Oo! That’s hot! Pics when it arrives please!
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I need to take a pic….
But it has arrived! Games look beautiful - feel really spoilt.
That said it runs hot to the tough and there is a vent fan that blow out to the side where my mouse hand sits.
Going to love that in Chicago winter 
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That looks superb… How long did it take to ship?
About 9 days I think! Not too bad. Def not Amazon speed
My iPad Pro 10.5 finally expired. It’d taken an unlucky knock to the power button corner, then later slipped off my lap when I had headphones plugged in. It landed right on the headphone plug, causing the plug to shear off in the socket, and presumably providing that force right into the guts of the machine. Stone dead, instantly. I’d be interested to see what a phone tech finds when they open it up, but I doubt it will be good news.
Regardless, my use case has changed since I bought that tablet many years ago. My jobs changed so I don’t need a laptop replacement tablet, but I do need to provide my own daily use phone instead. I’m still doing manual work so I’d need something with a practical size to keep in my pocket. I’d been looking at the base iPhone 14 as something to give me smart device capability on the go.
Has anyone had experience with the newer iPhones? The internet suggests the 14 does the job, but I wondered what all of your practical experience was.
I upgrade my iPhone nearly every two years, as an Apple Stan, and someone who uses my iPhone almost constantly for work and personal.
I have the 14 Pro and… it’s good? It does the job. Probably the same thing the 14 does, and the 13, 12, 11, and X before them. It works well, seamlessly, and takes good enough pictures of my animal children so that they only slightly look like Far Side characters in some pics and yet fully reveals their almost teenage disdain in all of them.
As with all iPhones and devices, I wish the battery life were better. First world problems.
The device is a good size, does its job well, and I’m happy with it…. Until they announce the Next Big Thing and suddenly my tech isn’t the best on the block. #morenits
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Yeah, I upgrade every few models, generally where there is a leap in the camera. So I had an 11Pro and upgraded to a 14Pro as it was the next significant camera upgrade and am quite happy with the 14. But I think along with your sentiment, at this point there is not a lot to get excited about, they do their job and that is kind of table stakes at this point.
That’s good to hear. Other than the constant background hum of android vs iOS arguments, the only negative I’ve been hearing about apple is the price. I figured they must have nailed the formula of progressive upgrades by now, to the point that’s there’s not much to complain about anymore
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For me, they’ve nearly nailed the formula for a phone. So I rarely upgrade unless the old one starts having battery life problems or gets very slow, and no longer bother with the best available model. My XR is still going strong, and I’ve no need to upgrade.
Same with the iPads, really. What I want it for, the Air is fine for, so I didn’t even get a pro last time.
Now, for the Mac, I wish I could get something pretty good. I mourn the loss of the 27” good iMac.
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My iPhone and iPad are getting long in the tooth, with my habits and situation changing over the past dozen years. I would be okay with not the top-shelf options for my next upgrade but Apple is out to piss me off. My only desire is huge storage space on the iPad. But for max options and space, I would need to go for the premium versions, the lower-spec version does only provide the options: shit, shittier and tiny -.-
Edit:
Oops, since last time I checked they updated their range, they only offer shit and tiny storage at the low end now. :-/
I am at 512GB now and that would mean going down to 256 if I wanted to skimp and NOT go for another Pro option right now…
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This was my problem when I was looking to replace my iMac. Knowing I couldn’t get a 27” good one, I started looking at Mac minis, and the storage is just abysmal. I got so disheartened by the silliness of the options that I ended up with a base mini with a USB solid-state drive for local storage and some extra ports, and a NAS for backup. I get that they’re trying to push everyone to use iCloud, and that makes sense for something like a highly mobile laptop which is often in danger of loss or damage, but I’m just not that guy.
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I mentioned in here a couple months ago, that I just replaced my 27" iMac with a PC…first time in 20 years to run windows at home. I needed it for Diablo 4 though
I am actually typing this on my 27" iMac, but this machine has just become web browsing and music streaming machine now.
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What Apple has successfully done for me is create an infrastructure that makes it difficult to contemplate changing brands. Everything in my life is well-integrated to the Apple infrastructure - my watch, my headphones, my lights, my thermostat, my garage door, my speakers, my car, etc., etc. On top of that I’ve got a decade or more of App Store purchases. It wouldn’t be impossible to change, but it would take time and money.
