Gone Horny

Yes, it was a long time coming. I had been planning to get the new phone since it was announced, skipping the iPhone 8. To my surprise, Anita wasn't keen to upgrade, sticking to her 7 Plus for the time being.

The couple of departures from the iPhone of the past were obvious right of the bat. The first being the disappearance of the home button. This created space for bazel-less display. Rather than having a fingerprint reader at the back of the unit similar to the Nexus 6P, Apple went with Face ID, using the front-facing camera to deal with unlocking of the phone. And it worked perfectly even on the first few hours if using the phone.

Next was wireless charging - and for this I used the charger from Samsung. It worked a treat.

The bonus would be the camera. I had a different entry specifically on the camera. Excellent snapper and it could handle 4K at 60 fps. I had to use iMovie on my Mac for post-processing since Final Cut Pro can't handle the new file system yet to process the movies.

The main downside was using the Face ID while mounted to dashboard. You had to look at the phone when you unlock ...

So far, I had no major complains. The battery life was also excellent. 256 Gb is an awfully large storage to fill. The phone was blazingly fast.

The AirPods

I have been eyeing the Airpods for quite some time. Every time I was driving, with the iPhone 7 not carrying a separate headphone jack, I was not able to charge my phone. ANd I do decide to do so, I was not able to hear my podcasts.

I tried using third party wireless earpiece but none of them came near this units both in terms of audio quality as well as convenience. Apple again got it just right.

It looked flimsy at the beginning but the earpieces were surprisingly snug and comfortable. There were no risk of them falling off my ears despite my movement and the sound were surprisingly good. Good enough to appreciate some bass lines and the spoken words came out loud and clear. The unit also excelled while making phone calls.

Charging was easy as putting the units in the cases both switches the units off automatically as well as topping up the charges. Once a week charging should suffice despite my daily use. All in one small, pocketable package. It needed to be seen to be appreciated ....

Their availability in Malaysia were still sketchy as apparently Apple had been having problem producing them in bulk amount. I managed to get a unit at Pavilion when I was walking around there last weekend ... and they were not exactly cheap. Another drawback was they only worked with Apple products - although not necessarily just the iPhone.

Update Time

As Apple was gearing up to their next iteration of the iOS, the iOS 11, the 10.3.3 update came out. I didn't waste much time doing the update and the process seemed to be straightforward enough. No hiccups.

Let's hope that it brought some improvements ...

That Was Quick!

Was at a Celcom branch yesterday to settle my bill - yes, I activated data roaming during my recent trips! - and i started to test the LTE speed in the branch!

Holy cow! This one was fast! It soon slow down the moment I stepped out of the store. It was not helped by the fact that there was a Maxis branch right opposite .....

Updating

So, the iOS 8.2 update was out tonight. And with that, you would be able to connect the iPhone to the upcoming Apple Watch at the tap of a button. And no, I have yet to own the Watch.

Anita on the other hand had been fascinated by the gold MacBook. Looked slick according to her, until I pointed out that the connections in and out of the thing would be tricky and proprietary. But I supposed she only need the port for charging.

As for the update itself, it was rather a big one. Around 2.2GB on my Mac Pro. I used that instead to save time rather than over the air. Thankfully there was no glitch so far as I would be on call tomorrow.