Purple iPhone 12 mini

May 20, 2021
2 min read

When iPhone 12 mini and 12 Pro Max came out, it was very hard to get the latter on the first day (believe me, I jumped through all the hoops possible to get it), while the smallest one was in abundance in every store. I handled it at the store once and loved the size.

So, when recently my mom decided to upgrade her iPhone 7, I recommended the all new 12 mini in purple. She asked for help to set it up, so I had an opportunity to use it for a bit in a non-stressful environment of a masked-up store.

It fits perfectly in the hand, I was a proponent of bigger screens when the Plus size phones came out, but maybe it’s an age thing, or device fatigue, but the mini size feels perfect.

I even seriously considered changing my 12 Pro Max for 12 Mini, but I use my phone for photography a lot and I can’t say I am a great photographer, so whatever help I can get from better technology — I’m up for that.

I actually checked using Smart Folder tip from David Smith and 31% of photos were taken using telephoto lens. And this year I feel like I use it even more, so the absence of this lens would be very noticeable for me.

In a perfect world, where iPhone mini gets a better camera system and iPad mini gets updated with Pro-like design, the combination of M-series 13” laptop, iPad mini and iPhone Mini would be perfect, but now, I still have my gold iPhone 12 Pro Max and massive iPad Pro.

AirPods Pro Review

December 25, 2020
4 min read

It’s a bit late to the party – when everyone is hyped up by the AirPods Max I bought AirPods Pro just a month ago.

I bought first AirPods right when they came out and didn’t have other headphones since. I’ve had to change them after two years because the battery was dying in less than 30 minutes, so I went with 2nd generation AirPods just around the time when AirPods Pro came out.

AirPods Pro didn’t tempt me because I always liked EarPods and AirPods shape better. They didn’t block outside noise, but were a bit bigger than standard ones, so it provided just a bit of separation from the outside world. They were the most comfortable headphones. I regularly forgot that they were in my ears, spending even the whole day with them.

I decided to get myself a birthday present and buy Sony WH-1000XM4 noise-cancelling headphones, as there was a nice sale at a retailer nearby, but when I got there, the last pair was already sold, I could only order online. While walking to the car I though a bit more about pros and cons of those headphones and realised — I don’t want over-ear ones, wearing glasses and spending a lot of time outside, Sony’s actually wouldn’t be very comfortable. A short drive later to the Apple reseller, AirPods Pro were in my hands.

They are just a tiny bit less comfortable for me than regular AirPods. It made me switch between medium and large size tips a lot, but ones are a bit small, while the others are too large. I’ve ordered memory foam tips in hope for them to add some comfort.

The noise-cancelling is very nice. Especially now, working from home. Sometimes I turn it on, without anything playing and it helps concentrate. While listening outside it allows using lower volume, which I think will be beneficial for hearing.

The transparency mode is delightful. It was the first time I tried something like that and I like it. It’s AR for your ears. With this mode turned on I can hear better than without headphones. Although some sounds are plainly painful — one day I was standing in the kitchen with the transparency mode turned on and my wife came in with vacuum cleaner blasting, I thought I would become deaf.

Spatial audio is very cool, first time I couldn’t believe the sound was coming out of the headphones, but it doesn’t work on a device it makes the most sense — Apple TV, so I don’t use it often.

I like the controls. For the first couple of days I was still tapping them, but now I think pinching is a big improvement. My fingers already remember how long I need to press to change modes, releasing it just before the sound plays, it gives a weird sense of satisfaction.

When buying 2nd generation AirPods I made a conscious decision not to buy wireless charging case and it was a right choice at that time, now I find myself using wireless charging with AirPods Pro constantly. I have a basic, low-power charger at my desk, as my previous iPhone couldn’t survive the whole day on one charge, but now I use it exclusively with AirPods Pro, throwing them once in a while on it and I don’t think about battery management at all.

The AirPods Pro are much harder to recommend than AirPods. They are more expensive, they could be less comfortable and I think many like the style of AirPods. But if they fit you, they sound great for their small size. And you have noise-cancelling headphones that fit in the change pocket of your jeans. I love mine.

Choose Wisely – iPhone 12 Pro Max Review

November 27, 2020
6 min read

It is big. Every new iPhone this year is some sort of compromise, so to make a choice is to rate your priorities. Camera, battery, size, price. And after that there are still color and storage. I’ve been struggling with the choice, but at the end of the day iPhone 12 Pro Max was my go-to. Camera was the single most important thing, so I felt like I could sacrifice something else.

