For many Apple critics, the story ends right here. Siri’s not great, the Touch Bar’s kind of a mess, the operating systems are pretty but somewhat confusing, and the reassuring Home button has been killed … the list goes on. Apple’s far from perfect. Point made.
But here’s the thing: Pick just about any time in Apple’s history, and you’ll find a similar set of worrying choices and seeming failures—even during those halcyon days of Steve Jobs’ triumphant second tenure at the company.
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In fact, Apple rarely gets it perfect at first. But over the years, the company has developed a long-term design process that regularly turns design “mistakes” into successes.
The iPhone X is not the work of an overcautious company. It’s a risk to so fundamentally change the most profitable platform in the world. But Apple is gambling on the taste of the team who lived with the iPhone X during its development. Ossification is a risk with a platform as popular and successful as the iPhone — fear of making unpopular changes can lead a platform vendor to make no significant changes. Another risk, though, is hubris — making changes just for the sake of making changes that show off how clever the folks at Apple still are.
After six weeks using an iPhone X, I’m convinced Apple succeeded. The iPhone X is a triumph, a delightful conceptual modernization of a ten-year-old platform that, prior to using the iPhone X, I didn’t think needed a modernization. Almost nothing about the iPhone X calls undue attention to its cleverness. It all just seems like the new normal, and it’s a lot of fun.
A digital health revolution has been predicted for years, of course, and so far has been more hype than progress. But the hope is that artificial intelligence systems will sift through the vast amounts of data that medical accessories will collect from the Apple Watch and find patterns that can lead to changes in treatment and detection, enabling people to take more control of how they manage their conditions instead of relying solely on doctors.
If you are running iOS 11 on your iPhone, you have additional editing features you can use with your Live Photos if you want to make them play longer. When you have a Live Photo open on your phone, put your finger on the screen and swipe up to see the Effects panel, where you have the choice of Loop, Bounce or Long Exposure. Tap an effect to add it to your image.
I've only recently upgraded to iPhone X from an iPhone 6, so it was only recently that I started taking Live Photos. And, so far, I have not captured anything significant in the 'live' portion of Live Photos.
But I'm still keeping the setting on. No harm, right?
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Thanks for reading.