One of the unexpected bonus delights of London was when the static sound in my left AirPod was untenable, and I booked a quick Genius Bar visit at the flagship Apple Store in Covent Garden to see if anything could be done. Remarkably, thanks to the extended service program for the known issues with noise cancelling, I walked out with brand new AirPods Pro for both ears (albeit in the original case, which is fine) and probably spared myself having to think about new headphones of any kind for at least a year and probably two. As souvenirs of London go, it was right up there with the new brogued Chelsea boots for pricey yet delightful.
Problem is, the earbuds were the least of my problems. I don’t know what the issue was – EE coverage? Forgetting to go into Airplane Mode in the Tube? Citymapper or Maps hitting the battery harder than six hours of podcast and music a day at home? – but the battery life on my iPhone 12 mini was untenable. I was plugging into a fast battery every day around 3 PM, especially given that my wireless-charge magnetic Anker battery couldn’t charge fast enough to keep the battery from dropping (a wild disappointment). And even though there were battery issues introduced in iOS 15.4, which dropped halfway through the trip, I upgraded on the fly in hopes that it would fix the problems I’d already had for the entire Park Lane leg of the voyage.
I’ve already been into the Genius Bar since I got back. Looking at the diagnostics, the battery is on 85% of its original capacity (it’s not eligible for warranty replacement unless it drops below 80% before AppleCare expires in November, which could go either way at this point), and there are no other indications in the GSX diagnostics that would rate a repair. And let’s be honest, it’s not that big a deal in a world where I’m still working from home, and the phone can sit on a wireless charge pad next to my workspace or on the wireless charge pad in the ID.4 or on the wireless charger overnight. And who knows, maybe iOS 15.4.1 will actually make a little difference.
So what to do about the phone, then? If we were going to cocoon forever, no big deal. If I were to go back to commuting, especially on transit, something would have to give. And if I were seriously traveling…
Hold up.
I do have a serious trip coming in May. It’ll be the first time back in the old country in six and a half years (and for good reason; the Confederacy didn’t feel like a safe place to visit in the Tr*mp era, and I’m white) and there will be more than a little gallivanting around Tennessee and Alabama. It probably won’t mean as much use of location services – they don’t have transit in the South and I know my way around the freeways, and we’ll be in the company of others for most of the unfamiliar spaces – but there’s likely to be a lot of photography and probably more than a little photo casting up to the TV screen at some point. The move between now and then, most likely, is to evaluate whether the magnetic battery booster pack is viable in a world where GPS and EE’s ratchet 4G signal isn’t sapping your power.
So assume I can make it down and back as is. Then…well, there are decisions to make. The iPhone 12 mini I have now, for all its issues, is still worth the maximum $320 in trade-in value. The iPhone 13 mini is the last of its kind for the foreseeable future; the Great Mentioner is assured that the fall line will be an iPhone 14, iPhone 14 Pro, iPhone 14 Pro Max, and a new iPhone 14 Max, replacing a 5.4” phone with a 6.7” phone and ensuring for the first time that you won’t be able to buy a current-processor iPhone smaller than six inches. (Unless the non-Pro 14 line stays with the previous processor, as has been rumored, meaning that the SE3 will be the small phone…but I am not about to give up Night Mode and go down from 5.4” to 4.7”.)
So the question is…the iPhone 12 and mini remained on sale after the 13 and mini dropped. It’s possible the 13 mini will remain on sale after autumn, and at a $100 price reduction just as the 12 mini was. Problem is, the trade-in value of my 12 mini will certainly also drop, and I’m prepared to bet by more than $100. It feels like gambling a bird in the hand against a slightly different bird that may or may not be in the bush.
But what’s the benefit of this upgrade? Wasn’t the 12 mini supposed to be the long-term phone? Yes, yes it was. But the 13 mini feels like the last call for one-handed premium phones. It would be a little faster, a little better camera, a little more future-proof (or at least future-resistant), and most of all, it’s already going to cost me $69 to replace the battery under AppleCare before November. A new 13 mini out of box would represent a 30% jump in battery life over my existing device as is, not to mention a reset of the warranty clock to summer 2024 and an extension of viability to possibly 2026 or later. After all, if not for work providing the X and my unwillingness to carry two phones, I would have hauled the original SE until spring of 2020 at a minimum.
There was one other consideration – at one point, I thought there would be no point in shifting phones until after I’d changed jobs, and could make a simpler fist of migrating to a new work MDM and new set of requirements and yadda yadda, whatever. Problem is, after half a dozen attempts in the last six months, it’s become clear that I’m not going anywhere for the time being, which means that moving phones means having to jump through a bunch of hoops to make sure I don’t screw up the 2FA and MDM and everything else I need for work, and at a time when a lot of that stuff is all over the place at the office. I’m wary of doing anything that calls attention to the fact and possibly puts me on a new work phone – and worse, a new phone from my actual employer, which would almost certainly mean winding up carrying two phones because of all the restrictions. Which would be insane and frustrating and reason enough to quit almost by itself.
I don’t know. In a lot of ways, it feels like moving to the 13 mini is paying $400 out of pocket to guarantee that I can carry on for longer with a satisfactory phone. And having to pay again just to run in place and keep what you have feels awfully on the nose for 21st century American life. And yet, if you don’t pay, you’re still going to have to pay for a battery replacement and possibly new front glass anyway before the warranty expires and drives the cost even higher when you inevitably do have to buy a new phone in a few years.
First World problems of the worst sort, I know. But it kind of says a lot about how we live now.