Size

There is no going around it, this phone is massive. My last iPhone review was that of an iPhone XS Max and I called it Coming Home because after spending a year with an iPhone X I was craving for a bigger screen and still, even for me, the iPhone 12 Pro Max is huge. Probably because of the flat edges it just doesn’t sit so tight in the hand. And it is also actually taller than the last years model and noticeably so.

iPhone 12 Pro Max looks noticeably larger than iPhone XS Max

What this means is that even with larger hands this phone becomes almost unusable with one hand. Good thing Apple announced widgets for iOS, so the first two rows on the screen could be filled with those.

It is the most noticeable while typing — reaching for the letters on the opposite side is physically hard now.

Design

After deciding on the model, the next big consideration was the color. Black and Silver were immediately removed from competition because they are a bit boring.

That left me with Gold and Pacific Blue. I went to the store when iPhone 12 Pro came out to see and hold both in my hands. I couldn’t decide until the very last minute of orders starting. But in the end the Gold won and I think I made a good choice.

Yes, this year’s color is Pacific Blue, but after Apple introduced “something different” with Midnight Green last year, this fourth color becomes a default. Everyone who wants a new phone buys it and actually, I think the bigger phone looks boring in blue because it is matte and there is just too much of the color because of the size. Also, the edges in most cases look almost black, and again, this year I didn’t want a black phone.

Gold, on the other hand, adds premium feeling to the already good-looking phone. It looks more like something made by a 3rd party, like Caviar, but with taste. It is absolutely gorgeous to look at. And you always have a glimpse of it, even if you look straight at the screen the edges are visible.

Regarding the fingerprints — this is the issue in the well lit environments of the reviewers, in the day-to-day life I don’t think about it and never notice. If you look at the edges of course you will see fingerprints, but they don’t bother me at all.

It is also heavy. Very much so. Although because of this it feels very premium, but again using it in one hand for a long time — it adds up. 

Battery

It is absolutely massive. Especially after 2-year-old iPhone XS Max. I don’t ever plug it in during the day, even when using Waze in my car, which was unthinkable previously.

I was surprised when on the second and third day after buying it, when I was still setting it up, opening literally every app, synchronising everything, it would have 50% battery left with 3-4.5 hours of screen on time.

But then there was a day with 7h 14m of screen on time and still almost 50% battery left by the end of the day. And another one, with more than 6 hours of screen on time when the phone still had around 5% of battery left working from 7:05 in the morning until 00:42 at night, on my birthday — so there were many calls, constant checking and replying to the congratulations in the messaging apps.

Battery is just massive

As I’m writing this at the end of the day, I still have 52% of battery left with 4.5 hours of screen on time. This is a full-day phone, at the very least.

Camera

As every previous part, I will start the same — it is big. In fact, it is so big, you can fit 44 mm Apple Watch into the camera cutout of the iPhone case.

I don’t know why you would do it, but you can

I would recommend reading the review made by one of the creators of the best iPhone photography app Halide Sebastiaan de With. This is the most comprehensive review you will find right now, showing the real differences between the Pro Max and regular Pro cameras.

As was expected it really shines at night and in the evening, where there is not a lot of light and a bigger sensor can gather more of it.

Oh, and the main thing — it finally doesn’t cut out glasses in the portrait mode.

With my daughter. Notice my glasses

Miscellaneous

  • This was a good year for Apple to ditch the charger from the box. When you first receive the box, it looks deceptively small. This feeling stays with you until you hold the device in your hand and turn it on.
  • Keyboard is a tiny bit bigger, but enough to be noticeable and more comfortable.
  • Physical buttons are in a different place and it is unusual at first, but as with everything you get used to it pretty fast.
  • The camera bump is so much bigger that I had to change the grip because I was touching it. Had to teach myself taking the phone a bit lower than usual.
  • Leather case is thinner, which makes a phone in it more usable. Although I don’t like that it has a chin now. With constant swiping up from the bottom of the screen it is in the way. But I do love the colored animation which is the same color as the case.
  • I miss 3D Touch. I used it all the time and long press even with the haptic feedback is not the same. And also cursor mode on keyboard was so much better when you could do it anywhere and not just on the space bar.
  • While watching recorded HDR video, the screen gets really bright. I mean REALLY.
  • Not on the iPhone itself, but on the migration process. Used wireless migration from one phone to another. The process is good, although for a long time (about an hour), you can’t use both phones. Some apps (especially banking) get confused about their state and I had to reinstall a couple.

