I occasionally joke on this blog about Tim Cook being irate at me for not upgrading my iPhone 12. I bought it in January 2021, so it’s now just over four years old and, with Apple’s yearly releases, it’s officially four generations behind the newest, sexiest iPhone 16.
What am I missing by not upgrading?
Better battery life
Faster processor
Better cameras
An action button. For action!
An overengineered camera button. For accidentally taking photos you didn’t mean to.
Some different colours
Apple Intelligence (it took a lot of self-control to avoid putting sarcasm quotes around the word “intelligence”)
Excluding the dubious features of Apple Intelligence, the only thing I’d really notice and appreciate in a new phone is the improved camera, and even then, without moving to the pro model with the telephoto lens, the camera in the iPhone 12 is still perfectly cromulent.
The battery health of my phone is 83%, which is edging closer to where Apple suggests getting a new phone battery. But it’s still plenty for me, given how light my phone usage is. I don’t do social media on my phone, I take few calls, snap a few photos and do some texting. I don’t play games or run processor-heavy apps.
And then there’s the whole question of whether I’d stick with Apple or jump over to Android. Sadly, those are really the only options, unless you want to go full dumb phone and party like it’s 2006. Which I sometimes do.
Part of me, the part that still gets that techno lust urge, wants to get a new phone, but really, I can’t justify it in any meaningful way. So I’m sticking with my iPhone 12 for now.
Sorry, Tim.
P.S. Tim, you suck. And not in the good way, in the kissing-the-ring-of-fascists way.
UPDATE, October 10, 2024: I manually updated after checking this morning and finding the phone had not updated on its own yet again. I kind of wished I'd waited, though, because I'm curious if the phone would have never updated again without me forcing it.
For the past few days, my iPhone 12 has been sending me notifications about an impending iOS update. Just make sure the phone is locked and has enough power, and it will happen automagically, it says (this is the state my phone is in when I plug it in to charge every night as I go to bed).
It never happens.
But like a scene from Groundhog Day, the notification keeps repeating, promising an update tonight.
Maybe tonight will be that night.
Update Scheduled. I believe you, iPhone1I don’t believe you at all, you dirty filthy liar!
In previous times, I’ve always ended up tapping Update Now, but this time I think I’m going to wait and see what happens if I don’t intervene. I’m feeling adventurous! Updates on the update soon™.
The iPhone 12 doesn’t have any kind of optical zoom, it digitally “zooms”, which just gives you a mess of pixels vaguely in the shape of what you’re pointing the camera at.
Today, I saw a beaver resting near the Cariboo Dam. It was not especially far away, but not especially close, either. The 250mm telephoto lens on my Canon EOS M50 would have gotten a nice shot.
My iPhone 12 produced this brown ovoid blob with maximum zoom:
Here’s an original iPhone (3.5″ display) next to my iPhone 12 (6.1″ display). And keep in mind, the Plus/Max phones are 6.7″ displays:
My phone does have a case, which makes it look slightly bigger
If you look, you can see that the display is even tinier, thanks to the chonky bezels on the top and bottom. I still kind of miss the home button though (or more to the point, Touch ID, which was later added to it). And when I hold the original iPhone in my hand, my thumb can easily cover the entire screen without any straining, which is nice. I can more or less do the same on my iPhone 12, but it involves stretching and the phone shifts somewhat precariously as I move my thumb around the display. It’s not really meant to be a one-handed device.
While the original is definitely not as wide as the 12, the change in height is far more dramatic. This makes sense, since we have not evolved wider hands in the last decade.
It was fun to hold an original iPhone (I had an iPhone 4 in 2010 and while it had flat sides, its dimensions were pretty much the same), now I just need to find my one surviving 30-pin cable to see if it will power up (I do not have huge hopes for this).
The Verge1Not singling them out, since every tech site will have the same vapid article had an article on what to expect at Apple’s next event, revealed today to be on September 12, 2023. They said there would be a new iPhone announced. You know, like what Apple has done every year for the past million years. The new phone will have stuff and blah blah blah.
I mean, I’m not expecting dramatic innovations in smartphones, especially from Apple, a company that gets more conservative and convinced of its own brilliance the richer it gets, so I suppose my complaint (because let’s face it, complaining is what I am doing here) is how the announcement of a slightly improved iPhone is still an “event” at all. I know, the hype machine must be fed. Everyone does it. But it just feels so tired and late stage capitalism-y. Look at the new shiny! Buy it even though you don’t need it! Watch Tim Cook continue to show the fire and emotion of a bucket of water! You’re going to love it, it’s their best iPhone ever! And so on.
I have an iPhone 12 and I think the only thing that would make me upgrade to something newer is a super fantastic camera. It can’t be just super, or fantastic, it must be BOTH! And then I may consider getting a new phone.
