WEBVTT 00:00:00.000 --> 00:00:06.380 Just a few days into my iOS challenge I started to look a little differently at the Apple users in my life 00:00:06.720 --> 00:00:12.840 They describe Apple products with marketing slogans like it just works as though they actually believe them 00:00:12.840 --> 00:00:17.100 And it made me wonder does Apple have one version of their products for the true believers? 00:00:17.100 --> 00:00:24.080 And then a different one for the scrubs like me because my time with the iPhone 16 plus has been absolutely riddled with 00:00:24.400 --> 00:00:33.960 unintuitive design choices Unnecessarily limited functionality and some of the weirdest bugs that I've encountered on a supposedly finished product in years 00:00:34.560 --> 00:00:44.640 but Mama Sebastian didn't raise no quitters So I've stuck it out for more than the month that I promised and I've compiled a lot of thoughts both from myself and 00:00:45.080 --> 00:00:50.360 From helpful members of our community who see the world through more pink lady lenses 00:00:50.520 --> 00:00:57.640 And some of their points were extremely valid turns out I really was just holding it wrong and over time 00:00:57.720 --> 00:01:01.160 There's a lot about iOS that I've learned to love even on my own 00:01:01.600 --> 00:01:09.400 But there's also a lot that well to say how I really feel I'd probably have to use language that might not sit well with my sponsor 00:01:10.000 --> 00:01:15.640 Let's kick this off with some positive vibes. I am a big fan of the app library 00:01:15.640 --> 00:01:20.040 I know it isn't new but as someone who hasn't daily driven an iOS device in a while 00:01:20.080 --> 00:01:27.240 It's new to me and any effort to organize the pure chaos that most of us carry around in our pockets is much appreciated 00:01:27.240 --> 00:01:30.240 Like finally the ability to put your icons anywhere you want 00:01:30.240 --> 00:01:37.720 I also appreciate the intuitive and slick way that iOS handles switching between picture-in-picture and background media playback 00:01:37.720 --> 00:01:42.600 I mean, how cool is this as for my other primary use of my phone? 00:01:42.600 --> 00:01:45.800 You know phone calls that got a big improvement, too 00:01:45.800 --> 00:01:50.720 I get so many different kinds of calls these days phone teams 00:01:50.720 --> 00:01:57.280 What's up, whatever and iOS streamlines this experience by unifying the interface between all these different apps 00:01:57.280 --> 00:02:01.760 Which is especially nice when I'm in the car it even consolidates my call logs 00:02:01.800 --> 00:02:06.280 So I don't have to remember who prefers what when I mash a contact to call them back 00:02:06.960 --> 00:02:14.720 Multi-widget stacks are super cool I don't actually know if they're new or not, but I don't really care quick access and high information density 00:02:14.920 --> 00:02:18.960 Always get a thumbs up from me and I use them all the time to quickly check the weather 00:02:19.280 --> 00:02:23.720 Quickly check my calendar now. I've heard that these are a thing on newer Samsung devices as well 00:02:23.720 --> 00:02:29.880 But look this video is not a comprehensive comparison matrix of every software feature that's ever existed 00:02:29.880 --> 00:02:36.400 It's my thoughts on coming back to iOS after an extended absence and some of those changes really are refreshing 00:02:36.880 --> 00:02:41.040 Screenshot management has leveled up in a big way and is full of nice to have 00:02:41.040 --> 00:02:46.520 It's like I love the ability to quickly delete rather than archive my screenshot after I've shared it with someone and 00:02:46.720 --> 00:02:51.200 I love the little pop-up in the dynamic island to help manage my AirPods 00:02:51.440 --> 00:02:56.440 If they're paired to my laptop already and I'm sitting working, but an incoming phone call comes in 00:02:56.440 --> 00:02:59.680 It'll be like hey want me to grab those and I'm like yeah 00:03:00.400 --> 00:03:06.320 Thanks Actually any sort of interaction between the iPhone and other Apple devices is pretty great 00:03:06.440 --> 