kithrup

In my last post I talked about the sudden death of my Android phone (again) and my pursuit of an iPhone, which was stymied not by Apple but by T-Mobile. That was Thursday. On Friday morning I returned to the Apple store soon after opening time, this time with a backpack full of auxiliary hardware (tablet for an authenticator app, old mostly-broken phone that could still take a physical SIM card, iPad for Apple login on another device, and by the way my existing phone charger to confirm I didn't need to buy a new one).

It took almost two hours, but we got past the T-Mobile hurdles so I could walk out of the store with a working phone. I'd already decided there was no way I was buying it from T-Mobile (and I suspect it would be locked if I did), and neither I nor the employee who was helping me felt good about "buy it here, take it there, hope they do the right thing". I have many colorful things to say about T-Mobile...later.

For the locals: Mikey in the Shadyside Apple store is fabulous. This was customer service way above and beyond what I've experienced at other tech providers. Mikey was knowledgeable, empathetic, and cheerful even when T-Mobile was screwing with us. I really hope the feedback I gave on the customer-service survey contributes to Mikey getting some recognition. And this is in stark contrast to previous phone vendors, who, if you can get a human at all, will just tell you to ship the phone back to them at your expense, or buy a newer model, or otherwise do what is convenient for the vendor but not the customer.

I bought the iPhone 16E; it's the most affordable current model, but it's still a lot more than I've paid for a phone before. On the other hand, Dani has had his current iPhone for a lot longer than I had my previous Pixels (both of them). Maybe a mid-range phone costs $100/year and the replacement schedules are different between Android and iOS.

So, the actual iPhone. I've used an iPad, so I was a little familiar with the environment, but using a phone is different in some important ways. There are definitely things I'm not used to; some might be better, some worse, and many merely different and I just need to get acclimated. Initial stream-of-consciousness impressions:

Setup was pretty straightforward, carrier issues aside. No surprises from the first phone call and first text message. I couldn't import anything from my dead Android phone, but the iPhone knew about apps I had installed on the iPad, so that helped. I can access anything in Google's cloud storage by installing their apps (e.g. for photos). I haven't figured out if I can recover text messages.

The default keyboard does not include period and comma on the main screen. What the hell? Is this why so many text messages blow off punctuation?

I am used to a global "back" button, not just for browsers but for everything -- pop out of map navigation (while staying in the map app), go back to your photo gallery from looking at an individual photo, etc, with the top-level "back" being "exit the app". Apple does none of that -- they rely on the individual apps to provide navigation, so if an app doesn't have the "back" concept, you can't do anything. And apps, of course, can and do change the UI -- maybe there's a "back" button and maybe it's in the top left corner, or maybe you're expected to navigate by controls across the bottom for different views, or maybe it's something else. Android apps had those variations too, but there was always the phone-level "back" button. I miss it.

There's also no "home" button (take me back to the desktop). You leave an app by swiping up from the bottom of the screen. I sometimes have to try a couple times; I haven't yet found the magic "sweet spot".

There is a gesture, also involving swipe up from the bottom, to see all the apps that are running and allow you to really close individual apps. This was the third sticky button on Android. I haven't quite figured this out on the iPhone yet; sometimes I stumble into it, and often the screen shakes at me to tell me it didn't understand what I was trying to do. Learning curve... Also on the learning curve: apparently on the iPhone you swipe left to dismiss notifications, not right? Neither is better; it's just an adjustment.

Settings are weird. A lot of apps don't have any control for accessing settings, even when apps clearly have settings. I had to ask Mikey about that. It turns out that the system-level settings -- where you control things like display, sound, passcodes, etc -- also has a section for app settings. To add a non-default calendar to the calendar app, instead of using the non-existent in-app settings, I go to Settings -> Apps -> Calendar and poke around in there. On the other hand, some apps do have in-app settings, so you have to hunt around for them.

