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Journal entry 2: “Trying to figure out how to use an iPhone”

So… I recently got a new iPhone (Yay!). I wasn’t in a rush to upgrade my phone even though I’ve held onto my phone for almost 8 years. I ended up upgrading from the iPhone 6s to an iPhone 14 Pro Max and it felt like a huge jump. From the changes to how you open your phone (fingerprint vs face ID) to the way you use the buttons on the lock screen.

During the COVID years, when I still had my old phone, I was glad that I didn’t need to take off my mask in order to get into my phone. I found it very useful that Apple released an iPhone that can detect people’s faces regardless of whether they had a mask or not. I thought the new iPhone was learnable after having previous experience with an iPhone, granted my previous experience was an old version of the iPhone 14 Pro Max.

My boomer moments with my phone: At first, I struggled to use face id in comparison to the fingerprint id. I’m sure for those of us who use face id understand there are times where the phone doesn’t pick up your face so you adjust your physical being so it can fully see your face. Like if you’re laying down on your side on a pillow, the pillow might cover a portion of your face and make it so your phone isn’t able to identify you so you hover your face over your pillow for the face id to be recognized.

On the lock screen, there are two buttons for the flashlight and the camera (Easy enough… just press the buttons for either the flashlight or camera to turn on, right? NO!). These buttons didn’t work like the ones that my old iPhone did. These buttons were very memorable and let me tell you why. I struggled to turn on the flashlight for 10 minutes (Yes, 10 whole minutes!) until my little sister told me “You need to hold the button and then let go.” (I feel more and more like a boomer everyday) At the time, I found the idea of holding the buttons to be very unsatisfactory due to my previous experience with the buttons on an older model. Though the more I thought about it, the more it made sense why they made the change due to efficiency and usefulness. There were times where my flashlight was on or the camera view was opened when taking out my phone. Having the press and hold makes it more efficient when it comes to usability due to the fact that a person will be able to get to where they need to go even if there’s a few milliseconds delay on using the buttons on the lock screen.

Storage and camera quality has never been an issue with my old phone. But how am I supposed to deal with little storage space and poor camera quality when taking my cute or derpy cat pictures? (With a new phone and better storage of course!). The camera of the phone is definitely more effective compared to my older phone and it is, of course, very useful in taking good quality pictures of my cat. (Yes, I take pictures of my cat like a boomer and as a cat mom, most of my storage is being used up by my cat pictures. A sacrifice that has to be made)

Let me introduce you to my cat, Kirby! (He was trying to get out of his collar in this picture… and succeeded…)

Overall, I found the phone to be very learnable, effective, useful, and memorable though this might have been due to my previous knowledge of using the older iPhone model. I also have such a cute phone case from Rhinoshield and it has been a life saver in many cases when I dropped it on the concrete like 10 times (Not sponsored by the way haha).