New iPhone SE Coming Soon
bloomberg.com
bloomberg.com
Good security understands the tradeoff of usability. I have felt for a long while that Touch ID did quite well on riding that balance, and that Face ID moves more toward UX at the sacrifice of security
It's surprisingly hard, my success rate is abysmal. Especially as I have to manipulate the device from the side while somewhat pointing it at her.
And her success rate is also modestly low, in particular when her make-up changes or hair style covers more or less of her face. She's typing her password about a dozen of times a day.
All in all I think it is pretty secure, but also not as practical as touted in the ads, and I'm kinda glad my own phone works with both finger and face recognition.
It's been close to 2 years and I still struggle with the size of my iPhone 14 - and to think that this fucking phablet is the smallest iPhone.
At this point I am just waiting for a much more affordable simple Android phone (with the OS being OEM-deGoogled and supported for at least 3 years with timely updates). I mean I will buy it even if it's slightly bigger than base iPhone because size was the reason I had bought my first iPhone which was the first SE :)
I'm holding out hope for: https://smallandroidphone.com/
Google has pulled more and more of android out of the open source project (AOSP) over the years and replaced it with Google Play stuff that has hard dependencies on letting them surveil your phone.
In practice, this means that stuff like GPS lock “needs” the cloud and won’t work reliably for most apps (it works fine for ones in fdroid, and in third party map apps, but not in Lyft, Uber, EV charging apps, or other commercial stuff that wants location).
On top of that, many apps will silently crash at startup. Sometimes, giving them google play services fixes them, sometimes not. When I installed graphene, my phone battery got 2x the manufacturer estimate. When I added sandboxed google play services, it went down to the advertised battery life, so the phone spends about half its power budget spying on you.
On top of that, if the iPhone not pro / max were an android, it’d be one of the smallest on the market.
Good luck. I’d love to be proven wrong on either point.
I just can't imagine ever going back to Android though after switching to iOS a few years ago. If my 13 mini dies I think I'm going to cross my fingers and hope that another used one is still viable. Or maybe start carrying my phone on a shoulder strap instead of in my pocket. I don't know. The situation is unpleasant to contemplate.
If my phone is lost, I’ll look for a refurbished version of one of a <= SE3 or a 13 mini.
If it’s run over by a truck, i’ll put the pieces in a bag and ask apple to repair it.
My budget for new phones is $1300 every three years, but no one makes a reasonable phone, so the budget is left unspent.
For iPhone SE3: Assuming they stop selling it tomorrow, February 2032.
That’s when they become officially obsolete. 2 years prior, repairs only if they have the parts.
I rant about iPhone size a lot but honestly given the choice of dealing with same day by evening/afternoon battery drain or a much bigger phone with better battery I'd choose the latter. My iPhone 12 Mini battery was a horror story and I didn't even use much. That's why I took iPhone 14 even though if I wanted I could find iPhone 13 Mini online.
But if they have two phones with same battery capacity and the smaller phone is costlier and also maybe a little less capable than the bigger phone I'd still buy it.
As to why the in screen fingerprint reader is not an option, obviously there was some sort of conscious decision to not go that route. I can’t tell whether that decision was motivated by money or by desire for good UX. Probably both
Oh - I thought I was going to be providing you with one counter-example, but I've just thought of something which means I'll have to switch to agreeing with you. When it's raining and my fingers are even slightly wet, it's all over for fingerprint unlocking for me.
And also, thanks for not making me feel stupid for not reading more carefully! HN is better than most of the web for giving benefit of the doubt, etc. but still... thanks.
I wish iphones came with both faceid and a finger print on side button.