My eyesight is definitely getting worse, but I find that my gorgeous OLED iPhone X can offer me a nice newsfeed or half a chapter in a book while waiting in the doctors office, should I forget to bring my iPad Air 2 along. Every one of my peers and younger relations with good or adequately corrected vision absolutely loves the biggest phone possible; they read on them, watch tv, sports and movies, and more. Not all my cup of tea, but I also have options. Some people can only afford one device and nmake it do plenty.
For me, my Parkinson’s has made typing on any keyboard extremely difficult; I used to type 130wpm on an ergo keyboard; and I could do up to 60wpm on the original iPhone through the iPhone 4 and 5/SE.
Now, I find that text to speech is incredibly useful and generally pretty accurate; the 30 second time out is the only thing that really annoys me; but I find now that my iPhone becomes a very effective primary workstation for inputting text. I honestly like it better than Dictation on my Mac, even though the Mac never times out. The punctuation and page structure instructions simply work better on iOS. I’m dictating this now, and I see only a couple of tiny errors that I will have to correct manually.
It’s really awesome to only need to hold up a small screen and use the built-in microphone or my headset to apply a great amount of words in a short amount of time to a page. Of course it’s not always appropriate to dictate in public; but I’m generally not ashamed or embarrassed to use it for necessary messaging wherever I am, and it doesn’t seem to bother people, that I can tell.
Considering what I spent on this luxury device, and how well it works, I am very unlikely to be tempted by this year’s S models; I absolutely don’t want a larger phone, and I wish this one were considerably smaller, although it need not be as small as my beloved SE, or my even more beloved 4.
The ‘Max’ moniker absolutely makes me cringe; I would’ve preferred they called it the iPhone XT, which would have better complemented the iPhone XR.
Regarding the missing humanity of Steve, I’m not sure I agree; I think Lisa Jackson getting on stage and talking about recycling and clean power added that element for me, regardless of the awkward structure of the hype show put on by Tim. I also watched all of the videos and felt the emotion contained within them; but I’m now confused as to whether all the videos I watched we’re actually in the presentation itself, so I may be off base.
They’ve only come close once or twice to half the polish and perfection and beauty of a Stevenote. Phil and Craig can do great stuff, but Tim is not Steve, and never will be. I just cling to the trust I have that he is not, despite all of his logistics prowess, just in it for the money. Yes he is going to nickel and dime and squeeze every penny he can; it’s in his nature; but I also believe that the mission to help humans be humans without letting technology become first and foremost is The Real Deal.
Overall I was not really let down by this event, as the Mac universe tends to be when they don’t get every rumored or imagined toy and new device with every impossible spec and feature that they desire including a Hogwarts tuition and Ollivander Pencil Wand. It was a 2 1/2 product event, and I’m content that there’s a ton more in the pipeline that will make me happy. I hope.