The iPhone SE combines 2 GB of RAM and always-listening voice control on a one-handable package. So did the Moto X when it dropped at the end of the summer of 2013. It\u2019s still flabbergasting to me that Google didn\u2019t take better advantage of that – it was (and in my opinion remains) the most genuinely innovative phone since the original iPhone, and they utterly flubbed it by combining premium pricing with virtually no promotion. Were circumstances reversed, Steve Jobs would have sold a million Moto X first-gens and probably buried the iPhone – but then that\u2019s why Apple is the world\u2019s most valuable publicly-held company and Moto is now a subsidiary of Lenovo churning out (very good value for money) budget phones.<\/p>\n
The thing is, the iPhone 6 (technically the fifth different body style) is<\/em> just a hair too big, made worse by the fact that you have to put a case on it – partly because the damned camera protrudes from the back, partly because the rounded-off sides make it like handling a bar of soap that\u2019s already<\/em> at the edge of what you can handle in one hand. My iPhone 6 is in Apple\u2019s leather case, and it\u2019s just a little too big to do everything one-handed. My wife\u2019s iPhone 6S is in a different style of case, and it feels (and even looks) like a larger phone. And looking around the last couple of days, it occurs to me that the whole world has pretty much just shrugged and said \u201cokay, phones are five inches now\u201d and decided that we\u2019ll all two-hand it. Which – I mean, how do you hold your drink? How do you stay upright when commuting? (Actually don\u2019t bother answering that last bit. If I had a nickel for everyone at work that I see whizzing by on a bicycle with both hands on the phone instead of the handlebars, I could pay my bail.)<\/p>\n Nope, the iPhone SE is pretty much Apple\u2019s concession to what I\u2019ve said all along: we crossed the finish line in 2013 and all that\u2019s left is to make the bits better. And they largely did – more RAM, always-on voice control, faster processor, greatly-improved camera (and fully enclosed in the body of the phone!) – not to mention the battery life. My random scribblings and attempts at algebra led me to think there should be a 17% battery life improvement from the 5S. Instead, I got 17% battery improvement from the 6S – which is a substantial<\/em> premium over the original 5S.<\/p>\n The thing is, if the iPhone 6 were my only device, it would be tough to take the hit on screen size. But it isn\u2019t. I have the iPad for movie watching and heavy reading (not to mention the Kindle, which is ideal for long rides on trains and planes). The kind of reading I do on the phone – RSS feeds, Twitter, text and email – isn\u2019t that diminished by going to a 4\u201d screen instead of 4.7\u201d, and the audio (the endless podcasts, and occasionally even music) isn\u2019t affected in the least.\u00a0<\/p>\n And the other nice thing: the SE is completely 100% backward compatible with the entire ecosystem of iPhone 5\/5S accessories. I already have my Magpul case. I already have a Mophie charge case. I could take this to London without spending a cent on accessory support and could almost certainly make it through a full day without even needing to pull on additional charging (largely because I won\u2019t be playing audio all day and most of what I do will be either photography or navigation).<\/p>\n Long story short: I don\u2019t need to replace my work phone now. But as soon as I do, the iPhone SE is the move, because it\u2019s basically the 6S-Minus – all the same stuff, everything I want and nothing I don\u2019t, in a perfectly-sized package. For the first time in I don\u2019t know when, there\u2019s an Apple product ideally tailored to my needs – if only I needed it.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The iPhone SE combines 2 GB of RAM and always-listening voice control on a one-handable package. So did the Moto X when it dropped at the end of the summer of 2013. It\u2019s still flabbergasting to me that Google didn\u2019t take better advantage of that – it was (and in my opinion remains) the most … <\/p>\n