Let’s kick off this review of the “OMG IT’S SO EXPENSIVE U GUISE”i iPhone X and a few of its many glitches :
- Scrolling through the news on the Stock Ticker app on one ticker symbol leads to an equally scrolled down news feed when a new ticker symbol is selected.ii
- Lock screen engaged in landscape freezes the lock screen wallpaper in landscape, which must also then be reopened in landscape.
- Weather app side-swipe for next city on list is regularly unresponsive.
- Switching apps is slower than button-based iPhone because the double-home-button-tap is replaced by swipe-from-bottom-and-hold-for-two-mississippi. Quicker swipes from the bottom just take the user home.
- Returning from single email message to Inbox will occasionally result in Search box also being selected even though it was touched, so returning to the Inbox requires a second tap back.
- Screenshots are regularly taken by accident because volume-and-sleep button combo is used in lieu of home-and-sleep button combo.
- Front-facing proximity sensor (part of FaceID pkg) regularly fails to detect any faces, meaning that user has to tap screen to wake phone because there’s no home button.
- Lock screen music player occasionally unresponsive, requiring unlocking of phone.
- New voicemails will frequently not appear until the phone app is quitted and rebooted.
- YouTube videos loaded in Safari will continue playing audio in the background even once you’ve exited to the home screen.
And a whole host besides. That being said, since I’ve been adding to the list on-and-off for the past few months, one or two of these glitches have admittedly been corrected by software updates (*spit*), but several others – most notably the landscape lockscreen and Safari-YT glitch – remain unaddressed these many moons.
On the flip side, the OLED screen is gorgeous, the camera is crisp as cotton, the battery life is exceptional, and the bluetooth connections are remarkably robust compared to earlier models. And speaking of earlier models, the decidedly mixed bag that is the iPhone X in teh real-world is juxtaposed against the new Apple AirPods bluetooth headphones, like so many WiFi-enabled “smart” refrigerators that can’t maintain 4°C while their single-purpose forbearers march stolidly onwards.
While at first the AirPods looked like stripeless candy canes dangling from my sumptuously enlobened ears, their many merits warrant enumeration :
- They never fall out.
- They’re much harder to lose than you’d think thanks to the dental-floss-like case.
- They rapidly recharge in said same case.
- They display battery levels for each earpiece and the case on the iPhone.iii
- They maintain superb connection consistency and quality.
- They have excellent operating range, greatly exceeding normal bluetooth.
- They work perfectly with just one earpiece connected.
- They can be programmed to issue functions to the music player with double-taps of the earpiece (eg. skip song, pause, etc.)
- The sound quality is perfectly acceptable.
- They lack cords!
- They don’t require software updates!
With absolutely no fanfare, the friggin’ AirPods have emerged as the most well-developed and dare I say “revolutionary” product since the original iPhone. While I was one of the early adopters of the AirPods, and goodness did they stand out like a sore thumb in the gym and on the running trails against the sea of Powerbeats’, normal iPod/iPhone headphones, and over-ear items,iv the AirPods ranks have swelled considerably of late, and with every justification. If you’re the active sort, they really are that much better than everything else out there.
It’s a Post-Steve World, it’s true, but I have a sneaking suspicion that he had his hand in this one last gift to his fans. How not ?
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- The iPhone X 256 GB cost about $1`600 mini-USD (aka CAD). Too much ? Too bad. This elevated price point is the way forward for the fraudsters in Cupertino. Android can take the lion’s share of the volume but Apple just wants the lion’s share of the profits. ↩
- I’ll always have a soft spot for the Stock Ticker app, even though I don’t trade fiat assets anymore, because it was in the news section of this app that the Bitcoin Gods hit me in the head for the second time. Thank goodness lightning struck me twice or I’d still be inspecting hovels for bed bugs and mice! ↩
- If you’re using older iOS/iPhone tech, it’s worth noting that this feature didn’t work on my old iPhone SE running whichever iOS it shipped with. ↩
- Over-ear headphones, particularly the noise-cancelling variety, are a sure-fire way to cook your brain if working up a sweat indoors. About the only time they’re useful for physical activity is for outdoor runs when it’s -10°C or colder. Otherwise, leave the QC35s for the library, office, and airplane where they belong. ↩
[…] the flesh, this looks like a veritable sea of iPhone X‘s with their iconic notched screens, Rimowa suitcases with their iconic corrugated aluminum […]
The “log in with your mug shot, so no, you can’t duct tape the camera” and “no more button” is pretty sad, imho. I can’t picture buying that box at any price.
For those of us with less than spectacular eyesight, the new OLED screens alone are worth whatever minor changes in UI.
Also, mug-login is optional, not required, so duct tape is still very much on the table. And there are still three buttons plus the vibe-toggle, so not exactly “no more button,” just no more home button.
Not that I’m trying to sell snow to eskimos, I know better than that, but it’s not exactly sad, at least in the grand scheme of things.