00:03:12.040 Like my Apple watch unlocking without needing to mash in the pin if I have my phone unlocked nearby 00:03:12.360 --> 00:03:18.320 So efficient speaking of efficiency I probably plugged this thing into my nightstand to charge maybe 00:03:18.720 --> 00:03:24.840 Four or five times over the entire month plus that I was using it which probably sounds bonkers 00:03:24.960 --> 00:03:31.280 But what I found was that just plugging in during my daily commute plus the occasional longer trip was enough to keep me going 00:03:31.280 --> 00:03:36.920 For literally a week at a time unless I was binging a show all day or something 00:03:37.520 --> 00:03:44.800 iOS then noticed this and piped up with a suggestion that I switched to 80% maximum charging in order to prolong the life of my battery 00:03:44.800 --> 00:03:51.440 That is the kind of proactive user handholding that I can really get behind and the same goes for how aggressive 00:03:51.440 --> 00:03:56.600 iOS gets about prompting the user to mute or block app notifications and tracking 00:03:56.840 --> 00:04:02.240 To be clear androids tools for managing these things are pretty good to actually very granular 00:04:02.480 --> 00:04:10.120 But what Android doesn't do is get all up in your grill about them like iOS does which results in an experience where if you get a 00:04:10.400 --> 00:04:16.760 Notification on your iPhone you can be pretty darn sure that it's something you wanted to see or you can easily get rid of it 00:04:16.760 --> 00:04:20.360 Now pretty much everything so far has been mostly to do with the software 00:04:20.360 --> 00:04:25.960 But I've got to say I kind of like the hardware to the screen on the iPhone 16 family is 00:04:26.920 --> 00:04:30.840 Incredible with outstanding brightness for watching videos outside not to mention 00:04:30.880 --> 00:04:38.640 They're super dim mode that supposedly gets all the way down to one knit and makes nighttime reading way more comfortable for me 00:04:38.640 --> 00:04:43.640 Oh, here's a fun one. You know how phones are supposed to be, you know phones 00:04:43.960 --> 00:04:50.160 I'm getting way better call and data reception near my house and not just against my ancient note 9 00:04:50.160 --> 00:04:56.280 But even against my wife's galaxy s23 ultra so I can finally close my garage door from the driveway 00:04:56.880 --> 00:05:01.720 All right, you guys think that's enough positivity to appease the Apple stands if not 00:05:01.720 --> 00:05:05.000 I could probably keep going for an entire videos worth, but 00:05:05.760 --> 00:05:10.360 Unfortunately, I could probably go multiple videos about the things that I didn't love so much 00:05:10.360 --> 00:05:16.940 So we should probably address at least some of them. Let's start with how slow the device feels which okay 00:05:16.940 --> 00:05:23.140 No, wait, hold on step away from the comment section. I recognize this is absolutely not a slow device 00:05:23.540 --> 00:05:29.740 But that makes it all the more frustrating when it feels like Apple's interface decisions are holding me back 00:05:30.260 --> 00:05:35.420 Like the animations. They're beautiful. I love the way the home screen icons come 00:05:35.860 --> 00:05:39.420 Flying in the first time that it loads after you set up a new iPhone 00:05:39.900 --> 00:05:44.900 But I don't need to see it Every time I unlock my phone guys 00:05:44.900 --> 00:05:49.980 I've got urgent Facebook marketplace doom-scrolling to do and yes before you ask 00:05:49.980 --> 00:05:56.460 I did turn on reduce motion and I even tried prefer crossfade another gorgeous animation by the way 00:05:56.460 --> 00:06:02.180 But none of that had the desired effect of getting the fluff out of my way so I can just use my phone 00:06:02.180 --> 00:06:07.180 I'm just picking what I get to look at while I wait for the UI to catch up with me while we're at it 00:06:07.180 --> 00:06:13.020 By the way, why is this setting and so many other useful ones hidden away in accessibility options? 