I still have my iPhone 11 Pro, going on three years. I purchased it back in September 2019 before I retired. It has served me admirably ever since, and I have no reason to want to trade up. Even the battery health is at 91% maximum capacity, which after all this time is quite good. Unless something horrible happens, it’ll stay with me until Apple no longer provides software updates to it. I have high confidence that will go for some number of years more. For example, my youngest daughter has my wife’s iPhone 7 Plus as a hand-me-down. Apple will still provide updates through at least the next year. My youngest stretched the use of that iPhone by paying $50 to Apple in Denver to replace the battery, which is far cheaper than even the cheapest newer iPhone from Apple. But I digress…
I’m still not an avid iPhone photographer nor videographer. But from time to time I come across scenes which I would like to photograph and all I have is my iPhone. And no, the best camera isn’t always the one you have with you. That would be my Olympus E-M1.2. Nevertheless I still like to experiment. The following two images came from my trip to the Dr. P. Phillips Hospital on Turkey Lake right across from I-4. I drove my wife there to visit with one of her doctors that morning.
On the way back to the parking garage to pick up the car and head home, I crossed a covered walkway between the main hospital building and the parking garage. For whatever reason the light and colors were pleasing enough. I stopped for a moment and grabbed a few exposures. Later I used Snapseed to crop it to 16×9, increased the exposure by 1/3 stop and lowered the contrast a bit. I was going for a bright, airy pastel look.
On a subsequent trip back in the afternoon I made this exposure of the side of the main hospital. The afternoon sun combined with the near-white exterior against the clear sky was particularly contrasty. Again I cropped the original to 16×9 and selected one of the Noir filters, H02. One side effect is in the sky; pixel peep that section and you’ll see it covered with artifacts, which I think is supposed to be graininess. It’s everywhere else, but particularly noticeable on the blue sky.
I should probably use the iPhone more if I want to create more satisfying images. But I so enjoy using my mirrorless Olympus cameras that it’s a hard thing to do. An embarrassment of riches.
Radarwitch
Nice photos Bill :)
I had the iPhone SE 2020 from the company while I was still with them. And that one took great pictures as well, I often preferred them to the ones coming out of our Pixel phones.
As to updates: Google ain’t as good as Apple in that regard, but we’re still on Pixel 4a 5G (my wife), 4a (me), and 3a (our daughter). And I just read that the 3 series will get their last updates now, so that’s some years as well…
Just updated my wife’s computer which was the oldest in the house, but even that one was still working fine, and went to my brother. So next will probably be that Pixel 3a…
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The iPhone 7 Plus was released September 2016, or six years ago. It will still get iOS updates through iOS 16, which is at least another year. That pushes it to seven years. Seven years of software support and regular updates to a smartphone is absolutely unheard of on the Android side. Google of all companies only guarantees three for the Pixel 6, and Samsung, with its S22, is now guaranteeing four.
Then, of course, there’s Microsoft and it’s marketing of Windows 11. I’ve got a small AMD-based computer (Ryzen) that is not even a year old, but is flagged as won’t upgrade to Windows 11. That fact, and the Windows 10 “ads” poking at me caused me to install Linux on it, and I haven’t looked back. In comparison, my mid-2015 MacBook Pro is running the latest macOS. That’s pushing at least seven years on that platform for OS support.
The grand daddy of them all is a Samsung notebook from 2010. I installed Ubuntu on it in late 2013 because I got tired of Windows on it and I’ve been able to keep it running on Ubuntu ever since. That’s almost nine years, and the physical machine is now twelve years and it’s still truckin’ along.
If Linux can support hardware over a decade old in this case, then what is wrong with all the major companies, especially Google with Android?
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