Apple is very much still in the world of "we think this design is intuitive and therefore you don't need any assistance". I had to do web searches to find documentation on what some of the glyphs mean. There's a "control center" (similar to Android) where you have quick access to things like toggling Wifi, Bluetooth, and dark mode, and changing brightness and text size and volume, and a bunch of other stuff. The iPhone offers more options than Android and the layout is highly customizable. They have some cute ideas, like apparently there's some tool for "identify the music that's currently playing", which I think means in your environment and not Spotify, but I haven't explored it yet. Almost all of this involves graphics not text, though, and not all of their choices are as obvious to me as they were to their designers. There are three "disconnected box around a thing" glyphs; one's a QR-code scanner, one's a "tell me what this thing is" (uses camera and probably AI), and I'm not yet sure what the third one is.

This is me, so we have to talk about visual accessibility. This was the very first thing I tested in the store on Thursday, 'cause if that didn't work, nothing else mattered and I'd have to head back to Androidville. Mixed review here: adequate with some compromises, but there is more work to be done here. Specifically, fonts: there are two font-related toggles, normal/bigger and normal/bold. These affect displays in apps that pay attention to them, which they don't have to. Also, apparently the OS is not an app in this sense; nothing I did changed the text labels for the apps on the home screens. The text is "one size fits all". Yeah, you can reportedly magnify your entire screen, but that's not what I want (too much collateral damage). I mitigated this by changing the desktop from their colorful interferes-with-text wallpaper to solid gray. Unlike my Android devices, the iPhone doesn't have a built-in library of wallpapers; there's the default, or you can use a photo, or you can set a solid color. So, solid color it is; I'd've preferred something with a little more character (but also legibility), a balance I struck on Android, but oh well -- it's just wallpaper, not something important.

There was something small and light gray that Mikey had to point out to me in the store (would have missed it entirely), but I can't now remember what it was. I suspect there will be more of that sort of thing.

Ok, apps. I was migrating from Android, so I couldn't just bring all my apps with me. There are iOS versions of most of the apps I used (not always identical), so I just had to look them up individually in the App Store and install them. Initially I did this from memory, which was frustrating, but then it occurred to me to ask my Android tablet if it could tell me about apps that weren't on that tablet but that I'd used. The answer to that turned out to be "yes". Some things I haven't found equivalents for yet; this will be a background process for a while, I expect. Critical stuff is mostly in place (I need to have a conversation with my bank about their app); nice-to-haves are trickling in.

I'm trying out some of the native Apple apps, particularly ones that could replace Google apps. Some differences are strange: in the Apple calendar app, how in the world do you get it to show you a month view like Google Calendar? I can get it to show me a couple days at a time (in list form, like a week view but not all week), but I want the month view. I haven't tried out the Apple apps for photos and maps yet, but plan to soon. The note-taking app seems fine so far. I can't imagine using Pages, Sheets, or Keynote on a phone, but they came pre-installed.

I couldn't figure out how to use Apple's email app with multiple accounts, but that's ok; I used Thunderbird on my Android phone, so I'll just install...what do you mean there's no Thunderbird app for iOS? (Beta coming soon, they say.) Ok, I found another client that'll do. Still hoping for Thunderbird later; I liked it on my previous phone and also use it on my desktop Mac.

My Android phone had a fingerprint reader for unlocking. It was flaky, so I often ended up having to enter my passcode. This iPhone has Face ID, and so far it's worked flawlessly for me. I asked Mikey how to temporarily disable it for situations where I'm worried about it being used against me (hostile agent has physical possession of your phone -- we can all imagine scenarios, I'm sure), and he pointed out that it always requires the passcode after restart. Good to know.

Speaking of restarting... I had to search the web. Mikey did tell me how to turn the phone off, but apparently I'd misremembered. On my old phone, a long press on the power button brought up a menu; on my newer Android tablet, you have to do it in software as far as I can tell; on the iPhone both are possible but the physical option involves both the power button and a volume button and then an on-screen slider. I guess people don't restart (or turn off) phones very often?

It's only been a few days (and one of those was Shabbat, a no-phone day), but so far the experience of actually using the phone has been smooth. It feels comfortable and even pleasant at times. My Pixel's 5G connection was sometimes flaky and would drop out at the most inconvenient of times (like while trying to navigate); I haven't taken my new phone on any big outings yet, but so far I'm not seeing these problems when out and about. There are some initial weirdnesses, but I think I'm going to like this a lot better than my Pixel.