00:06:13.020 --> 00:06:19.540 I can't change that unnecessary slowdowns are going to bother me like this thing that Apple does where it animates all 00:06:19.580 --> 00:06:24.500 The steps to get to a setting that I have searched for or clicked a shortcut to 00:06:24.860 --> 00:06:29.620 The rationale that I've heard for this behavior is that it's trying to teach me where I should have gone 00:06:29.780 --> 00:06:34.380 But I got there with a shortcut. Is that not an okay way to do it? 00:06:34.460 --> 00:06:40.220 Who cares if I know all the breadcrumbs? Adding insult to injury depending on how I try to go back 00:06:40.220 --> 00:06:45.060 I get to click through all of those screens that it zipped through on the way back to the thing 00:06:45.060 --> 00:06:49.220 I actually cared about which brings me to a pretty big subject 00:06:49.740 --> 00:06:54.580 Going back on iOS is objectively bad and 00:06:54.700 --> 00:07:00.740 Okay, alright, something can't be objectively bad But what it can be is objectively inconsistent 00:07:01.380 --> 00:07:06.900 Which from a user interface and user experience standpoint is well objectively bad 00:07:06.900 --> 00:07:12.900 I can't believe that Apple still hasn't mandated an official Apple way to go back 00:07:13.260 --> 00:07:16.540 They seem to be big fans of the swipe in from the left 00:07:16.740 --> 00:07:22.380 But they only use it just enough to trick you into thinking that it should work all the time and then BAM 00:07:22.500 --> 00:07:26.420 An app hits you with clicking on the top left like my old iPhone 4 or 00:07:26.740 --> 00:07:32.980 Canceling in the top right like this and even the occasional swipe in another direction now app makers 00:07:33.660 --> 00:07:39.340 Absolutely share some of the blame for this but guys we are 17 years into this experiment 00:07:39.340 --> 00:07:42.860 So I think it might be time for Apple to just take the darn reins or 00:07:43.660 --> 00:07:49.300 Maybe in other cases loosen them overall. I found carplay to be pretty okay 00:07:49.860 --> 00:07:52.980 My car doesn't have a physical button for previous track 00:07:52.980 --> 00:07:57.340 So if I wanted to have media controls and my map on screen at the same time 00:07:57.340 --> 00:08:00.420 I had to use split screen which I don't prefer I like a nice big map 00:08:00.420 --> 00:08:09.660 But that's probably more of a me problem And you can't blame the handset makers for all the dumb things that the car manufacturers are gonna do so let's not worry about that 00:08:09.820 --> 00:08:15.540 Let's worry about the buggy-ness that I experienced every once in a while the volume would crank itself 00:08:15.780 --> 00:08:19.900 And I ran into this issue twice. It's probably worth noting 00:08:19.900 --> 00:08:24.420 I saw this with some random Bluetooth earbuds too though, so maybe it's not carplay related 00:08:24.940 --> 00:08:28.100 Actually now that I think about it, there were more problems with audio 00:08:29.100 --> 00:08:32.860 Notification volume would occasionally go super loud. There's all the cabling 00:08:33.820 --> 00:08:36.380 which is apparently an iOS 18 bug and 00:08:36.980 --> 00:08:42.860 Compared to Android Adjusting the volume level of anything you aren't actively using is super non-obvious 00:08:43.380 --> 00:08:51.380 Like Andy, how do I change the volume of my like system tap sounds when I'm listening to media for example? 00:08:52.700 --> 00:08:54.700 Nobody like how do I change the volume of that? 00:08:56.620 --> 00:09:02.500 If you've never touched Android, this is gonna blow your freaking mind no matter what I'm doing if I touch the volume button 00:09:02.500 --> 00:09:10.660 I can adjust my ringtone my notifications my media and my system sounds the fact that that doesn't exist 00:09:11.020 --> 00:09:14.340 iOS users should be riding in the streets 00:09:14.340 --> 00:09:21.580 I know this next one is gonna get lost in translation as Android and iPhone users are coming from completely different experiences here 00:09:21.580 --> 00:09:31.260 But oh my goodness the iPhone keyboard is missing so many things that I completely take for granted as basic functions of an Android keyboard 00:09:31.580 --> 00:09:37.980 For