It’s nearly silly season, so why am I feeling oddly calm
Apple is about to get busy – we know that for sure.
Not only Apple but tech releases generally are about to ramp up into what has become known as Tech-tember or Tech-tober. The big two Apple & Google are gearing up for their annual flagship phone reveals – the iPhone 15 and Google Pixel 8 Pro.
This time last year I recall being genuinely excited about the iPhone 14 release and picked up my 14 Pro over the launch weekend. It was the first phone I had owned and bought outright free of carrier support but more importantly, was my first Pro iPhone ever.
Apple impressed me…
Don’t get me wrong, my iPhone 14 Pro has been fantastic. Save two minor scratches to the front glass the phone looks as fresh as it did a year ago. The bronze-coloured sides are in perfect nick as is the frosted back glass.
Putting the iPhone to one side for just a moment though I’m still loving working in an Apple environment as much as ever. The two Macs I use daily never miss a beat and the Studio Display is one of the best investments I’ve made in years. Large, bright, vivid and colourful – it beckons me to be creative.
I wrote recently about having fallen in love again with my Apple Watch. Now that I can listen to podcasts on it and workout with it free of the phone, it has become my gateway to a little freedom.
Getting out for a walk and being free of tech for 45 minutes is a humble highlight of my day – I treasure every moment of it and adore the watch for the freedom it affords me.
My HomePod and Apple TV 4K work in perfect harmony & deliver what they promise. So all in all, I am as happy as ever with my Apple ecosystem workflow and lifestyle.
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The dawning
As I’m in this content creation business, the hectic few weeks ahead should be heaven for me – plenty of content and new products to fawn over. The barren spell is over – praise the lord!
Yet I feel oddly subdued in the run-up to this year’s iPhone event and now I’ve twigged why that is…
Although the iPhone is part of my EDC (everyday carry) – it turns out it’s the bit of kit that I use less than every other throughout the day – and to some degree that is by design. I have actively tried to use the phone less.
My days may be different to yours, but I am sitting in front of a Mac for at least 10 hours a day. That means I can read iMessage on the Mac, answer emails and search Safari on them. I hardly make or receive any calls anymore – I’m nearly always contacted via WhatsApp or Telegram.
So if I’m not using the phone as a phone, what about as a camera then?
Life changes
The other thing that changed for me this year was that I bought my first DLSR camera just a few weeks after picking up my iPhone 14 Pro – and you can doubtless see where this is heading…now I hardly ever use the one feature that I laid down £1700 for – the cameras.
The iPhone 14 Pro cameras are brilliant – make no mistake about it. Shooting ProRaw pictures gives you loads of detail and large files ready to edit in post. The video side is equally stunning, particularly in ProRes format. And this year, if the rumours are true, Apple should be shipping iPhone 15 Pros with a USB-C Thunderbolt port, so finally getting those large files from the phone should be made a bit easier.
But…good as the cameras are, apart from the odd snap at home, the cameras on my iPhone are redundant – all the pictures you see on these stories, the thumbnails or Tweets are all shot on the Canon.
Free from it all
So that is why I am less excited this year than last about the new iPhone.
Yes, it will have a new and long overdue USB-C port, a titanium chassis, a bigger battery, thinner bezels and an all-new Action Button…and the periscope 5x or 6x optical zoom lens – but I won’t use it! Thinking about it, I think I use the Zoom feature less than Macro anyway – but I’m enjoying walking away from my phone more and more these days.
Being phone free is starting to feel great. The Macs I love & wouldn’t trade for the world and all the other Apple gear I have around me I’m over the moon with as they improve my quality of life.
But the phone can become dangerously addictive and intrusive. As much as I know I should be made-up thinking about iPhone 15 I’m feeling very flat about it right now.
My aim is to use my iPhone even less over the next year – so no matter what Apple is about to ship with iPhone 15 the one thing it won’t give me is more freedom.
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