iPhone X - 3 months

I thought I might give an update regarding my experience using the new iPhone X after having it for three months. Original impressions can be read here. 

Face id – I am still impressed with the face id, although it never seems to recognise me when I am bleary-eyed first thing in the morning in the darkness, I usually have to resort to putting in the passcode. I would say it works 75% of the time in the dark which is a little disappointing. My main problem about this feature is that when the phone is sitting on my desk I have to pick it up to unlock it, I am used to just putting my finger onto the touch id to see the messages. It a small complaint…

Wireless charging – I decided to buy the mophie charger (7.5watts) from the Apple store (£55) this was not an impulse by and I took a lot of time to decide to buy it. I decided on the mophie over the Belkin as it took up less real estate on my desk and it also featured a no slip rubber base. It also feels and looks better than the Belkin. The Belkin pad slipped about on the desk and also felt a bit cheaply made. I like the ease of charging this way. I have a small niggle about this feature though; I have a metal strip between the case and the phone so that phone mount on the dashboard in my  car holds the phone in position for the Sat-Nav, meaning I have to be fairly precise about where the phone is positioned when I put it on the charger. I have actually taken to taking the cover off when I am working at my desk. I would imagine most people wouldn't have this problem.

Size – I have gotten so used to the smaller form factor that when I pick up an iPhone 7/8+ I am shocked at the size of it. Reports from the past couple of days suggest that the top of the line iPhone this year will go back to the larger size which might make me want to stay at the smaller form factor.

Camera – I use it on a daily basis and have even posted a few Instagram shots from it lately. It is good, but I am not convinced it is better than the previous model. The portrait modes are nice to have, but from what I can tell they are still in beta and could be doing with some tweaking. If memory serves me correctly Apple also announced that there would be a fake long exposure mode released as well which has failed to materialise. This is a couple of photographs that I have captured recently.

Physical button positions – I take a lot more screen shots by accident due to the position of the physical buttons on this iPhone. To take a screenshot on the iPhone X you are required to press the on/off button on the right side and the volume up button on the left side. Due to my grip on the phone I often press the volume up button when I press the on/off button, causing a screenshot to be taken. 

Animoji – Have yet to use after testing it. Maybe good for kids, but then who would give a child a £1K phone? The fact that this took up 10 mins of the presentation of the new iPhone blows my mind.

Overall? Well, I am not disappointed, yes, I have a few niggling problems due to my own workflow and personal preferences but I have never had it crash on me. Is it revolutionary, no. The face-id is sensational most of the time, but on those occasions when it doesn't work its very annoying having to go back to typing in my alphanumeric password. 

Apple has finally announced the release date of the HomePod and I am eagerly awaiting the pre-order opening... am sure I'll have some views on this as well!

First Impressions: iPhone X

iPhone X

Although I wasn't expecting to get it for another week or two, my iPhone X (Silver 256GB) arrived on Friday. My excitement of receiving the email on Thursday alerting me that it would arrive on Friday was quickly swapped with the thought of my bank account taking a massive hit.

Yes, it is expensive, the most expensive iPhone yet. It costs about the annual GDP of a small country. I did a lot of thinking about purchasing it before its was released, or whether to go for the iPhone 8 and know that I still had the home button to push that has been the identifying feature of the phone since the original. So was it worth it? Time will tell, but at this point these are my impressions after a weekends worth of use.

  • OLED Screen - Although advertised as a full screen, that's not quite true, there is part taken out at the top for the true depth camera and earpiece. Still, the 5.8 inch super retina screen is stunning. Simply stunning, There is no doubt that it is a cut above the last iPhone.
  • Face ID - So far it has recognised me every time, even with sunglasses and a hat on. Have also tested it in the dark and it still works. It takes a little getting used to but it does become natural after a couple of hours.
  • Wireless charging - now that a standard has been accepted wireless charging has been incorporated: Qi. Belkin and Mophie currently have charger that work and Apple is releasing a charging mat early in 2018 (I shudder to think how much it will cost).
  • Size - It's smaller than my previous iPhone due to the removal of the home button and it feels like a better size, it goes into pockets more easily.
  • Camera - True depth camera on the front (7 megapixels) with two 12 megapixel rear lenses, f1.8 and f2.4 positioned vertically to each other, both with Optical Image Stabilisation. The (beta) portrait modes are impressive and I will post some images when I find a suitable model. Both the front and rear cameras are auto HDR, which was a little confusing when I was looking for the HDR option earlier.
  • Location - Covered by GPS, GLONASS, Galileo, and QZSS, which if memory serves is the first time that it is covered by four different global navigation satellite systems.
  • Connections - Yep, no 3.5mm 100 year old technology, move on people if it's not wireless your living in the past. Apple decided to still include a dongle for the backward thinking, which personally I think is a mistake it would be better that they made people move on. I cannot see the next iPhone coming with the free dongle.
  • Glass - front and back, i have seen pictures and videos of the drop test. I shudder to think of the cost of replacing this, I would expect painful. It annoys me that I have to cover such a beautiful piece of technology into a leather case to give it some protection from the horror of dropping it. Apple claims that it is the most durable glass ever... but it is still glass.
  • Animoji - I can't even...