Will people care what’s inside this slab? Photo by Martin Sanchez on Pexels.com
Mark Gurman on Apple re-using the A15 chip in the base model iPhone 14 this year:
Giving the 14 Pro a speedier chip also adds another bullet point to the list of reasons consumers might choose the $1,000 model over a $700 one. An extra camera lens, ProMotion and a stainless-steel frame instead of aluminum probably aren’t actually worth an extra $300 to a lot of people.
I agree with his take regarding ProMotion (I’d bet most people don’t even know what it is) and the stainless steel frame (it’s a fingerprint magnet, so it never looks nice and if you have a case, you’ll never see it, and it also adds even more weight to an already heavier phone), but I think the better/extra cameras are one of two main reasons people buy the “Pro” models, with the other being that if you want the biggest phone, you have to get the Pro model, there is no other alternative (rumor also has it that Apple will feature a “regular” iPhone model in the larger size this year, so this may change).
But I disagree that making the A16 exclusive to Pro models will move the needle on sales in any measurable way, save for tech nerds who can’t fathom not having the best of the best with their tech, and the reason is that all iPhones have SoCs that are already fast enough with room to spare. The A16 might offer a better specs page than the A15, but in actual use, I would bet virtually no one would be able to tell which is which when using an iPhone.
This is just another way for Apple to save money without passing it onto the consumer–one of the key ways the company has grown so massively big. I submit it will also be a factor in its downfall, though that will happen much more slowly than its near-collapse in the 1990s–but it will happen. I may scratch out some more thoughts on this later.
On the one hand, I think most people won’t care if Apple re-uses the A15 in their base iPhone 14 (they should lose the numbers to describe the phones, too, but that’s another discussion). On the other hand, if the phone has the same design, same A15 and little else in the way of hardware changes, is it even an iPhone 14 at all? Why would someone buy one over the iPhone 13? (Apple will likely take care of this by discontinuing the iPhone 13, so there is no choice to be made). I suspect what Apple will do is present the base model as kind of an “oh, and we still have the great iPhone 14” while quickly glossing over its mostly not-new specs, then spend most of their presentation time lavishing praise on everything the “Pro” models have, and you should totes buy one, or you’re missing out!
And yes, I am putting “Pro” in quotes because of the reason addressed in The Verge article–it’s a meaningless term for a smartphone. It’s just the more expensive, feature-laden model. There’s no “pro” way to use a phone.
Anyway, that’s my long, rambling warm take on the possibility of the iPhone 14 re-using the A15 chip. Why ramble on this at all? I’ve decided if I have thoughts on these things, I’m just going to throw them out there. It keeps me writing and my keyboard makes a pleasant clack when I type.
UPDATE, September 9, 2024: Just noting that Apple revealed the iPhone 16, etc. today. I am still using my iPhone 12.
UPDATE, January 19, 2021: Added the iPhone 8 (RIP) and iPhone 12, corrected several egregious typos
Way back in the primitive days of 2008 I had something now known as a landline. This consisted of a telephone that was connected, via physical wires, to a dedicated telephone system that connected not just to my abode, but to pretty much all others, as well as businesses and even little structures known as phone booths. Any time of the day or night the landline meant I could pick up the receiver and hear the comforting drone of a dial tone, ready for me to punch in some numbers and get with the calling.
Today I have no such device. After getting my first cell phone in 2009 it grew increasingly obvious that I did not need two phones that did the same thing and especially two bills that did the same thing–expect me to hand over money willingly. And also especially considering my propensity to rarely call people or otherwise receive calls. Why pay two bills totalling $70? (This turned out to be a naive question now that we have companies like Telus trying to entice people into two year plans for a mere $95 per month.)
But never mind that, this is a list because I like lists and so here are the cell phones I’ve owned since 2009.
2009: The Year I Make Contact (with a cell phone)
Device: Samsung M320 (retail value: $40) Fun Fact: Samsung has released 15 billion different cell phone models
My first cell phone was a Samsung M320, which sounds more like an airliner model than a cell phone, though to be fair, the phone could fly–briefly–if hurled with enough force.
I got this phone with my first mobile carrier, Virgin Mobile. When I eventually switched from Virgin to Telus, the customer support person at Virgin called me a “naughty boy” for switching. Things were different back then.
I actually still have this phone and on a lark connected it to USB and..it’s charging! Here it is in all its charging glory:
I still think having a red button labeled ENDis a bit ominous.
