There’s something to be said for one device to rule them all. As nice as it is to have the iPad mini for reading and music, especially in flights or on Sunday nights, it’s very convenient to only need to take one thing when traveling. It’s doubly convenient not to feel like a full day out demands a battery pack. And when you have a 6.3″ display, you’re functionally in Kindle territory.
It’s nice to have the latest of everything for my personal area network: newest Watch Ultra, newest AirPods Pro, and now the newest pro iPhone. It’s great to have the best available camera, and that 5x optical zoom is a difference-maker. The Apple Intelligence stuff is nice to have in theory, even if it’s not yet particularly practical (I am convinced the marching orders for Apple Intelligence were “create the minimum AI product that will get the Street and the tech press to STFU”). I still have my questions about game mode, but they won’t be solved until I can start playing something other than Balatro+ on here (never more than one run at a time, that game is crack). And I have deliberately and specifically set it to only charge to 80% in current use, because if this is going to be a four year phone, it needs its battery protected.
I still need to do the satellite and hearing-aid setup. I don’t know where my hearing is, but I’m keen to have our audiologist friend’s opinion of the AirPods Pro as hearing support. And with Siri supposedly making a big jump in 18.4, the more I can do with voice and earbuds, the less I have to keep grabbing the phone for stuff. Which is probably going to be a resolution for 2025: nothing on the phone that can’t be done as effectively elsewise. Watch, earbuds, voice, iPad on Sunday nights, laptop during the workday – now that the phone can do everything, try not to make it do everything.
This phone’s name is Darksaber. It’s an homage to how my first iPhone was called “Lightsaber” after all my previous phones had the Bluetooth ID “Sidearm”. When I was able to go to a smaller phone, with the SEs or the Minis, I went with “Sgian Dubh” because it was the device I always had on me even if I did my work with something bigger. But this is a full sized phone, black in color, and it’s going to be a year for adhering to the creed, so may as well go in properly.
This is the way. Of which.