In summary, the Face ID has impressed me, and the iOS11 gesturing is natural once you get the idea that there is no home button. The screen has blown me away, in all light conditions it really is stunning. The camera's, as you would expect are better, faster and more stabler than the previous models.

Worth the money? That's a tough question. I think this is going to be the price of the higher end iPhones from now on and that is a serious chunk of change if you are a yearly updater.

 

CSS and the Forth (Rail) Bridge

Over the past couple of weeks I have been working on a former academic supervisor's pet project. It involves creating a new set of CSS code for his website to slowly drag it out of the dark ages (the late '90's when we still designed websites using tables). The first stage is to implement CSS rules and to discard the tables that currently hold the site together.

The task which at first seemed simple has turned out to be a giant monster that will seemingly never end. It took me roughly a week just get my head around how it worked. It's built around a database and perl code and is different from any other project I have worked on and it has been so: frustrating; fun; enlightening; educational; emotionally draining (depending on situation). Fortunately for me this is the kind of project I love working on :-)

Hand coding into a terminal window again reminds of how I built my first site on an Apple Mac I (yes, the 1984 one) at university in 1996. It was a amazing time with 56.6K modems and ytalk that allowed you to chat to other people on the network that was 'logged on'. I can't think of a word that is large enough to describe how much things have changed since then in technology. Anyway, back to this website that was built around that time... :-) I haven't put a link to the site because it would be nice to work on it until it has been totally overhauled and redesigned. 

So, last night I finally got out with my camera, and took a trip up to North Queensferry to try and get a moody shot of the Forth Bridge. Little did I realise that almost every route to North Queensferry would provide challenges. The route going through Kincardine was closed, and it wasn't possible to go back across the Kincardine Bridge, which I did not realise and ended up going around Kincardine twice. Eventually drove across the Clackmannanshire bridge along to the Forth Road Bridge missing my turn off on the Fife side due to the sat nav not recognising all the new roads built for the Queensferry Crossing. Thought I would be able to via Inverkeithing but alas the road was also closed here, for some reason that a local chap explained to me in an accent that was more alien than Scottish, of which I understood a couple of words.

Thankfully when I got there it was still a bit misty and heavy rain. All for this photograph. Soaked through to my skin the Albert Hotel then charged me £2.50 for the worst (instant) coffee that I have ever had.

Totally worth the hassle for this photograph though.

 

 

 

 

QGIS

I attended a course on "QGIS Conversion Training" on Friday, run by EDINA at The University of Edinburgh. For those that don't know QGIS (Quantum Geographical Information System) is an open source alternative to ESRI's ArcGIS.

Over the last few years QGIS has become more popular, partly as it is now as powerful as ArcGIS and partly due to it being open source (therefore free). Many companies are now switching to it as it doesn't require long term costly contracts with ESRI, and it runs on all the major Operating Systems (Windows, Mac OS X and Linus).

The course was excellent and although I have had previous experience of QGIS this course really filled in a lot of gaps, it covered:

  • Setting up QGIS
  • Working with Data
  • Creating Data
  • Geoprocessing
  • Advanced Visualisation.

I was pleasantly surprised at how good the course was, how well run and how well presented it was. It was quite possibly the best course I have been on. EDINA will be running this course again in the future, if you are interested get in touch with Tom Armitage, who will be able to give you more information about the next date that the QGIS course will take place and costs associated with it.

I would like to say thanks to Bruce Gittings and Tom Armitage for their hard work on the day!

Apple's Photography (updated)

I might be a little late posting this but it's worth reading anyway. ;-) 

Apple realised a series of photography videos yesterday for the iPhone 7, a how to guide if you will. Sixteen videos that covers everything from how to shoot a great portrait to shoot a backlit subject. The videos are all around 30 seconds long and although they are for the iPhone 7 the skills are transferable to most iPhones and other smartphones.

The entire series can be found here, on Apple's website.

Update:

I thought it would be nice to add my favourite video into this post, How to shoot during golden hour on iPhone 7.