In terms of style, this is my favourite phone, though it’s a mere “feature phone,” meaning it doesn’t have a fancy touch screen interface and all that jazz. While it’s not a smartphone, it’s not entirely dumb, either. It’s more of a dim phone. The best part is it flips open like a communicator on the original Star Trek. I confess to flipping it open multiple times and uttering, “Beam me up.” This was especially confusing to people when I did it while I was on a call with them. The phone had a low resolution colour display, a Tetris demo that worked about as well as you’d expect, and had TALK and BACK buttons next to each other, which I’m sure was just a coincidence. It was neat to me in that whole “wow, you can actually take your phone with you anywhere” way, but in 2009 it was already obsolete thanks to a little phone introduced two years earlier you may have heard of. I moved on quickly to…
2010: I phone, You phone, We All iPhone
Device: iPhone 4 Fun Fact: Steve Jobs made out on stage with the iPhone 4 at the 2010 Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC)
Here is a stock photo of an iPhone 4 from Apple’s support page because mine has probably been recycled into a transistor radio by now:
My iPhone 4 was black back when black was black and not space grey.
What convinced me to get my first iPhone was the Retina display. It really did look sharp. Steve was right! I downloaded bunches of apps that I promptly ignored, because apps were new and amazing. I kept a handful that were actually useful. Actually, I lie, I kept all of them because for the longest time I had no idea how to get rid of them. I was now ensconced in the iOS ecosystem, but it turned out that in 2010 that wasn’t enough. I wanted more. I wanted something…bigger.
2013: Bigger is Better (in theory)
Device: Samsung Galaxy S3 Fun fact: I spent more time moving icons around on screen than actually using this phone
Stock photo because my Galaxy S3 by all rights should have been shot into the sun (see below):
Now picture this phone going dead after a few hours of not doing anything at all. Grr.
Three years later (phone contracts were three years long in the olden days) I jumped ship to Android, or at least to Samsung’s version of it, dubbed TouchWiz, which reminds me too much of Cheese Whiz. What seduced me away from the iPhone was again the display–this time due to the Samsung Galaxy 3 offering an absurdly spacious (at the time) 4.7” display. I loved the larger screen. The phone was a little slippery to hold, though. Very slippery, really. It would squip out of my hand like a bar of soap. And to be honest, it felt pretty cheap and plasticky, pretty much the opposite of the classy iPhone 4. Also, it turned out the phone had a mysterious battery drain issue that could not be resolved. It would sit on the desk while I was at work, in sleep mode, and be drained before my shift ended. I spent oodles of time troubleshooting it, turning on power-save modes, disabling Wi-Fi, placing it in a pentagram on the floor and offering my first born. Nothing worked. It was the first time this fancy new technology let me down. Telus kindly allowed me to swap the S3 for any other phone they carried, up to the same value. This led to…
2013, Part 2: Back to the Fruit
Device: iPhone 5c Fun Fact: This phone was an experiment of sorts for Apple. I loved it and so it was killed dead after one year.
So green. So groovy. Image courtesy of MacRumors.
By the fall of 2013 I had returned to the Apple fold by getting a funky green iPhone 5C. Design-wise, this is still my favourite phone. It also fit nicely in hand without needing a case. It wasn’t slippery like the S3 and the plastic looked nice, not cheap. The display was larger than the iPhone 4 at 4 inches, but still smaller than the S3. I didn’t mind, though, it was enough for me. I downloaded more apps and for a time was content, but eventually chafed at the 16 GB of storage. My music collection alone would come to surpass this. So my next phone was based on something other than the display or battery/reliability.
2014: Big and Not Really Beautiful
Device: iPhone 6 Fun Fact: I’m pretty sure Steve Jobs rolled over in his grave at the design
Space Grey: The new not very black
In late 2014 (like, a few days before the year ended) I got an iPhone 6 after nearly three months of searching for a store that had the model I wanted in stock–a 64 GB Space Grey. The iPhone 6 was the first “big” iPhone and was popular as all get-out. This had the same 4.7” display as the S3, and like the S3 it was also very thin and slippery to hold. I got a green silicone case for it, to make it look a bit like my beloved 5c and to keep it from shooting out of my hand. That case turned out to be a little too grippy, making it somewhat difficult to get the phone out of my pocket. I opted for a black leather case instead, since green leather cases were not available and would probably have been hideous, anyway. Speaking of hideous, I am 100% certain that Jobs would have barfed at the way-ugly antenna cutouts on the back of the phone (the Space Gray colour made them a little harder to see, at least). I didn’t care about the looks, though, because with 64 GB of storage I was able to comfortably load all of my music on the phone, plus all the apps I’d never use.