That said, price aside I’ve been happy with Apple. The phones have always been solid and I have had little reason to complain outside of some bugs here and there that come around as part of their yearly upgrade. That said, I don’t have other smartphone experience to compare my phone to - I’ve been on an iPhone since I switched from some old Nokia flip thingy many years ago.
As for upgrading, I tend to do it if there is some sort of trade-in deal or special sale on a newer model. What I mostly look for is camera improvement. I used to enjoy photography as a (very amateur) hobby and would lug around a bag with my DSLR and a variety of lenses whenever I would travel. The phone can’t replicate that, but with kids (and a sometimes impatient wife) it has become more and more difficult to carry all that gear and the phone is simply more practical. With cameras and processing continually improving, it takes the sting out of not having my gear. It will never replace my good telephotos and wide angles but for the vast majority of the pictures I take these days it is acceptable.
I always go for the highest storage options even if I never use them. Im already paying a boatload for apple products so I go ahead and pay a little more, I suppose. I’ve never needed the full storage, but in the past I’ve had limited storage on some of my devices like a 16 Gb iPad that did fill up quickly and it was quite annoying.
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Yeah, moving away from Apple was a difficult choice for desktop - I am still Apple for everything else. But…the nice thing about Steam is that for just pure gaming, the Mac/PC issue was moot. Steam cloud saves worked fine for just about everything that mattered.
I can live with the deep integration (if not as severe as you, only iPhone, iPad, and Airpods, however several iterations over the past 2 decades) but I really detest those Storage scummy tactics. I felt pressured for going to the biggest storage version with my last iPhone (however it was an iPhone 6+ that little bugger is still chugging along fine and it is from 2014(!)
10 years later and I know where my priorities lie…I want an iPhone for giga-monstrous hands and I actually don’t need much storage at all on that thing.
80% of storage goes to music, if I had no music on there I could probably run with the internal storage my original C64 had all those years ago.
So if (when) my iPhone 6+ dinosaur finally kicks the bucket I hope they still sell iPhone SE, since I like the old fingerprint sensor button more than the newer “full screen” design starting with the iPhone X (also SE is way cheaper too).
I however dread the day my iPad Pro (2nd gen from 2017) kicks the bucket…some apps on there are no longer sold and cannot be downloaded anymore as well as above mentioned storage woes with the now 3 way-pronged approach Apple has with their iPads (low-tier iPad, mid-tier iPad Air and top-tier iPad Pro) where only the (did you rob a bank recently?) Pro models have enough storage for me…
I know…I know…pointless stuff but I am still angry…
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I’ve not tried this so I’m not completely sure about this as a solution. You might be able to backup and restore an old iPad with iMazing. Restoring to a new iPad may allow you to keep old apps that are no longer sold.
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I think I bought the cheapest piece of hardware we’ve discussed yet but it may be a game changer…
I’ve never given much thought to remote play but the upcoming PlayStation Portal piqued my interest. Since I’m both cheap and impatient I bought a $12 clip to attack my phone to my DualSense and I now don’t know why I’ve never done it before (or even bothered to use a controller with my phone at all). Not only can I play my iOS games much easier now, but I can stream my PS5, which includes my PS4 library.
All this is to say that for $12 I’m laying out back in my hammock playing Fallout 4. It’s pretty cool.
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Considering giving my 7 year-old son a tablet for Christmas and have only ever used ipads myself, and that’s too high-end for him. Or, more accurately, too pricey for his dropping it or slamming it around by accident. His main usage will be for watching streaming channels (he’s just not much into games) and listening to audio books (we use the Libby app, which goes through public libraries).
Would like it to be about the same size as a standard ipad and have a good video resolution without being adult-level expensive. Any thoughts and suggestions are much-appreciated : )
I know you said no iPad, but fwiw I did the low end models for my daughters - the $329 models I think. I wanted to stay in the Apple ecosystem and I’m a fan of the parental controls.
They also use them pretty exclusively for streaming, music, some games, and Zooms when needed.
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Amazon Fire HD. Cheap as chips, decently robust, and you can either fiddle with it to use the Andoid Play store or whatever it’s called this week, or use it via Amazon’s ecosystem. I mainly use mine for books and lazy streaming.
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