copy the notch, so that the phone looks similar to iPhone, but all of them have this chin, so it looks like cheap copy and not as something that was inspired by the Apple desing.

Oh, and also, one of my favorite apps – Halide, did embrace the notch and that’s one of the reasons I like it so much. That’s another reminder that I should more thoroughly consider everything before judging the product.

X

January 2, 2018
4 min read

There is no shortage of reviews of the iPhone X, some very traditional (loved how The Verge portrayed Face ID working), some looking in the future, others a bit in the past. Now that I’ve had my iPhone X for almost two months, I have some short thoughts I’ve wanted to share.

When Apple presented the iPhone I didn’t like the notch, I thought the screen was good, not something groundbreaking and liked the camera improvements a lot (designated chip for the photo processing and OIS on both cameras were both great additions). I’ve had my iPhone 7 and was ready to keep it for another year, but I was reading more about it and looking at pictures and videos, so my wife persuaded me to order one. And here I was on day one of the sales with the brand new iPhone X.

I immediately fell in love with the X. First time I’ve set up Face ID, it looked like magic and I’ve had a smile on my face just from unlocking the phone, it still holds up, I think Face ID is great, except in the morning, when it doesn’t recognise my sleepy face. The phone itself, I loved the Plus size phones (it was when Apple introduced big screens, I’ve made a switch back from Android), but the X lies perfectly in the hand and the weight of it, makes it feel substantial and even luxury. I love how black it is, love how the edges look and feel, how it’s less slippery than 7 Plus (I’ve had matte black finish). 

The home indicator is weird for about five minutes, after that it just feels natural, you mostly wish it wasn’t there all the time, gestures are easy to learn and discover. The one thing that is borderline unusable is Control Centre, I think Apple will change the position of it in one of the next versions of iOS, but as of now, I’ve noticed how I almost don’t use the Control Centre anymore.
The screen is gorgeous, you don’t notice the notch while using it, because you mostly look at the centre of the screen, it is considerably worse for video watching than the Plus sized phone, because both choices – embracing the notch or letterboxing the videos don’t look good – one hides some part of the picture and another one makes videos small.

As this new iPhone is all glass, I’m constantly worrying that I might shatter it and got Apple Leather Case as a present, but I still prefer to use it case-less, not only because it feels great in the hand, but because the screen looks better if there is no frame of the case around it. This may sound silly, but the screen just looks better when the iPhone is naked.

When Samsung first introduced the Galaxy S8 and I’ve seen Casey Neistat review of it, I’ve tweeted how iPhone looked dated compared to it. 

iPhone looks dated as fuck, especially in this shot. pic.twitter.com/mdUVGWafRG

Now, with the iPhone X, I think Apple is ahead, the notch is clearly the great idea, considering choices. It looks more like an all-screen front than Samsung and it looks very recognisable, while Samsung looks like a very generic Android phone (thank god there is no space to put Samsung logo on the front of the device anymore).

In my opinion, iPhone X is a great device, showing us where the future of smartphones is heading. It’s very pricey, you can buy a MacBook for the same price, but you’ll just have to consider, how much the phone is worth to you, I think most people use phone considerably more than a laptop nowadays.

In the loop: Jony Ive on Apple’s new HQ and the disappearing iPhone

November 14, 2017
2 min read

In the loop: Jony Ive on Apple’s new HQ and the disappearing iPhone

Great article in the Wallpaper* magazine. Stunning photos of the Apple Park, you should really see them on the best screen you have. 

I’ve always been fascinated by these products that are more general purpose. What I think is remarkable about the iPhone X is that its functionality is so determined by software. And because of the fluid nature of software, this product is going to change and evolve. In 12 months’ time, this object will be able to do things that it can’t now. I think that is extraordinary. I think we will look back on it and see it as a very significant point in terms of the products we have been developing.

This quote by Jony Ive could be very promising or completely uninteresting – it could probably mean that Apple is working on the new design in iOS 12 which takes into the consideration the OLED screen of the iPhone X, for example, Dark Mode. It could also mean, Apple is just working on the new iOS 12 which will add features to the old phones like it always does.

I hope it is the former.