For the past two years, I've used the iPhone SE. While the smaller display can be frustrating at times, I think that most of my frustration with the display was that Apple has designed the software for much larger screens. Even while they claim the UI is responsive and can adapt to screen size changes, it turned out that changing that setting in iOS 11 and making the type and interface larger caused significant performance issues on iPhone SE. Apple Support helped me diagnose that back in March of this year.
After two years using my iPhone SE, it's still a great phone, but it's been wrestling with a few small issues. What we noticed the most was the significant difference in the camera performance between the iPhone SE and my wife's iPhone 8. In addition to the photos on the iPhone SE not having anywhere near the clarity of those shot on the iPhone 8, my iPhone SE has picked up a few blemishes on the camera lens that shows up as spots on photos. Normally, I might not care -- at least, I wouldn't care enough to downgrade and loose my headphone jack -- but as noted in a previous post, we have a two-year old son that we like to take lots of picture of. When you have to wait to get someone else's phone to take a picture (or it goes to sleep and you need to re-authenticate), it sucks. This is what drove me into an iPhone Xs purchase.
My new iPhone Xs arrived on Friday, and I've used it over the weekend. As noted in the title, I hate it.
Before I tell you about all of the ways that I hate it, in keeping with one of my college writing classes, I'll start by saying something nice about it. Something I like. The camera. It's great. While it's possible to manipulate your images in Photoshop to match the portrait mode effects, the iPhone Xs captures these kinds images simply and easily. It really works well. The shots are beautiful.
Other things that I've found to be nice about the iPhone Xs -- Face ID works better than I expected. Often, if the iPhone is looking at you, Face ID will unlock the device. That being said, if I'm wearing sunglasses (like when I'm using the iPhone outside at the farmer's market), it won't work unless I lift up my sunglasses. It also doesn't like it when the device is laying on the table, looking up at me. This seems even more problematic when I'm wearing glasses. In short, for all of the times when it knows me, there are many annoying times when it doesn't. In general, my fingerprint worked better (it only failed when my hands were wet or when the sensor got dirty).
Now, let's get to the things about the iPhone Xs that suck.
It's really big. It's been a while since I had the iPhone 6s Plus, but the iPhone Xs feels big like that. And this is the smaller device. Imagine how big the Max must feel. In short, the iPhone Xs has the same problem that I had with the iPhone 6s Plus -- it's too damned big.
For comparison, here are the two versions when I hold them in my hand.
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| Holding the iPhone SE - front facing |
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| Holding the iPhone Xs - front facing |
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| Holding the iPhone SE - side view |
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| Holding the iPhone Xs - side view |
While it may not seem like much of a difference from the images, you can kind of see how much more open my hand is holding the iPhone XS. In real world interaction, this translates into less grip on the phone and, from my previous experience, a greater likelihood of drops. It also makes it extremely difficult to use the device with one hand. In contrast, with my SE, I can spin the device around in my hand without really loosing my grip on it.
You know what's even better than an iPhone that's so big, it's difficult to hold onto? Making the iPhone enclosure almost entirely of glass. Take a look at a couple photos of my iPhone SE.
I've been using this device for two years without a case. As you can see, it has sustained a few drops. What I've highlighted with these two photos are two corners of the iPhone where you can see that the phone took a pretty significant impact. In the top corner photo, it hit the asphalt so hard that it took a big cut out of the metal. Rather than leaving a sharp edge, I used a nail file to smooth the metal, something that required me to sand it down below the surface metal to the red material below.
Would an iPhone XS survive these kinds of impacts? In a case, perhaps, but a bare iPhone Xs? I'd bet not.
I don't think that I'm particularly hard on my devices. I would consider this normal wear and tear. But it does give you a sense of the design priorities driving Apple's iPhones these days.
So, let's move on to more things that suck.
All things charging suck. Pick a topic - wireless charging? I don't have it, haven't imagined I'd need it, nor would I have ever traded my metal enclosure for it -- or the headaches associated with another glass-backed iPhone. There was a reason why the iPhone 5 was a huge improvement over the iPhone 4.
But beyond the glass, why should I have to go out and spend another $50+ for a wireless charging mat when the only thing I can charge with it is this stupid iPhone - particularly when I can just as easily guarantee that the device is being charged when I plug it in.
Then there's the BS "fast charging" feature. Note that this only works IF, you spend another $60 with Apple to buy their more powerful charging brick and another $30 for their USB-C to Lightning cable, neither of which are useful to me or anything other than fast charging the stupid phone.
But don't get me wrong, after I experienced half a day of battery drain on Saturday, I considered fast charging. It's probably worth some analysis and comparison, but if I didn't know any better, I'd almost think that Apple slowed the regular charging speed on the iPhone Xs -- even using the iPad charger, it charges painfully slow and the battery usage seems high.
What else sucks about the iPhone Xs?
No home button really sucks. Yeah, they've figured out a way to make the interface run without a home button, but it doesn't work well. Essentially, sliding up from the bottom edge of the screen is supposed to equal a home button. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. There are times I've had to make 3 or 4 swipes up just to get the interface to do what it's suppose to.
Perhaps the bump created by the bottom edge of the case makes your finger skip, but would you even consider carrying this expensive piece of glass without a case?
The other thing that comes into play with the iPhone Xs is, since there isn't a home button, it wants to wake up whenever you touch the phone or it moves. This leads to lots of false wake-ups. At the same time, whenever it wakes up, it also starts to look for your face -- I suspect that this may contribute to why it seems like the battery drains as fast as it does. Maybe it's just me (or maybe it's the default auto-lock setting on this device), but it also seems like it goes to sleep faster than it did previously. Maybe that's a feature to highlight how well their Face ID works.
It goes without saying that the lack of a headphone jack also sucks. First, there was the "I need to carry two pairs of headphones with me to work today, one for this stupid iPhone Xs, and one for everything else." Then, when I got to work, I plugged my iPhone in to recharge from listening to streaming audio on the way in during the commute. I briefly thought about listening while I recharged the iPhone, something I could have done in the past, but quickly remember that I can't do that on this stupid iPhone.
Bottom line -- yeah, it sucks. It sucks, but the camera is great.
At this point, I've considered switching back to my iPhone SE as my primary phone, disabling the cellular on the iPhone Xs and just using it as a camera. It's a difficult decision, but it seems like the kind of decision that Apple is forcing us to make these days. In the same way, caught between choosing a new Macbook Pro or a refurbished pre-USB-C version late last year, we opted to buy Apple products that were, essentially, three years old. It really says something about the state of Apple, doesn't it.