[TV Show] Inside Bill’s Brain

March 31, 2020
4 min read

I’ve recently got a new OLED TV and wanted to see something in 4K, so I started with Netflix and the first thing that popped out was this three part documentary about Bill Gates. It is interesting how it was divided in parts instead of making just one movie, sure there were three different stories, but I don’t think anyone would watch this documentary one by one in a span of couple of weeks. My guess you would either binge it or you would stop whenever.

The visual quality was indeed great, it looked very real on the big screen, although there was some historical footage, which was so blurry you couldn’t recognize faces (but it was very rare).

I’m not a movie critic and I don’t watch a lot of documentaries (unfortunately), but I’ve had a couple of thoughts while watching this I wanted to share.

Western Rich

Although I’m very interested in western culture and I’m much more knowledgeable about it than most of my friends and acquaintances it was still shocking to see two of the richest people in the world talking in the car with one of them driving. I know it is part of the acting, but still, they looked very natural and I don’t see Russian richest people behaving the same way.

The Reason Behind Windows 8

It’s not a secret that Windows 8 was one of the most hated operating systems in recent time, with all those tiles and all-screen interfaces. I didn’t hate it, but it was not loved by me either, but looking at the shots of Gates working I could see how all those decisions got made. Focused management work, you read one article at a time, you write in one document – I bet it worked perfectly for him and a lot of senior management in Microsoft.

Also, as a side note, it was interesting seeing Microsoft ecosystem there, with PCs, Microsoft Outlook, Office etc. As someone who is all-in with Apple, refreshing look.

Books

I was surprised to see Bill reading paper books, I even got a desire to read couple of physical books myself. For the longest time I’m reading either on my iPad or iPhone and lately added audiobooks.

Also the amount of reading is astonishing and those are not thin novels or bullshit leadership books. They are deep and focused on something very niche and to be able to read 14 books in the span of two weeks is just amazing.

Nuclear Power

I actually like the way it was portrayed in this TV show. Because of the two big disasters in the minds of the people of course it has a bad rap in minds, but looking forward it is the most realistic source of energy from what we have available right now.

It looks more like the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation ad and story about it and all the work it does than a story about Bill’s brain. It’s not a bad thing, they do interesting and important work, but I was hoping for something different considering the name of the documentary.

All this talk about reading and Gates says almost nothing about it during the documentary. You hear other people describing it, but it would be much more interesting to hear the process from Bill Gates himself.

You get a glimpse of how he manages his time (or someone is managing it for him), but a more deep dive would be appreciated.

Looking at the name of the documentary and my expectations I would love a more personal story about himself and not the foundation.

Apple Pay: Two Months In

October 18, 2019
4 min read

We’ve just got to Spain and despite of it being late at night decided to go swimming, the sea was about 3 minute walking distance from our hotel, so we’ve changed in the room, took towels and nothing else. I had only my Apple Watch with me. We’ve went to the sea, had a nice swim (which my Watch tracked as an activity) and on the way back we saw a bar. We went there and as nobody had a wallet, I’ve bought drinks for everyone with my watch. Tell me this 10-15 years ago, I wouldn’t believe you.

There are different types of technologies – the ones that disrupt, the ones that improve or worsen our lives and the ones that blend seamlessly into our lives and it feels like they’ve always been there.

When you first pay using Apple Pay it just feels right. It’s easy, fast, natural and secure. The one problem? During the presentation I though we would never get it in Latvia. When AirPods came out I had to wait 9 months before I was able to buy a pair. We still, after a year, don’t have EKG (although most of the Europe does), so imagine my surprise when one day out of the blue I see news that Apple Pay is available in Latvia. Five years after it was announced.

I immediately opened Wallet app to set it up both on my phone and my watch. It is still available only in mobile payment systems – Revolut and Monese (although Swedbank is promising the support soon), no other local bank offers it, so the barrier to entry right now is a bit high for users. It took me a minute to set it up and 5 minutes later I was using my watch to pay for coke. It felt like I live in the future.

It is now about two months since launch in Latvia and it feels like there wasn’t any other way before. I’ve used the physical card just a handful of times and mostly outside of the country.

My wife asked me to help her order Revolut card, so she could use Apple Pay. I’ve had a couple of waiters ask how is it possible to set up Apple Pay and they seemed very enthusiastic and really wanted to try it out.

