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.

Apple Watch: My Experience

November 12, 2017
5 min read

When Apple Watch first came out, there was not a lot of reasons to buy one in Latvia – we don’t have Apple Pay, there were not a lot of apps for the Watch – we don’t have Uber, most of our homes are not smart and we still go to the stores to buy groceries instead of them being delivered to our houses. That’s probably why local retailers still don’t sell Apple Watches here (even official Apple resellers). The one I’ve found a month ago was the carrier selling 38mm Apple Watch Series 0 for about 460$ (yes, in 2017).

So when we were travelling to New York City this September, as per tradition – we’ve gone to the Apple Store (this time to the Grand Central), I’ve walked around and came right to the table with all the watches and here it was – 42mm Apple Watch Series 3, a couple of question to the employee, tap of the credit card, typing my e-mail and 10 minutes later I was out of the store with my first smartwatch. I’ve got GPS only version, as again, cellular doesn’t make much sense in Latvia, as carriers don’t support those and I’m not sure they will in pretty long time.

Activity tracking
Some time ago I was reading a couple of articles saying how Apple Watch helped them be more active and even lose some weight, for example, Jim Dalrymple and his weight loss story, I was very skeptical. I’ve had Fitbit before counting my steps and it wasn’t motivating me a bit, I’ve just tracked steps without really going out of my way to reach the goal. In a couple of months, I’ve lost my Fitbit and never got a replacement.
But with Apple Watch it was very different, right from the first day I was closing all three rings and it somehow mattered. First, it was easy, as I was in New York City for the first time, so 2 out of 3 rings were usually closed at about lunchtime, but at home, it got a bit harder, I’ve had to make a bit of an effort to close those rings. Now, I try to finish my lunch early, to have time for a walk and on some days with my wife we «walk the Watch».
Through the day, the Watch keeps reminding me to stand and I’ve got a habit to go and have a glass of water, which helps again.
So far I’ve lost 4kg in about one and a half week (change in a diet also helped) and had my first perfect month in October.

Notifications
I’ve long had a thought that Apple was destroying Notifications Centre when they’ve removed the grouping by an app, it became impossible to use the Notifications Centre for me and I’ve mostly relied on the icon badges all over the home screen, which, as you can imagine, is not very good solution. Just after getting the Apple Watch notifications became a bit more useful. They all appear on my wrist first and I can manage them from the watch, leaving some of them to see on the phone and replying to others using dictation, which became pretty good, even in Russian. Having my watch buzz every time I receive a notification, also helped find the ones I don’t need and turn them off.

This is just one of the examples how Apple rewards you for being all in in the ecosystem. Like how Apple Watch can unlock your Mac, for example, which at first was hard to get used to, because I have developed a habit of opening the lid and starting typing first character of the password right away which canceled unlocking with the Watch, but after a couple of days I’ve got used to the automatic unlock.
The second cool thing was when my phone was charging in the bedroom and I was in the other room, I’ve put my Airpods in the ears, opened Overcast watch app, chose an episode and started playing the podcast from my phone. It felt really nice.

Time
This is a bit silly and a bit surprising, but probably the worst thing about Apple Watch is how bad it is at telling time. I’m not saying it tells the wrong time, far from it, as far as I’ve read it is one of the most precise time peaces, but having to raise the wrist to see time is pretty bad. I’m one of the rare people who was wearing a watch before getting smart one and was very used to just glancing at my wrist to see the time, now I can’t do that. I have to flick the wrist every time I want to see what time it is, which, while working, is not a good experience.
Taking into the consideration that on a normal day, I have about 65% battery power left and Apple Watch having an OLED display, I think it is possible for it to have always on time. It could be a feature off by default, but I would love to have it as an option.

After having a watch for a little more than a month, I can definitely tell that I like it very much and will continue to wear it daily. I’m still closing all three rings every single day and trying to raise my Move goal in the beginning of every weak even if by just a bit. It is a solid product with the bright future ahead of it. I’m not seeing a lot of them in Latvia, but that’s probably because you have to go out of your way to find one, but when we were in NYC I was shocked to see so many of them on people wrists and now I can see why.