Bonjour à tous ! This week’s Intentional Tech comes to you from France, where at least some of you will be joining us on Sunday for our wedding ceremony, originally planned for August 2020. Hopefully there will be no such delays to Apple’s upcoming ‘Far Out’ event, scheduled for the 7th of September. But just how far will Apple go?
In today’s issue:
Can Apple improve the iPhone?
Can you really work on an iPad?
Can Apple still improve the iPhone?
Having picked up the iPhone 13 Pro on launch day, this September’s Apple Event feels less exciting than usual. I simply have no reason to upgrade. From the minute I got the 13 Pro in my hands, I knew I was going to love it. One year later, it’s become an essential part of my content creation workflow, has maintained 98% of battery health and still looks incredibly stylish.
So what would Apple have to do to convince me an upgrade would be worth it? Well, the rumour mill would have you believe they’re all set to announce an iPhone with an always-on display, a hole-punched camera in place of the dreaded notch and some routine camera improvements. While I’m sure the 14 series will be a great set of phones, it feels like Apple’s iPhone iterations are becoming less and less game-changing as their technology matures.
This is a problem for all smartphone companies, of course, and beyond the likes of Samsung experimenting with foldables, most recent innovation has actually come within phones of a much lower price-point which means its a shame that Apple is also rumoured to be giving the iPhone mini a fallow year this time around.
There are just a couple of features that would really make meaningful improvements to my iPhone experience:
Enable cinematic mode and ProRes video at 4k 60fps so that all of the footage I shoot on my iPhone can make the most of these modes. I’ve actually barely used cinematic mode for that reason.
Add a USB-C adaptor so that I only need one cable wherever I go and have a wired option for transferring video files to my Mac at a faster rate.
If Apple could add these features, then I’d be extremely happy, even if these updates wouldn’t feel like enough for me to upgrade this time around. How about you? Reply to this email or leave a comment letting me know what it would take you to upgrade.
Can you really work on an iPad?
As great as the iPad is for specific creative tasks and note taking, actually doing a regular job on it is not that fun.
It holds up well for light email and browser work and if all you do is write, then you can have a brilliant experience. But as soon as you open up a spreadsheet or presentation, you become acutely aware of its limitations.
The iPad’s curser snaps to touch targets, making it feel imprecise, and common workplace apps like Google Sheets simply aren’t optimised for iPad OS. Apple have tried to improve multitasking with their recent stage manager update but the experience is still clunky and has a learning curve that most people don’t have time to deal with.
How do I know? I actually tried working on an iPad for 3 weeks straight when my work laptop broke the last time I was in France. Watch the above video to see how it went.