Three years later and that same iPhone 6 is trucking along, albeit more sluggishly than before. I’m long past my two-year contract, so I’ve been eyeballing possible replacements and trying to decide what’s important to me now. Really, if the iPhone 6’s performance was still top-notch I wouldn’t even be looking at all. Since I have an Apple Watch I am more or less beholden to Apple (I rather like the watch) and where once Apple offered an iPhone and that was it, they now sell:
iPhone SE
iPhone 6s
iPhone 6s Plus
iPhone 7
iPhone 7 Plus
iPhone 8
iPhone 8 Plus
And next month (November), the iPhone X (that’s 10, not the 24th letter of the alphabet)
Yes, Apple has gone from the simplicity of offering one phone model to octupling the choices. The Canadian prices range from $469 to $1319, or from the sublime to the ridiculous, if you prefer.
I have made no decision as of yet and so my cell phone story has reached a pause, for now. I’m finding it hard to imagine I could justify $1300+ (before tax) on a phone that doesn’t actually do impossible things, like shoot money at me or do the laundry, so the iPhone X is probably a no-go. Plus it’s all-new first generation technology and Apple is pretty good at borking that sort of thing. Better to wait a couple of versions, then get the second generation at a discount.
Or just buy a cheaper phone, because as I mentioned near the start of this, I have a propensity to rarely call people or otherwise receive calls, which makes a $1300 phone seem a little silly, even if it can recognize my face.
UPDATE, January 19, 2021
I have acquired two more phones since this post was originally made. See below!
2017: Slightly improved
Device: iPhone 8 Fun Fact: Really just a refinement of the 6, though with a glass back, so Steve Jobs is probably no longer rolling over in his grave
By 2017 the performance of the iPhone 6 was getting noticeably slower, thanks to Apple’s “We’re totally not trying to get you to buy a new iPhone” updates to iOS. I decided to upgrade and because I was off contract, opted to buy the phone outright (I did a comparison and buying the phone and paying monthly over two years would have saved me about $20), so I took my 6 to an Apple store, considered the $1,300+ price of the then new iPhone X, chuckled quietly, then got an iPhone 8 in space gray with 64 GB of storage. I was essentially getting a faster version of the 6, with a better camera, wireless charging and Force Touch1Or 3D Touch, or whatever name Apple gave the phone version. This was maybe part of the problem–even Apple seemed confused by the feature. (which Apple later went on to kill, anyway). I immediately got a case and the phone never left it. It is in that same case right now.
Phone-wise, the 8 is so close to the 6 that I can’t really say anything new about it. I did appreciate the camera improvements and it led me to ultimately getting an actual camera, so that was a plus (except to my bank account).
The iPhone 8 served me faithfully for over two years, but in its third year, things turned sour. See below.
2021: The future is notch-shaped
Device: iPhone 12 Fun Fact: My biggest phone yet that strangely doesn’t feel that big
In 2020, the Worst Year Ever, my trusty iPhone 8 started developing battery issues. Specifically, the battery was not able to hold a decent charge. Then it got worse. The battery would drain so rapidly that it would go from 100% to 4% to “I’m shutting off now” in a matter of minutes. It got to the point that if I went out taking photos with Nic, I would need to bring along a portable power bank and run the iPhone tethered to it. At first I considered getting a new battery, but given the age of the phone, I ultimately decided to wait for Apple’s new models to come out and maybe get something on contract again, and using the “spread the pain over multiple years” to get a so-called Pro model with a telephoto lens.
In the end, I did everything differently, in a way:
I replaced the battery of my iPhone 8. With a new battery I can sell the phone used. Without a new battery, no one would want it unless they were mad. Or willing to deal with the hassle of replacing the battery themselves. But the battery replacement was more complicated than expected and the phone had to be shipped off to Apple.
The delay prompted me to finally move forward on getting a new phone, but in the meantime I had also decided to get an actual camera, so I went from considering the iPhone 12 Pro/Pro Max to settling on the regular iPhone 12.
The iPhone 12 model I have is Graphite, which is apparently Apple’s new version of Space Gray. I also bumped the storage up to 128 GB just to be on the safe side, even though I will now be taking more photos on my actual camera (a Canon EOS M50–more on that in another post).
This is my first iPhone with the new design language of “full screen” display, camera notch at the top and such. The larger display (6.1″ diagonally) is nice, and because the bezels are so much smaller, the phone is not actually much bigger than the 8. The flat sides also feel nice for holding it. It feels solid.
The camera is improved again and night mode works as advertised–handy for grabbing pics when lighting is bad and I am sans dedicated camera.
Other than that, it’s an iPhone and works like an iPhone. It’s fast and slick, but I use my phone much less than other tools these days. I made a rule only to install apps as I need them and I’m keeping the home screen free of any apps I don’t use regularly. It’s mostly empty.
Oh, it has 5G support. I have not noticed this making a difference anywhere at any time. So woo on that.
