In Hardware: the iPhone 5s, a future-proof computer and camera in my pocket

First, some bullet-point format observations:

Finger print sensor: I like it, primarily because it saves time over the code I would usually enter to unlock it, not to mention my Apple ID in the App Store. During the unlocking, I don't like that it immediately requires the fingerprint when I lock the phone, because I had it previously set for a few minutes after closing, which is not an option now. I do hope that changes, because it's still slower to unlock the phone then. 

The camera: haven't tested it extensively, but like the nighttime performance, the intelligent flash function, the launch speed of the photo apps I use, the picture burst mode, and the slo-mo, although filming is definitely not my métier. It's clearly better than the iPhone 4 camera, which is what I wanted. 

The M7 sensor: I'm excited about it, but haven't used it in an app yet. I hope Moves, which I recommended before, integrates it soon, providing that Nike Move doesn't sue it out of the water. 

The look & feel: it doesn't feel oversized and it's super light, but I found the iPhone 4 light enough. I did notice that the White iPhone collects dirt at the bottom edge, which annoys me to no end. 

The battery life: Houston do we have a problem? This battery does not last long, maybe 10 hours on light use, and I'm wondering if it's to do with that I'm still on 3G (T-mobile NL is supposedly switching to 4G in a few weeks) or because of the battery bug that I hear about. Or, because of some kind of software or background process problem. Frustrated about it. 

The apps: I started using Pages for writing, because it syncs so easily with my Mac and with Pages in iCloud (useful for Windows PCs). Not really using other apps, or not noticing big changes. I do enjoy making bad music with Garage Band though...

Other: light sensor is much better and I really enjoy using the phone in inverted colour mode (the contrast is much better now!). Siri works well for me, as does dictation (typed a blog post with it yesterday). 

CONCLUSION
The frustrating and good thing about Apple devices is that they are of such good build quality that if you already have an iPhone (4 in my case) and were already able to put iOS 7 on it, the iPhone 5s does not feel that new. My old phone is 3 years old. About 3 months ago, the mute switch and top volume button stopped functioning (I did drop it a lot), but other than being slower, which you get used to, the only reason I needed to upgrade was because it made financial sense with my provider. I'll probably get the iPhone 8 and 11 for that reason as well, because I'm actually buying something that works durably. With other brands, I never know if the build quality is good, if the software continues to work well, and if the apps are available. So, it's a pragmatic choice.

It's frustrating to no longer have that pink cloud feeling about Apple gadgets, but at the same time there are so many easter eggs contained within the software and features that I'm sure to enjoy discovering over the next 3-6 months, after which it will become a good companion.

If you care to support this Website, feel free to order an iPhone 5s on Amazon and give us a kick back!

Why not choose an iPhone 5c?
The simple answer is future-proofing. The iPhone 5 was a perfectly good phone (apart from some battery life issues on 3G) and the iPhone 5c is essentially the same one, with some improvements in the camera and elsewhere. Another reason for not upgrading to it is the plastic, which I feel is a bit of a downgrade from the Braun-inspired design quality of the iPhone 4.

The iPhone 5s feels more like it's designed for, well, a lot of interesting things to come. Apart from the camera, which is state of the art for a mobile phone (see a comparison with the new Nokia Lumia 1020 here), the fingerprint sensor seems like a step towards a lot of opportunity, and I'm really excited about the M7 sensor, as I exercise a lot and care about having good performance data.

P.S. I do believe something is wrong with both software and hardware aspects right now (particularly the battery life), which I will try to fix with their help over the coming weeks. 

In Software: Moves for iOS & Android (FREE, but it's not all good)

"The Best Camera Is The One That’s With You." ~ Chase Jarvis

I think that most of us smartphone owners probably heard that saying somewhere. Smartphones are amazing devices, whose computing power parallels the ones that made the second Star Wars trilogy, and cameras that are getting, to some extent, closer to professional cameras. But there is another trend that we need to bite into with these devices, the health and fitness market. We humans do not move enough. We sit too much for 8 hours a day and probably mornings and evenings too.

Smartphones have the advantage that they are always with you. Yes, you can buy Nike+ devices to attach to your shoes (...), various wristbands, and belt attachments, but the smartphone, our music player and Facebook crack all in one, is usually always there.

And so is Moves, which has been on iOS for some time now and was recently released on Android. Moves is free (I never get these business models) and tracks every kind of movement you make, as long as it's horizontal and not vertical (my climbing is not counted).

It comes with a number of features:

• it tracks running, biking, walking, and (public) transport (it's occasionally tricked by roller blading as public transport as well...)
• it uses Maps, which means that you can tell it when a destination was the gym (good!) or the McDonalds (bad!)
• it can show you distance, time, and calories burned
• it can send you daily, weekly, and monthly (?) notifications about how well you did, including new records
• I believe that it plugs in with other apps, which must be its business model, but I don't use them...