example while the iOS keyboard does let you hold down a key in order to modify your letters with whatever 00:09:38.340 --> 00:09:42.420 Diacritical mark you need or even sneak in the occasional thorn yog or asset 00:09:42.980 --> 00:09:49.300 Android lets you use the same technique to access numbers and common punctuation from the first layer of the keyboard 00:09:49.380 --> 00:09:54.900 You can even dial in the delay so that you barely have to slow down to insert one of those secondary characters 00:09:54.900 --> 00:10:01.460 And this is an absolute godsend for those of us who write our texts like our AP English 12 teacher might grade us on them 00:10:01.700 --> 00:10:06.220 Now I tried switching over to my usual alt keyboard Swift key on iOS 00:10:06.380 --> 00:10:10.940 But somehow all these years later it is still trash on the iPhone 00:10:11.340 --> 00:10:18.580 Core features are missing like the aforementioned long-press tuning and even the ability to resize the keyboard and in general it just 00:10:18.820 --> 00:10:24.780 Beals off with worse predictions and a more tedious process for going back and making corrections 00:10:25.020 --> 00:10:29.700 Like maybe I want to type rhis it auto corrects to this 00:10:29.700 --> 00:10:37.100 I go back want no, no, I meant rhis and I should be able to fix the accidental auto correct and my capitalization at the same 00:10:37.100 --> 00:10:40.700 Time on the iPhone Not so much 00:10:40.700 --> 00:10:48.380 Now if I had to guess I'd say that this limitation probably comes down to Apple giving keyboard apps far less access to user inputs 00:10:48.380 --> 00:10:52.660 Which is probably a good thing, but it makes for an overall 00:10:53.220 --> 00:10:56.100 significantly worse typing experience on my keyboard of choice 00:10:56.460 --> 00:11:00.440 Which also just would occasionally disappear leaving me with the default 00:11:01.140 --> 00:11:08.060 Weird now one thing that's better about iOS is the super responsive long-press keyboard shortcut to reposition the cursor 00:11:08.060 --> 00:11:12.580 I like it, but I also don't struggle with fine motor control 00:11:12.580 --> 00:11:17.180 And it's usually faster for me to just tap the point in the middle of a word anyway, so 00:11:18.220 --> 00:11:25.420 Not being able to do that on the iPhone Actually kind of drove me crazy now. I've got a lot more things to get through so let's rapid-fire a few 00:11:25.780 --> 00:11:31.900 I can't get to the home screen without physically swiping the screen after authenticating and then it's animation time again 00:11:31.900 --> 00:11:36.660 Just got him on my way and let me use my phone. I can't change the size of the app grid 00:11:36.660 --> 00:11:41.260 I'm stuck at four wide on the normal iPhone 16. That would be fine 00:11:41.380 --> 00:11:46.660 But if you're giving me all these extra pixels on the plus I'd really like to use them 00:11:46.660 --> 00:11:52.120 It's like they intend for their larger devices to just be for the elderly or people who have trouble with the smaller screens 00:11:52.120 --> 00:11:56.240 And here's a weird one. I ran into this problem while rearranging apps 00:11:56.240 --> 00:12:01.880 I think maybe the ones I place manually might behave differently than the ones that are automatically placed 00:12:02.320 --> 00:12:05.080 Sometimes it just gets confused. I don't know in fairness 00:12:05.360 --> 00:12:11.680 Apple's new to this whole putting things where you want them thing and here's a funny one when I was migrating in the first place 00:12:12.000 --> 00:12:17.560 Apple's move to iOS app failed twice before actually working and 00:12:18.080 --> 00:12:22.520 Even then it basically just copied SMS photos and WhatsApp 00:12:22.520 --> 00:12:28.920 I had to manually sign into everything including my Google account, which left me wondering what exactly was the point of this 00:12:29.080 --> 00:12:34.000 I'm not sure, but I'd like to talk about that Google account for a minute in the past 00:12:34.240 --> 00:12:39.880 iOS had an account section in the settings app where you could centrally manage and sync