iPhone

Bigger Screen iPhones? I’m Not So Sure

Bigger vs Smaller iPhones
The iPhone 7 (left) and the iPhone SE (right)

Apple’s current lineup of the XS, XS Max and XR iPhones sport bigger screens, that has made me wonder about the practical use for large screen phones which are increasingly becoming unwieldy due to its rounded corners. Has the form finally exhausted its potential and it’s time to bring back the flat edges?

I got my first iPhone in 2010, which was the iPhone 3GS introduced by Steve Jobs in 2009 and unarguably the best iPhone that I have owned even by today’s iPhone standards — if you ignore the SE’s sleek design, including being super portable, in which, Apple dovetailed the potential of communication, music and an internet platform, in a light-weight, user-friendly form factor that fit snuggly into my pant pocket and just as easily removable, though I wouldn’t say it was easier to hold.

Now, admittedly, none of those first generation iPhones had any of the high-tech or hardware splendour that Apple today is cramming into every single new version of the company’s most successful product, TouchID, FaceID, etc. Even the camera on my then 3GS, for instance, was a mere 3 mega pix (mp), it took some decent pictures for me although can’t compare that with the current phones which are insanely high-quality in not just the resolution but the video quality as well. I thought the camera had been sufficiently enhanced with the SE giving it a 12mp and better picture quality and what another practical use of a good resolution image is unless it’s satellite imagery of a secret military installation? Bottom line, a camera isn’t tempting enough for me to invest a fortune into the iPhone.

Practically Small, Not Glamorously Bigger!

For me, it has been less about the bigger hardware (form) and more about the technology (functions) which the iPhone packs into its palm-sized brick shape. The TouchID, for instance, has been a great feature in speeding up the sign-in process, not only within Apple’s own eco-system which consists of iCloud, App Store, and Apple Pay on iOS and macOS but also for the humongous size of its app universe. Much recently, Apple introduced Password AutoFill using iCloud Keychain (also allowing third-party password managers) – also using TouchID, to fill your login credentials in Safari and the rest of the other apps. The experience is not near to perfect, moving in an out of the app depending on the app architecture, but it nevertheless removes the stress of remembering and copying/filling passwords. Of course, another platform that predominantly uses the advantages of TouchID is Apple Pay for secure payments. And now, even Apple is acknowledging its support for old generation (smaller) phones with the iOS 12, that may not remain so in the near future. In all of this, there’s one thing that has stood out for me quite evidently – the bigger screen sizes of the iPhones which have now become a standard feature are no longer validated proof of good design. It’s how the whole package works.

I have always surmised that it’s the technology within an iPhone that makes the iPhone experience truly the best for me. Even if it’s still a smaller iPhone SE which I have recently owned and cherished for its overall design effort.

Stoop Offers A Unique Newsletter Experience

Stoop logo
Stoop inbox on the App Store

Just like the rest, I’ve subscribed to a decent number of email newsletters, prominent amongst which are the UX Booth, UX Daily and Indi Young’s awesome effort on content and information architecture called ‘Indi in your Inbox’. Personally, newsletters have provided me with an advantage over normal news and Google or other such websites, in fetching the important ingredients while keeping the ‘noise’ out. The other obvious benefit is the delivery of content to your inbox where one could treat it like any other email and if the content no longer engages you like before you could unsubscribe it with a few clicks. The downside of this transaction is the sharing of your email, and perhaps, without your knowledge, even to third-party vendors depending upon what its privacy policy states (who reads them anyway). So while you might get the academic content you desired you could also end up with deleting or marking more spam than before. There’s always that infamous Gmail trick to filter out spam and to direct newsletters to their specific labels but it’s tedious so why live with all the hustle and bustle of technology when help is around? I am referring to Stoop that I recently put to good use to manage the surge of my newsletters.

I have reviewed apps such as Shazam & Duolingo for their uniqueness, and I am trying to categorise Stoop as a newsletter aggregator app. It’s a smart concept with the benefit of providing the user with a unique ‘yourname@stoop.email’ email and the newsletters come to the inbox inside the app. On the ‘Discover’ tab, it gives a carousel view of popular newsletters, to staff picks and even featuring publishers who regularly publish quality content, although for subscribing to their newsletter it will take you to the publisher’s web page from within the app. Basically, no more sharing your email credentials and living under the fear that your personal info could be compromised, Stoop inbox provides all the answers!

Shazam A Song, Just Like That!