Here in Latvia, almost every terminal is equipped with NFC reader, so I’ve only had one time where I couldn’t use it. After about a week I’ve left my physical Revolut card at home and never looked back. I have one back-up card in my wallet, but it almost never gets used.

I was surprised that there are a lot of terminals that don’t have NFC in Lithuania, granted it wasn’t the capital, but the smaller touristy city, but still. In Russia on the other hand contactless terminals are the norm. Even in some god forgotten little towns where cashier is a babooshka you can pay with your watch or a phone.

I love that there are no limits using Apple Pay, like there are with contactless. I’ve paid large amounts without the need to enter PIN, just pushing the button on the watch.

The offline story is very well covered here in Latvia, unfortunately not so much online. I was able to try out Apple Pay on a website just once, but it was a blast. There are a couple of apps that I use that added Apple Pay as their payment option (mostly apps that rent e-scooters), using those makes me wish every app and website supported it.

I hope more banks add the support for the Apple Pay in the future, as this is fast, easy to use and most importantly secure way to pay, so the more users have the ability to use it, the better.

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.

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.

iPad Pro (2018) – The Hardware Story

February 13, 2019
7 min read

The one and only iPad I’ve had before, was the original iPad Mini and I loved it. But quickly phones started to get bigger, laptops thinner and I’ve always used Kindle for reading. So more and more it felt like there was no need for another device in my life and I’ve given that iPad away. 

When Apple presented the new iPad Pro’s I didn’t think much of them. But after seeing those in person and reading all the stories of photographers editing on this thing, I’ve started to look more closely, as I’m getting more and more into photography. One day I’ve decided to get one myself, but I couldn’t decide on the size. I’ve re-listened to all the podcasts that were discussing new iPads, I’ve watched a lot of YouTube videos (and I mean A LOT), but still couldn’t decide which one was right for me. Whenever I went to the store and played with both – I appreciated the screen real-estate of the 12.9”, but also I loved how light the 11” was – you could hold it with one hand. 

Multitasking was also a consideration, as it’s so much better on the 12.9” and for photo editing – the bigger the screen the better. While I was trying to decide between the two sizes, I’ve ordered both of them at one of the local retailers, as they are not that common in Latvia and the wait for them could have reached 3 weeks. I thought the faith would decide – I would buy whichever came first. So one day I got two messages saying that both my orders were ready – so much for the faith. I’ve went again to the store to play with both sizes to decide, with no luck, until I though about what Casey said in a reply to me – “I wanted as portable as a Pro could get”. So I chose the 11”, and decided to cancel the order for the 12.9”. 

Few minutes later I found out there was a mistake and 11” wasn’t ready yet, so here it is – the faith did decide for me. And boy the faith was right.

First things first, I thought the 11” would be better using in one hand, but until now I didn’t have a chance to use it this way as it’s still too big and not intended for that type of use.

Second, the screen is gorgeous. I mean, it’s probably the best screen I own, even though it’s not OLED. I know this is not bezel-less screen, but it feels pretty close. 

It’s surprising how thin and light the device is. The screen is almost as big as the one on my MacBook Pro and there are all internals inside it, considering this – it weights almost nothing.

Magnets – there are a lot of them and it shows. Popping the iPad into the Smart Keyboard Folio is effortless and surprisingly taking it off is easy too.

Pencil

Fortunately, there was one new Apple Pencil at the store, so I had it from day one and I’m sure this is an essential accessory for the iPad Pro. It’s so much better with the Pencil – one could argue it should come with the iPad. Even going through the interface, it gives the feeling of replacing the mouse or trackpad. I like it for editing photos as it gives a bit more of a precision. 

The way it charges and connects to the iPad is great. I can’t even imagine that it wasn’t like that before. This is so intuitive and simple, how could Apple ship a worse product before?

I’m not much of an artist, even in my childhood I didn’t like drawing, so I can’t say how good it is at that, but writing something in Apple Notes or Notability is amazing. It feels so close to the pen and paper (of course not texture wise, but just the feeling of it).

Smart Keyboard Folio

As we live in the 3rd world country, Apple products get to us a bit later than to the rest of the world (9 months later in case of AirPods). So I’ve tried to find Smart Keyboard Folio with no luck. Everyone just smiled and said – try again in a month or two. Luck had it, we were traveling to the Bangkok which coincidentally has the Apple Store. Fortunately for me there was one with US layout and so I’ve got myself the official Apple keyboard.

