Light phone
Normally, Apple is good at the narrative. This time, Apple was not. They say “3nm process,” everyone else says “USB-C.” They trot out a giant list of iOS features, everyone’s else says “multiple timers.” What matters is always the felt quality-of-life improvements in technology, not what someone else thinks you need to care about. That even Apple biffed this – during design winter, within a longer period of psychospiritual improverishment afflicting the whole tech industry from which there is likely no escape without widespread collapse – should of course be lost on nobody. To me, it’s kind of funny.
Nobody cares about the nanometers in your process. Nobody cares about the nits on your display. We care about USB-C. We care about USB-C so much that the #1 global trending topic on a noted fascist mouthpiece was “USB-C” for years every time a new iPhone was announced. We care about USB-C to the extent that we are single issue voters on USB-C. An entire continent legislated this into existence because tech companies won’t.
Last week I threw 7 lightning cables in the garage, got rid of my micro USB adapters & cables throughout the house, and replaced all of my cabling with Thunderbolt 4, because the only way you can know what a cable does is if it has the stupid logo on the side of the plug. I bought this phone a year after my last phone for the first time in my life, and I did so for one reason only.
There’s no way I’m alone here. Reviewers have spoken of the psychic discharge that has happened when they can pick up one cable and know that cable works. I knew this was coming, which is why my actual tech situation has gotten markedly worse and my cabling situation has become immaculate, inviolate. My nightstand has four Thunderbolt 4 cables next to it. My server has three Thunderbolt 4 cables sticking out of it. My garage has two Thunderbolt 4 cables sticking out of a charger. I don’t think twice before picking one up. I don’t exist in danger of running out of battery anymore, on any device. When you’re at this layer of Maslow’s hierarchy, dumb-feeling stuff like this matters more than you think.
Apple talked up one other feature, but not enough. The phone is light. The phone is light enough that you notice it palpably. The phone is light enough that it causes less strain when you hold it for a while, which you should not do but you always end up doing anyway. The phone is light enough that, for the first time in your life, you feel guilty putting a case on it, and then you do so anyway because you drop your phone a minimum of three times a day. Even with the case it’s not bad, though.
Light phone is good, but I would take a heavier phone with the correct plug. I would take a slower phone with the correct plug. I would take last year’s phone with the correct plug. I notice nothing else. It doesn’t feel faster. It doesn’t seem to take better pics. The interface is the same. The screen is the same. My case is a different color. The plug is different. The plug is different.