It just has one caveat, which is the new automatic updates on iOS 7. Because when you update Moves, it turns itself off. So you need to start the app again. But how do you know that Moves has been updated? You don't really, which is why I asked the developers to create custom notifications and/or just send me an email if the app is updated. Still awaiting that answer which is caveat 2: customer service must always be responsive, else it alienates users. So please join me in waking Moves up about this issue!

All that said, incredibly useful if you want to know how much you bike every day, how much you walked on your city trip, how much you ran on your weekly run, etc. It is your companion for Movement!

In Software: iOS 7 part 2 ... and what that means for Mac OS 11

For lack of a better space to post this, I can still clearly say that the Apple ecosystem is generally a favourite of mine where it comes to technology, design, and strategy. This post will be more about strategic thoughts regarding Apple's resource allocations after Steve Jobs passed away and Scot Forstall, former head of iOS, was removed from that position.

Company- and product building are not that different. Screws and bolts can be interchanged with people, buildings, skills, and activities. Apple is a collection of all four, combined with a strong, if not very secretive vision of the future, centred entirely around quality and "being different." It doesn't matter what Apple machine I've owned, iBooks, Macbooks, iPods, iPhones, or iPads, there's a logic behind all of them, both in "product - market fit" and in the construction of hardware and software.

iOS 7 has been called the "harkening back to the original coloured iMacs" days and you can perhaps recognise the initial playfulness, largely inspired by Johnny Ive's work, in iOS 7 (also under Ive's supervision).

 




Jonathan Ive's and Craig Federighi's collaboration for iOS 7 represent what I think the ideal state is for Apple, the perfect melding of hardware (Ive's territory) and software (Federighi used to be responsible mostly for Mac OS X, but now largely for both OS X & iOS 7). Good article on that here, but don't expect to find the answer to everything. I love this quote from Federighi:

OK, I’m a technology freak, but I think probably if someone mapped my brain, you would find that there were moments when I lit up the love pattern in my neurons in association with our products. I mean, literally, there is love, and I think that is true of many of our customers. I think when we build something we love and that others love, then we have done our job.

When I see the little tidbits in iOS 7, I see Love. When I see Game Center, I see playfulness. When I see the whole thing, I see logic that transcends individual apps, software, and even hardware.

Why this affects Mac OS 11...
Mac OS is the Apple device OS. Just because it's called "Mac OS" doesn't actually mean that it's the operating system for the Mac computer, but it's simply the software that Apple writes for its computers. So, Apple TV, iPod, iPhone, iPads, they are all computers. And the only reason Mac OS looks different is because the interface needs to be different and the hardware capabilities have (so far) been different. A laptop or a desktop will never become a "touch" device, it doesn't make ergonomic sense. But what we have to focus on here is the greater achievement of iOS 7 and devices like the iPhone 5C (color). The strengthened interplay between software and hardware.

Clearly a prediction, but everything suggests that for new computing devices this bond is meant to become stronger. Apple products are neither meant to be hardware or software, but tools that are useful, that we love to spend time with, and that don't get in our way. Apple is slow when it comes to changing things that work, so I don't believe that Maverick will do anything revolutionary to bridge the software - hardware gap. But Ive's & Federighi's collaboration is sure going to be applied to their "traditional" devices as well, which means that we will see more of iOS 7 (maybe not the visuals, but the ideas behind it) in Macs and Apple TVs as well.

In Software: IOS 7

Just a few titbits:

Speed: I love the little settings pop-up. Whether it's to adjust screen rotation, to quickly change the brightness or to turn airport mode on and off, it just so much more convenient and faster to do just that.

Usefulness: I love the look of the new notification pull down window. 1. It's a nicer way to read the weather in plain text as that's a more human way to interact. 2. it's well organised with the calendar and I appreciate it letting me know how busy I'm always the next day. 3. Thanks for shifting the notification to other, less used panels, those were just guilt inducers for me.

Hardware compatibility: Until I decide to switch or until this damn phone dies, I'm still using an iPhone 4. And while I thought the last update to IOS 6 made the phone slow already, it still feels plenty usable with iOS 7. I also noticed that multitasking is more responsive, even not recently used apps load faster when "multi tasked," and being able to quit running tasks quickly also speeds up this older phone by quite a bit. Apple could've chosen to make me feel antiquated, instead they breathed new life into this old dog.

The Look: it feels like a modern interface, I would primarily describe it as elegant with a lot of colour play. As I've heard other people say, I agree that iOS 7 makes iOS 6 feel outdated. 

In software: favourite official & unofficial Mac-plugins

Check it on Tech IT Easy.