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My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

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Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#161
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Letting it go down to 20% before charging it back up means the battery has to cycle, and as I understand, that's what "ages" it. And managing that is on you, it's not Apple's fault that you won't (or can't) plug it in. What can be Apple's fault is the battery going to 10% after using it for 3h, but I don't think that's the point here.

I'm sorry, but how can it be my fault for using a device until it's battery is low-ish? > Letting it go down to 20% before charging it back up means the battery has to cycle Apple actually says themselves, that "You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge." [1] The iPhone 12 mini has a 2,227mAh battery. Its…

That's not at all my point.

Whatever time it spends unplugged, is time spent draining the battery. Down to 90% or down to 0%, it's just a difference of amount.

If you keep it plugged most of the time, and only drain it to, say, 90% (and this is an arbitrary number), you only used 10% of one cycle. If you let it unplugged until it's down to 0%, you use 100% of one cycle.

If every day you let it go down to 0% and then charge it back up, in 10 days you've used 10 cycles.

If every day it only loses 10% (total) and charge it back up, in 10 days, you've used 1 cycle.

I'm not saying "it's your fault" or that "you shouldn't do it", I'm talking about objective use of the battery.

Yeah, I know it's a mobile phone, so one of the reasons for buying that is to use while out and about.

But the point is that not everyone uses it that way, which can explain why some people see the battery health going down faster than others, on the same device.

And that's not Apple's fault. Sure, you could argue that the battery life is ridiculously short, that the battery's health shouldn't degrade as fast, and so on. And I'd agree with that. But still, it's a different issue.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#163
post #36

I had a feeling this was gonna be about 3D Touch just from seeing the title. It was definitely one of my favorite features, and Force Touch isn't a drop-in replacement. With 3D Touch anywhere on the keyboard, you could apply pressure to start moving the caret (text cursor) around, but what was even more useful was being able to apply a little bit more pressure to start selecting text with incredible precision . With…

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Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#164

Was it earphones. I used to love my iPhone for music. I've a really nice set of noise cancelling headphones. Now I have a dongle (that always goes missing). I almost never listen to music with my iPhone anymore.

I didn't know anyone made noise cancelling headphones that weren't wireless. What's the point? You need a bunch of electronics in there anyway.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#165

I didn't even knew that my favorite iPhone feature was listening to the music I want until Apple introduced forced shuffling, playing titles alphabetically and started disturbing built-in music player UX in order to push their online offering. It's a typical Cook's Apple experience to listen to 10 tracks from different albums, all called "Outro", after album chosen by me finishes playing with a track called "Outro" a…

It's so much worse on macOS Music. The "previous track" button is disabled in "infinity play mode". Not just for going to the previous track but even for replaying the current track. When it's not disabled, its behavior seems to depend on how you started playing the music - sometimes skipping back multiple tracks in an album instead of one at a time. Finally, the "infinite play" toggle is only visible if you play an album or playlist because otherwise the "up next" menu is hidden. Oh yeah, and the whole thing crashes every time I try to search my library - I suspect because of foreign language UTF8 characters in some track titles.

The whole app seems to have been designed by a madman. I miss the bloated, yet functional, iTunes.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#166
post #158

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I'm sorry, but how can it be my fault for using a device until it's battery is low-ish? > Letting it go down to 20% before charging it back up means the battery has to cycle Apple actually says themselves, that "You complete one charge cycle when you’ve used (discharged) an amount that equals 100% of your battery’s capacity — but not necessarily all from one charge." [1] The iPhone 12 mini has a 2,227mAh battery. Its…

That's not at all my point. Whatever time it spends unplugged, is time spent draining the battery. Down to 90% or down to 0%, it's just a difference of amount. If you keep it plugged most of the time, and only drain it to, say, 90% (and this is an arbitrary number), you only used 10% of one cycle. If you let it unplugged until it's down to 0%, you use 100% of one cycle. If every day you let it go down to 0% and then…

I both agree and disagree with the first part of your comment, but you summarized my thoughts on your own with "it's a mobile phone, so one of the reasons for buying that is to use while out and about".

> not everyone uses it that way, which can explain why some people see the battery health going down faster than others

True, yes. However, and feel free to disagree, but from my experience the minority of people keep their phones plugged in as much as they can, at least in my social circle and work environment.

I knew that I would have to live with shorter battery life when buying a small phone with a small battery and I also know that batteries just loose health and that this is normal. The drop on my device just makes me think that maybe my device has some kind of issue, or received a battery which would be placed on the left side of a bell curve.

Wanted to check the exact stats - So, I bought it in the end of April 2021. That's 16 months ago. If a 14% loss of battery health during that time is normal, then maybe I had wrong expectations. It just seems excessive when comparing with other people/devices.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#167
post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Oh wow, I never knew this existed. It seems the selection can only grow and on both sides, which is the main problem. If they showed the cursor with a different color than the selected text, and if they shrink and grow the selection as you move, I think it could be pretty nice: select the starting point of the selection, and select only what’s in between the original cursor and the moving one. Alas it’s more like pai…

> Oh wow, I never knew this existed. iOS UI in a nutshell.

When I worked at Apple training people about the first iPhone generations they always said stuff like "it SHOULD be intuitive, we dont WANT a tutorial" I chuckled then, but add 15 years of changes on something and I don't know how that was ever going to be possible.

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#168
While playing with the (inferior) "long-press space bar for trackpad" feature, I discovered that OCR is now built into the text field (as if iOS 15 apparently).

Tap the text field (twice if not already selected) and you'll have tooltip with "Scan Text". Selecting that turns on the camera, replacing the keyboard, and text under the camera is temporarily inserted, with an "insert text" button. Nice!

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#169
post #167

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Oh wow, I never knew this existed. iOS UI in a nutshell.

When I worked at Apple training people about the first iPhone generations they always said stuff like "it SHOULD be intuitive, we dont WANT a tutorial" I chuckled then, but add 15 years of changes on something and I don't know how that was ever going to be possible.

Huh, it's actually been 15 years since the iPhone came out. God damn it, now I feel old...

Re: My favorite iPhone feature was removed, long live its subpar replacement

#170
post #71

I've recently switched to iPhone and this thread is so comforting. My friends thought I was insane when I told them that typing on Android (Samsung or Google keyboard) is much more accurate, fast and way less prone to errors (using autocorrect) than on an iPhone. And that's not even counting swipe mode! The difference is huge.

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