My (Temporary) Return to iPhone

I’ve been using smartphones for about 12 years now. I’ve never had a screen break. Most of the time I do not put my device in a case, I don’t use screen protectors, and it’s been fine. Last week, my Samsung Galaxy S20FE slid off my desk, hit the ground, and developed a fairly large crack and the display just quit. It flashed all sorts of colors and was completely unusable. In fact, the display no longer works but the battery is still active because the alarm goes off every morning. 

Luckily, Joslyn had an iPhone 12 she isn’t using so I dropped my sim card into that device and got back up into mobile device land. This is my first iPhone since the iPhone 7. I’ve been using Samsung devices now for about 4 years so the sudden switch is a bit shocking. After using it for a little less than a week, I figured I’d evaluate the three things I like, and don’t like about the device.

Things I Like. 

The first, is less about the phone in particular but the attitude on how I approach tech. Deep down inside, I’m still completely fasciated with computers. I am open about how I believe the internet is one of the greatest tools of mankind. However, over the past few years, I and many others feel a bit jaded about the state of tech. Ian Bogost wrote in The Atlantic, “That facade is finally crumbling. Web3, the nascent third age of the internet, represents a turn away from Web2’s goody-goody idealism and back toward Wall Street’s brazen greed.”. This subject alone will eventually be it’s own post but you get the idea. What was once innovation and nerdy brilliance is now…pretty ugly. 

However, when I picked up the iPhone and unlocked it, that feeling of “tech is cool” came back. Learning a new ecosystem felt inspiring. Not much about iOS wow’d me in any sort of way, but it felt like fun tech to learn again. I sensed this might be the case before I bought my last computer, a Windows machine. I thought about buying a Mac, just because it would be fun to learn Macs again. 

I think for most people, learning a new OS would be painful and worth avoiding. However, if you feel a little underwhelmed with the current state of tech, try a different OS. It’s a fun little change. 

The second was the evaluation of my relationships with certain apps. On a brand new OS, I couldn’t just port my old device to this one. I’ve had to consider each app that I’ve downloaded since. Some are easy, my banking app, Starbucks, Twitter were easy ones to download. Some, I had to think about. Did I really need Reddit on my phone? Did I need Netflix? I hate how Spotify has leaned so far into podcasts, so why don’t I just leave it off and use Apple Music for a month? It’s easy to forget about all the app hoarding we do on our devices. Maybe you have better habits than I but I’ve gone from over 100 apps to like 7. 

Lastly, I like iMessage. We all understand that Apple knows there is value in keeping iMessage on iOS. When communicating with other iMessage users, it’s a really nice experience. The animations are crisp, the feature set is nice. It’s unlike other messaging apps I used on Android outside of communicating with other Android users…who had RCS turned on. It’s a lovely app but it benefits greatly from owning the market. That I don’t like but more on that later. 

Things I Don’t Like. 

The first thing that stood out to me on the iPhone is the app icons are huge. I have them set to the default size and I’m shocked by how large they are. I’m surprised, with how well known Apple is for their graphic design, that they decided to go with icons this large. It creates an absolute mess on my home screen. Folders helps solve that but the folders are large too. Very strange to me. 

The next thing that I don’t like, is philosophical more than anything else. It really bothers me that the only place I can download apps is from the App Store. It’s not even like I download a bunch of apps not on the Google Play Store but on Android, at least I have the option. I get that 95% of users probably don’t care but it has always bothered me that on Mac OS you can download and use applications from just about anywhere and on iOS it is the opposite. Apple is adding in more customization options into the iOS operating system. This is a large difference between how I think about computers, and how Apple thinks about computers. I think we actually have the same end goal, to create awesome user experiences. The problem is how we think about openness on computers. 

Is there a way to close all open apps at once? For as long as I’ve been on Android, there has been “close all apps” button and it’s awesome. As far as I can tell on this iPhone, I have to swipe to close every app. Every single time I do it, I know there is a far better solution. It’s a small thing, but it drives me absolutely insane. 

My next steps here are to see what my insurance covers for the broken device. Unfortunately I bought that S20 quickly after my S9 died a very surprising death. So this is 2 phones now where it wasn’t a planned change and the S20 still has some payments on it. My primary takeaway on this is I’m not exactly in love with either ecosystem. I have things I like and dislike about both. Web Developer and Shop Talk Show host, Dave Rupert once went Windows/Android for a blog series and how he feels about our mobile duopoly, is how I feel. “I wish our society was more tolerant of third contenders. It’s always iOS or Android, Coke or Pepsi, Republicans or Democrats. I wish there was a third option…I mean like a really viable third option with decent hardware, great privacy, and support for Progressive Web Apps.

Only having two options doesn’t feel like choice. It feels like compromise. Fingers crossed the future is more diverse”

This experiment continues.