Having this keyboard is totally an improvement. I can now prop the device to watch videos. Typing on this thing is fast. I love the travel and the sound this keyboard makes. The “lapability” is good too. In fact, I’ve written this review on my iPad Pro sitting on the sofa with the tablet on my knees. Just two available angles don’t bother me too much. Sure it would be better to have more choices, but these two angles work for me.

The one disappointment I‘ve had – the keys are not backlit. It’s not a huge issue, as I don’t look at the keyboard while typing, but it sure would be nice to have.

Also, as a lot of people mentioned – it is dull. There is even no Apple logo on the back. It’s just grey peace of plastic. Now I need to find some stickers to cover it.

USB-C

Surprisingly it’s 2019 and this is my first device with USB-C, so now I need to buy a lot of new accessories, like upgrading the charger to more powerful one. Right now, while traveling, I have to bring different cables for iPad, iPhone, Apple Watch, photo camera and power banks. Will have to do some thinking and consolidation of cables and power bricks. The other problem – as we were traveling, we wanted to watch some TV shows on the plane, so I had to buy USB-C to headphone jack dongle. I’ve found a cheap one online from third party and it didn’t work. So I had to buy the official one. 

Also, although my camera can transfer photos via Wi-Fi, it can’t do it for the RAW images, so I’ve had to buy USB-C card reader. This all adds up and iPad Pro becomes more and more expensive over time.

Camera and FaceID

Actually, I don’t have anything to tell about the back camera of the iPad, as I have never even launched it, but I wanted to mention the FaceID. It’s much better then on the iPhone. It works in every orientation, it’s very fast. The animation when you cover it is such a nice touch. Also using iPad with FaceID is so nice, I wish MacBook had one. You don’t think about authentication, you just look at the screen and everything happens like it was intended.

As was discussed a lot, right now the one thing holding iPad Pro back is iOS, that’s why I decided to write the review of just a hardware. I love this device. It’s powerful, it’s beautiful, it’s comfortable, it’s all I wanted and even some more, but I wish I could say the same about the software, we are not there yet. There a lot of hype for iOS 13 and I do hope Apple will deliver.

Red Dead Redemption 2 – Impressions

November 10, 2018
4 min read

For almost two weeks I’ve been fishing, hunting, riding horses, played poker, drank whiskey, robbed a bank I could go on and on again, but there is no need. It’s probably impossible to mention everything you can do in the Red Dead Redemption 2.

I loved video games, but I’ve had my console (or any console) only for two years, so I’ve never played the first Red Dead Redemption. Actually I’ve never played a lot of games. That’s why I don’t buy games for the full price when they come out. The backlog of the amazing games I’ve yet to try is too big to spend my money. By the time I get for today’s new hotness, it will be sold with the discount and that was until the RDR2 came out.

This is the first game I’ve bought the week of the release for it’s full price (I would have bought on the first day, but I was away from home for two months and couldn’t play, but that’s a totally different story.

This is also the first game I’m thinking I’ll spend a lot of time in even after finishing the story. I’ve never done that before. After finishing GTA V, I’ve had similar thoughts, but I never did. The very big difference is even in the way I play from the very begging. In the GTA V I’ve moved through the story, rarely looking at some side activities. Here, I’m trying everything I can find. Hell I even chopped some wood at the camp today. The game is so immersive, for the first time I liked crafting something and I’m not even mad there is no fast travel (most of the time). But the world feels so alive, you can spend more time in it, not less. Oh, and also, I’m grateful I’ve learned that you should go on white missions first, as if you progress through the story and miss those, they will go away eventually, but there are some interesting stories told there sometime.

The dialogue and social commentary in this game… it’s even hard to describe. Rockstar are masters of those, this was the one thing I loved the most about GTA V and here again. Racism, sexism… there is no theme Rockstar won’t touch and it’s amazing. I applaud them for having balls in today’s society and political climate, especially in the US.

Of course the game is not perfect, you’ve probably heard and read already about the broken economy – you will have excess of money early on in the game (I’ve finished about 50% in the story and there was no time when I’ve though – “oh, I would like that, but I don’t have money”, it’s more like trying to find places to spend all the time). The controls some times are too unwieldy, from playing domino (it takes too much button presses) to dealing with the horse. Maybe the problem is with me, but there were a couple of times, when I’ve been Wanted after jumping someone after pressing something accidentally.

Still, with those couple of problems, the game is just amazing. The world feels alive, the way you look after your horse, weapons and even yourself doesn’t bother me for the first time in any game, it made fun.

If you didn’t try the game already, do yourself a favour and grab a copy. You will most probably love it.

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