In 2022, the iPhone lineup is dead for me. It’s a sad and tragic story of what it could have been, as I’ve always felt tempted to switch to the permanently pressed apple. But this desire no longer exists.
And I’m going to come out here and say that it doesn’t really matter whether you buy an iPhone 12, 13, or 14 – not only do these things look alike, they also do more or less the same things. And before you throw that dynamic island at me, let me introduce you to the Pixel family and show you what the real innovation is.
Innovation to add new skills to your repertoire, to allow you to do new things you weren’t able to before, and innovation that brings you new perspectives.You may also find something interesting:
blessing and curse
All of the above might seem a bit plausible (and to some extent it is) but bear with me. iPhones have one major aspect that is really cool and annoying at the same time. They provide great continuity, so to speak, and users who go from several generations back feel right at home buying the latest and greatest – there’s little or no learning curve.
One of the big new (old) features in iOS 16 – the battery percentage in the status bar… Hallelujah!
This applies to both hardware and software and that’s where the “damn” part comes in – it takes forever to add new features, some of us are still waiting to get Touch ID back in any shape or form, and widgets have taken a long time to get to iOS. It took Apple several years to allow users to delete pre-installed apps, and to make Siri work with third-party apps as well.
It took Apple several years to allow users to delete pre-installed apps
Same goes for notifications and translation features and instead of creating something new, Apple focused on design improvements, animations, 3D emojis and finally – Dynamic Island. Meanwhile, the pixels are getting closer and closer to the future personal caller, and to be more specific, here’s why.
Photo Unblur beats Dynamic Island any day of the week
Which do you prefer – a cool animation about a selfie camera or better photos? With just a few clicks, you can turn your old or faded photos into decent shots. unblur uses the power of artificial intelligence and you can control the effect with a simple slider.
Even better, this tool works with photos taken with any camera on any phone. I would buy a Pixel just to fix my old photos dating back to 2004 alone. Yes, there are third-party options, and with a little bit of effort you can probably get a similar effect on any phone but that’s not the point.
I’ll just buy a Pixel to fix my old photos
Live translation and transcription is out of this world
I was simply amazed at how good these features are on the pixel. I’ve tried it on an Android device registered in the Beta program but it works better on Google devices. You can use live translation to turn Japanese nonsense into something you understand practically in real time and right inside your ear (with a pair of Pixel Buds).
Look, ma! I can speak Japanese now!
Google Assistant beats Siri with one hand tied behind its back
Google Assistant is miles ahead of Siri when it comes to integrating with third-party apps and devices — there are thousands of smart home tools that work with the Assistant, and only a few would make business with Siri.
But she… really?
The virtual assistant did the right thing
Google (The Real) VPN Beats Apple Private Relay
We all know how careful Apple is when it comes to security and protecting its users. This is a strong point, despite all the naysayers and skeptics attacking the company for serving the NSA and other government agencies.
When the company introduced Private Relay with iOS15, people praised it for adding an extra layer of security but they failed to account for the fact that it’s not a VPN service. Private Relay is not a system-wide security feature and works mostly with Safari, along with a small subset of apps.
Private relay is not a real VPN
On the other hand, Google VPN is a fully legitimate VPN (Virtual Private Network) service that works with your device and not only encrypts your IP address and data, but also uses something called traffic obfuscation – which makes the encrypted traffic look like normal. This is much better for getting around things like blocking geolocation and other restrictive measures.
Of course, the service is still offline and should hit the new pixels sometime in December, and we’ll have to test it in detail to see if it delivers on all its promises but chances are.
On the other hand, private relay traffic is easily identifiable, and can be blocked if necessary (Apple itself provides the necessary information and instructions to schools, businesses, and other entities on how to prepare their networks for private relaying and effective traffic identification).
But what about all insects?
This needs to be addressed – for sure. Sometimes the Pixels look like half-baked alpha models, and when you cough up several hundred dollars, it’s the last thing you’re looking for. On the other hand, iOS is very polished and errors are very rare.
Come on now – it doesn’t look that bad!
#Google #Pixel #Killed #iPhone