your different accounts for email calendar 00:12:39.880 --> 00:12:46.400 Contacts all that kind of stuff That seems to be gone now, but I work for a G-suite organization 00:12:46.400 --> 00:12:49.880 So I'm gonna need my Google calendar to tell me what it is that I'm doing today 00:12:50.320 --> 00:12:54.000 This is where past experience with iOS got in my way 00:12:54.360 --> 00:13:00.680 The account setting was gone and I couldn't find an obvious way to add an account in the calendar app 00:13:00.840 --> 00:13:06.920 So I started looking for workarounds and ultimately discovered that if you open the iOS mail app 00:13:06.920 --> 00:13:10.240 It immediately prompts you to add a Google mail account 00:13:10.280 --> 00:13:14.640 Which will also sync my Google calendar in the native calendar app now 00:13:14.640 --> 00:13:20.800 I ended up getting attacked pretty hard for calling this out on the land show, but I'm holding firm that this is a prime example of 00:13:21.760 --> 00:13:31.480 spectacularly unintuitive design The justification I was given for this is that app settings including accounts should be managed from within the settings app and 00:13:31.480 --> 00:13:35.760 the apps menu and then the individual app and that is Apple's 00:13:36.320 --> 00:13:42.680 Aspiration, but as we've seen with back functionality Apple's aspirations don't always match reality 00:13:42.720 --> 00:13:47.320 So let's play a quick game called find the account management menu 00:13:48.160 --> 00:13:51.560 in the app Yeah, this one's in the app 00:13:51.560 --> 00:14:00.400 Another one that's in the app They're pretty much all within the apps themselves and while the first-party mail app 00:14:00.600 --> 00:14:06.720 Does have account management buried four layers deep within the menu the Apple preferred way for some reason 00:14:06.800 --> 00:14:13.920 It still prompts you to sign in that first time you open it meaning that if you're trying to sign into an account from within an app 00:14:14.240 --> 00:14:16.960 That is a perfectly reasonable expectation 00:14:17.640 --> 00:14:24.880 Even if you had no prior experience with other platforms the good news for Apple though is that the solution to this is simple when I click 00:14:25.320 --> 00:14:30.200 calendars add calendar add calendar and then I have this account thing here 00:14:30.560 --> 00:14:36.600 That should just be a drop-down that should prompt me to add another account instead of it just doing nothing 00:14:36.720 --> 00:14:40.720 You're welcome now to be clear. This isn't a deal breaker by any means 00:14:40.760 --> 00:14:45.960 It just means the next time that an Apple fan tells me it's just so gosh darn intuitive 00:14:45.960 --> 00:14:50.140 I don't know if I'm gonna be able to help it. I might actually laugh in their face 00:14:50.160 --> 00:14:53.240 Maybe a little doom-scrolling will calm me down and oh boy 00:14:54.120 --> 00:14:58.280 If you want the long version of this rant you can check out the WAN Show from a couple of weeks ago 00:14:58.280 --> 00:15:03.520 But the TLDR is when I flick my finger in my newsfeed or on reddit 00:15:03.520 --> 00:15:09.840 I expect the screen to move at the same speed that my finger moved and then decelerate from there 00:15:09.840 --> 00:15:12.520 I do not expect it to move at whatever 00:15:13.160 --> 00:15:17.320 relaxed chill pace that some Apple focus group has determined is the most 00:15:17.840 --> 00:15:21.480 Aesthetically pleasing in order to hide their 60 Hertz refresh rate 00:15:21.840 --> 00:15:27.680 Another thing I touched on during that WAN Show segment is buttons particularly this new camera button here 00:15:27.800 --> 00:15:33.960 Out of the box. I kept accidentally hitting it only to have a user point out to me that I could configure it to require a double-click 00:15:34.120 --> 00:15:38.760 Huh, well, that's super cool. I thought I wonder what other apps I could make it look no 00:15:39.360 --> 00:15:47.800 camera and camera adjacent only Speaking of the camera boy was that ever an upgrade though as someone coming from a six-year-old device 00:15:47.800 --> 00:15:50.720 I don't know what to say other than I should hope so and 00:15:51.240 --> 00:15:54.240 Besides my main focus isn't on the particular iPhone 00:15:54.240 --> 00:15:58.040 But rather my overall experience with iOS 18 an experience 00:15:58.040 --> 00:16:02.860 I could probably go on for hours about but Tim Apple a more relevant meme than ever these days 00:16:03.320 --> 00:16:08.200 Doesn't have hours to watch this video. So how about I boil it down to just one thing that I need fixed? 