More thoughts later as I settle in.

Today while I was using my phone (Pixel) in a perfectly ordinary way, the screen went black and soon after the phone stopped responding at all. I tried all the usual diagnostics and remedies to no avail, then took it to Google's favored repair shop. (The phone's out of warranty so that doesn't matter, but it was also the closest option and they do work on Pixels.) My hopes for a loose connection were dashed when the guy said the motherboard had failed, this is a common problem with the Pixel 5A, it can't be fixed, and I need a new phone. Oh joy...

I bought a Pixel when my previous phone decided that holding a charge is not strictly required. I chose a Pixel in part because I was tired of vendor bloatware and I wanted generic Android. That phone failed two weeks before the end of the warranty, so Google replaced it. I've had this Pixel for less than three years. And here we are again.

I've had other problems with this phone, and some with my previous Android phone too. When I inherited an iPad this summer I took it as a chance to explore iOS. Some things are certainly different, some cryptic, and some hindered by Apple's design philosophy, but it seems a reasonable option. Dani is happy with his iPhone and showed me some of the things I hadn't yet figured out. It appears that most of the apps I use have iOS versions, and I can probably find reasonable alternatives for most of the rest (Tusky I'll miss you), and not having a working phone is a problem. So I decided to change teams.

The problems came from unexpected sources.

I went to the Apple store, worked with a very helpful and clueful person there, and was making good progress when I asked where the tray for the SIM card is. No physical SIM cards; that's all digital. Ok, I said, and we transfer my phone number and stuff how? No worries; they can do that at the Apple store. I just need to open the T-Mobile app on my phone and... oh right, we'll need to do that from a computer. Off we go, I log in (I'd made sure I knew my T-Mobile password), and... 2FA. They want to send a code to my phone. The phone that can't show a code. I asked if we could maybe, just for a minute, move my SIM card to some other phone they might have lying around, but no luck. The web site had a second option, an authenticator app, which is on my phone...

I do have that app also installed on my tablet, because I worry about single points of failure. I hadn't thought to bring my tablet with me (smacks forehead) and there wasn't enough time to fetch it and still get my iPhone today, but the employee suggested that I could also buy the phone at a T-Mobile store and they'd be able to validate my identity and move the SIM card. And I'd be welcome to come back tomorrow for any setup assistance I need. I thanked the person and apologized for not getting the phone from him (he understood), and headed to the T-Mobile store.

T-Mobile's phone service has been mostly very good for us, but customer service is not their strong suit and it's been getting worse recently. (Their new CEO probably wants to close all their stores, forcing people to do everything through their crappy and oft-broken app.) I went to their store and the person said no problem, they can sell me an iPhone and move my service to it, I'll just need to use their app to... Ahem. Oh right, he said, ok we can sell you the phone, but we can't take a credit card; you'll need to pay cash. Oh really? I pointed out that the amount is over the daily limit at local ATMs, and he said I could pay a smaller amount and they'll finance it. Dubiouser and dubiouser. Somewhere in there he mentioned an "upgrade charge", I asked in what way I was upgrading my service, and he admitted that it was a service charge because they can't mark up the phone. Uh huh. At the start of the conversation, after checking my ID, he thanked me for being a customer for more than a decade, but I guess being a long-time customer doesn't actually mean anything.

I said no thanks and left. When I got home Dani said he got a text message from T-Mobile that someone on the account was making service changes, which I very much did not, so now we'll have to make sure they didn't actually do anything.

Tomorrow morning I'll go back to the Apple store with a bag of electronics -- my tablet for the authenticator app, my previous phone and its charger in case we need to move a SIM card to get a 2FA code anyway (I was able to use the phone tonight if it's plugged in), and the inherited iPad just in case that's helpful for anything because why not? I just wish I knew the name of today's helpful person so I could ask for him again. (He never said and I hadn't asked. Oops.)

Gremlins. Why did it have to be gremlins?