Shazam

I was late in discovering Shazam, just like some other apps, but I don’t regret it. I love listening to any form of music and being an ‘old schooler’, the “independent” sorts, I’ve not pledged my allegiance to either Apple Music or Spotify, although it’s becoming inevitable to avoid. Meanwhile, I’m satisfying my urge of listening to soul-stirring melodies through the droves of FM stations of this city who cycle their playlists like kids on a carousel ride, so you can’t miss out on any song now, can you? I also follow an alternative method to understand & discover different kinds of sounds, by visiting the various outlets & malls in & around Toronto. As I’m sifting through the garments or enjoying a meal I’m patiently listening to a soothing melody or a foot tapping anthem that would eventually stick in my head and wouldn’t let me breathe easy until I’m able to locate its creator’s credentials. Ugh! And a Google search would only be fruitful if I got the lyrics right which is challenging in all that chitter chatter in the vicinity, so Nah! Enter, Shazam.

Though I was always intrigued by this nifty app since even before Apple acquired it there wasn’t a practical use for me to experiment with Shazam, but its time had finally arrived. It was simple. I launched it and found the circular ‘S’ logo throbbing and inviting me to tap as a tune played at a busy H&M outlet. Even though it was faintly audible the microphone on the iPhone deftly captured the notes, and in a jiffy, it displayed not only the name of the artist but also the colourful album art, the lyrics, while giving me the choice to buy it on Apple Music. It also added it to a ‘My Shazam’ playlist so I won’t lose the information! The ‘Shazam-ing’ is so seamless & quick and searching for new music has become simpler and more exciting, and enjoyable now. No more anxiety over unknown melodies, eh. I never thought I’d say this but then Google feels weak for a change! So, if you’re late to the party just like me, give it a shot.

Phone Services And iPhone Features

Today, I was on the phone with my service provider trying to understand more about an iPhone feature called the ‘visual voicemail’. Simply put, it provides a visual interface on the iPhone making it easier to check your voicemails, just like you’d check mail in your inbox. More importantly, a little Googling threw up some interesting use-cases, such as you could be saving the voicemails or sharing/forwarding it as a message to other recipients, a handy feature if one cannot get over the habit of missing calls. According to Wikipedia, it was the iPhone which introduced the visual voicemail feature and subsequently the other notable cell phone manufacturers followed the trend. So to sum this up, it’s a hardware characteristic and should be traditionally available to the buyers of any iPhone model. However, much to my dislike, my cell phone service provider (name withheld out of courtesy) decided to include it in a subscription package alongside a bunch of enhanced functionalities including more voicemails per month, cheaper calls to the United States, and a caller name ID, which no matter how trivial the cost of the “value package” might be I cannot see them benefiting me at this stage.

In a nutshell, let’s determine the value of phone features independently from the augmented cell phone offerings. I concur that telecom companies could invoice customers for the maintenance and distribution of additional & enhanced service packages, but there seems to be no justification behind charging consumers for elemental features that are inbuilt by the phone makers. In my view, the visual voicemail feature; despite the dismal volume of voicemails afforded by my basic plan, is an essential function of any communication experience to its consumers, just like texting or emails are, and should be provided gratuitously! Clubbing it with non-essential offerings lacks complete wisdom.

It’s No Longer An ‘Old’ iPhone

The iPhoneSince that spectacular launch of the iPhone, the Apple WWDC events have brought loads of encouraging features and promising apps to the dedicated consumers. However, during every WWDC event, I always get the jitters before the announcement of a newer iOS version, the innate question being, will they support my iPhone model or will I have to live with an ‘older’ model. I say “old” because, in Apple’s parlance, the annual releases of iOS and macOS makes even a two-year-old device purchase obsolete! Without an upgraded iOS the iPhone becomes slower, loses support for most of the apps I use frequently which consequently downgrades the overall user experience for me. Besides, as a committed Apple consumer, the addition of features and product upgrades with subsequent iOS releases, there’s a sense of betrayal that they couldn’t manage to upgrade the software and support a wide array of iPhones. Not anymore. At the WWDC 2018 this week, Craig Federighi announced that the forthcoming iOS 12 (launching this fall 2018) would be supporting the same iPhone/iPad devices running iOS 11! Which means, not only would the newer release include tons of new features the apps in older iPhones are expected to launch up to 40 per cent faster, and you can slide to take a photo at up to 70 per cent faster than with iOS 11. This is a big win for iPhone 5S owners which was launched as far back as 2013. Most importantly, it decisively puts to rest the argument about the ‘planned obsolescence’ theory in iPhones and iPads thus saving them from the land-fills.

As Jason Koebler at Motherboard opines:

[perfectpullquote align=”right” bordertop=”false” cite=”” link=”” color=”” class=”” size=””]It remains to be seen whether iOS 12 will actually make the iPhone 6 faster, especially with third-party apps. But it’s important that Apple is at least paying lip service to phone longevity, and appears to be trying to optimize its new software for old hardware. It’s not sexy, but it’s a small step toward making our electronics less disposable.[/perfectpullquote]

This is a promising start by Apple and their commitment to sustaining the environment is noteworthy, but what the consumers heartily desire is to hold onto their beloved iDevices a little bit longer.