00:16:08.520 --> 00:16:14.120 Let's talk about rotation locks most iPhone users I run into don't even realize this 00:16:14.200 --> 00:16:20.600 But for a good ten years now, you've been able to lock an iPad in landscape orientation 00:16:20.600 --> 00:16:28.780 But not an iPhone now we use iPhones as our teleprompters here at Linus Media Group and because we can't lock them in 00:16:28.800 --> 00:16:35.020 Landscape mode we have to train all of our camera operators in a maneuver that we call the dip to reorient the screen 00:16:35.120 --> 00:16:39.120 It's something we do so often that we don't even really think about it anymore. So 00:16:39.600 --> 00:16:47.520 Why bring it up? Because when I was going through the list of apps in my account since the migration wizard didn't actually copy my apps over like 00:16:47.520 --> 00:16:53.480 It said it would and I had to do so manually. I came across jetpack joyride and I was like, oh my goodness 00:16:53.480 --> 00:16:58.880 I haven't played that since the last time I daily died iOS. It's been years and I immediately fired it up 00:16:58.880 --> 00:17:06.360 I played it for a second Then I put my phone down to make a note about something and when I picked it back up the game was upside down 00:17:06.360 --> 00:17:11.840 I showed this on the WAN Show as well. I gave it the old wiggle. I tried to reorient it 00:17:11.840 --> 00:17:19.200 But no it would only work in one of the two possible landscape orientations. What the heck Apple? 00:17:19.600 --> 00:17:25.880 these kinds of Arbitrary distinctions like which way is the approved landscape orientation? 00:17:26.360 --> 00:17:32.400 Assuming I'm allowed to be in landscape at all do nothing for your user. They do nothing for your profits 00:17:32.520 --> 00:17:35.560 So why? To be clear 00:17:35.640 --> 00:17:40.560 iOS has come a long way over the last few years and it can do so much more than it used to do 00:17:40.800 --> 00:17:48.520 Find my is a godsend Spotlight still rules air drop is legitimately super cool as long as everyone around me has an iPhone 00:17:49.200 --> 00:17:55.960 But Apple still has some work to do to be willing to accept that after the iPhone leaves the factory 00:17:56.080 --> 00:18:02.240 It's my iPhone and if I want to hold it like this instead of like this or I want to use it as a teleprompter 00:18:02.600 --> 00:18:06.240 That's my business if I want to move the dynamic island to the other side 00:18:06.360 --> 00:18:14.440 That should be my decision too and until Apple's willing to truly embrace that rather than begrudgingly give us little breadcrumbs 00:18:14.440 --> 00:18:16.960 I just don't think this is for me 00:18:17.520 --> 00:18:23.640 Which doesn't mean that it's bad if you love your iPhone and it works for you. You are not wrong 00:18:24.040 --> 00:18:31.800 Just don't get upset if you run around declaring that your preferred ecosystem is the best and not everyone agrees with you 00:18:32.360 --> 00:18:35.920 Especially if you've never spent significant time on the other side of the divide 00:18:36.280 --> 00:18:41.800 Maybe we need some kind of cultural exchange program, you know like six months of seeing how the other half lives 00:18:42.040 --> 00:18:46.600 That could be a really interesting experiment now if you'll excuse me. I need to go hide from some fanboys 00:18:46.600 --> 00:18:51.160 Oh, but not before I tell you about our sponsor for some more raw initial thoughts 00:18:51.160 --> 00:18:56.240 Why don't you check out the WAN segment from a few weeks ago? Hope you guys enjoyed this video. Make sure you subscribe. See you later