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Comment by lbotos | Hacker News Reader

Hi, I was someone who traded my 64GB 6s in for a 256GB XS.

- $200 no questions asked buy-back - Better camera - Larger screen in a just about the same size form factor

I expect to have this phone for ~4 years with probably a battery refresh in ~2ish.

I went 4S -> 6S -> XS. I hadn't upgraded an iPhone in years, Apple has made the process extremely slick and painless. I was seriously impressed at picking up the new phone and being "good to go" in ~45 min when my apps downloaded.

I'm sure I'm an outlier

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I think I'm with you in that a better camera is really what incentivised me to switch. Modern phone cameras are simply stunning - the video on the X series and the photos on the Pixel devices are incredible for their form factors. To me it was never a question of "Do I want to spend $1k on a phone", it's always been a question of "would I spend $1k to have the majority of my photos from these 4 years be of much higher quality". That's what made me switch.

I agree. The camera is great. But I have to admit that I’m also a bit underwhelmed. The Apple keynote obviously shows the best pictures only.

In not-perfect-light scenarios (not necessarily by night), photos shot with the iOS stock camera App have noticeably grain or "patches". The portrait mode is nice, but has glitches occasionally such that some item in the background gets merged with the face in the foreground.

So, I’m not a professional photographer, I only use the camera of my iPhone XS Max. The results are good enough, but the improvement isn’t that big over the iPhone 7 or 8.

What I do like is the big screen, since I use my phone only a couple times per week to make a call. Most of the time is spend in apps.

One thing that makes me hesitant on changing my phone is Google Authenticator. I still have some services using that instead of Authy. I got my secret codes but it will be a hassle to use them when the time comes...

Sorry to go off on a tangent, but do you recommend Authy instead/because of this?

I actually just completed a migration from Authenticator to Authy. I don’t have much to say except that it was pretty seamless. Sync between multiple devices works very well. I’m not a fan of the Authy UI but it does what I need.

If you use a password manager that supports OTP tokens (lastpass with their authenticator app, 1password, bitwarden) you could just use that and remove Authy out of the picture.

You really shouldn't be storing OTP tokens in your password manager. Yes it's better than nothing, but if your password manager vault gets compromised your 2FA does nothing to stop it.

If my password manager vault gets compromised I have bigger problems than my OTP codes.

I full throatedly recommend authy.

Jumping in to reply because I made the switch to Authy about two years ago and haven't looked back. You get the ability to sync MFA across devices and desktop without a hitch. Add in the backup (with encryption) and you can onboard a device quickly and it fits every use case I need.

Couldn't you just use Yubikeys to hold your TOTP secrets? If you want redundancy, just set up 2 or 3 and keep the extras safe.

I wonder if there's an equivalent on iOS for andOTP. It puts the backup responsibility on the user in which you can export all tokens to plaintext or password-secured encrypted text. You ultimately put trust in the app maintainers instead of a third party like Authy.

1Password is a great option for everything password related on iOS/macOS. Just watch out for the sticker shock :D

Checkout OTP Auth, which does all that. Very friendly, and very well written with excellent attention to usability details. No net connection unless you enable iCloud saving. No ads even in the free version. Well worth the tiny donation for premium!

I have no connection other than being a happy premium user for around 2 years. By far the best of those I found.

https://itunes.apple.com/us/app/otp-auth/id659877384

I don't understand the problem. I went from 100% Google Authenticator to 100% Authy. It's a pain to turn off 2FA, then turn it back on using Authy instead of Google, but it's 100% under your control. So you can do 2 or 3 a day until you're done or one long session.

Now I have 2 devices that I can use, which makes me much less fearful about losing (or more likely misplacing) my phone.

I replaced both Authy and Google Authenticator with 1Password; it is really nice to have OTPs all in one place and sync'd across mobile devices and laptops.

I use KeePassXC on a Linux desktop and store the 2FA codes in it. Every site that offers 2FA will let you use a code instead of scanning the QR image. As long as I have the underlying codes I can reuse them anywhere else.

In iOS I use 'Authenticator' - https://github.com/mattrubin/Authenticator. It's open source.

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