iPhone / iOS Thread

So, I ended up pre-ordering an iPhone 12 mini with 256 GB storage, and after much deliberation I ended up with it in blue.
Got it today:

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I must say that I'm very happy with the size. The "boxy" shape isn't uncomfortable to hold, and I'm getting a very secure grip, much better than the rounded edges of the iPhone 7, which can be slippery.
 
I also ended up buying the MagSafe leather case for my 12 mini in Baltic Blue. They were on black Friday (50 %) sale through my cell service provider, so I thought why not...

The magnets are actually strong enough that it will stick to any smooth steel surface, like for instance my fridge. :ROFLMAO:
 
Happy to hear that the new sharp-edged iphones are grippier. I'm impatiently waiting for my 12 Pro that's backordered until Christmas.

I've been a case user since the 6 when the rounded-edge design started, because they're just too damn slippery for me. I still ordered the MagSafe leather case, though because I have a feeling I'll want that leather feel and I'm even more sure I want the genuine accessory.

I've had an XR for two years and the biggest annoyance has been the lack of Apple cases. They just made the silly clear one and reserved all the good ones for the fancier phones. I know there are tons of third party cases available but they all suck in one way or another. If they don't, they cost the same or €10 less than the Apple ones and IMO, €10 is not worth bickering about. We're talking about something that's glued to my hand for hours and hours every day so I want the best.
 
I like the Nomad rugged leather case, so I originally bought that. That has a very solid rubber bumper around it and a nice feeling leather back. Even though it's a solid protective case, Magsafe wireless charging still works through it. Price (here at least) is about 60 % of the Magsafe Apple one.

I think I will also add a Pitaka Air case for the occasions that I want to use a super slim case.
 
Anyone use iCloud for Windows and experienced issues with photos downloading much smaller with a new iPhone? The photos from my X (now packed for trade in) downloaded as 4032x3024 JPG and HEIC if I wanted, with the 12 Pro Max they only download at 2048x1536. I can download the full sized HEIC images from the iCloud website but they have all of the EXIF data missing.

I tried the new iCloud for Windows on my server machine and it does the same thing, there must be something telling it to download small images. I've found a few people with the same issue but there doesn't seem to be a solution at the minute.

I have Dropbox camera uploads set up and working but it's quite a lot more expensive than iCloud, I'd be paying for 2TB that I'm just not going to use...
 
If you go into the settings for the Photos app, does it say that something like "optimal iPhone storage" is on? If so, switch that off and it will download full size originals from iCloud. If you have a lot of photos (like I do) it takes something like a whole day (and heavy battery drain) for it to download full size copies of you entire photo library to the phone.

On another note, yes the magnets are strong enough to hold it to my fridge:
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I do have it downloading the originals as I did with the old phone, it had to download 17,000+ originals when I first set it up. They are all fine, it's when they download on Windows that they are being reduced in size where the photos from the X aren't. All the settings match as they were copied across. It's strange.

Those magnets are great, I played with the old style magnet mounts that sadly messed with wireless charging but this is a whole new ball game. Probably won't use it much but it's always nice to have the option.
 
iCloud photo synchronisation on Windows is complete bollocks for me. Doesn't reliably download pictures quickly, sometimes will randomly wait for hours before pulling whole batches, and stop mid-way. Also often starts randomly producing 5-10% CPU load after the system boots up without doing anything. Killing the service of course makes auto download die completely, and I haven't found a way to kill that CPU load leak in any other way. It does go away on its own after about an hour uptime or so. I'll probably disable it altogether, I rarely need more than a couple recent pictures from the phone at a time - and those are easy enough to download from the iCloud web app.
 
I made a Powershell script to restart the service when it just stops working, that's for the old version 7.21. I installed the newer one on my server and it's OK ish, I like the idea of it just representing the entire iCloud library instead of separate uploads and downloads but it isn't necessary for me. Neither is the ability to have small versions of photos downloaded and 'originals' on demand, I just want the originals. They're still not full size anyway.

Windows aside, the original HEIC versions downloaded from the website are the correct size but have no metadata. Not the end of the world but still strange.
 
I came up with a compromise for the iCloud issue that doesn't involve me chucking £95 at Dropbox. I tried copying over USB, while the photos are high quality the connection is quite unreliable and got on my nerves very quickly.

For £5.99 a year after the trial I've got PhotoSync, which will sync new photos over WiFi to the companion app on my PC. It will do it automatically or on demand, which has proven to be faster than iCloud and additionally it allows me to sync to my server too. Photos are still high quality so I'm happy for now. Hopefully Apple will fix the reduced size issue but it seems to be a feature rather than a bug.
 
Posting from the phone to then edit the text in on PC - next level shenanigans!

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Several questions about widgets - actually a rant, but disguised as questions!

1) Why is there a stock fitness widget (up top) but no corresponding health widget? Why do I have to get an additional app to provide these (frankly superbly well made) widgets for me?

2) Why does the battery widget only show devices that are connected via BT? why doesn't it show my ipad? the info is there - if I check find my ipad it'll show the battery status there... why not just carry it over?

ugh...
 
2) Why does the battery widget only show devices that are connected via BT? why doesn't it show my ipad? the info is there - if I check find my ipad it'll show the battery status there... why not just carry it over?

ugh...
If I'm going to make a guess it is because the iPad isn't viewed as a peripheral of the iPhone like the Apple Watch and whatever bluetooth headphones or other accessories that are attached, the iPad (and also a MacBook) is more of a stand-alone device.
 
Yeah I believe that is exactly the reasoning behind it - also on the ipad this widget would contain the apple pencil and on all of them it would include headphones (don't have airpods, otherwise i'd see whether they show up on both phone + pad simultaneously). I'd still like the option to include all my devices (or even select which ones? wow!), though :)
 
Unrelated : 8hrs 54 mins of sleep?
Can’t remember the last time I had more than 7hrs
 
Unrelated : 8hrs 54 mins of sleep?
Can’t remember the last time I had more than 7hrs
Yeah that’s a bit of an outlier... the day before is more realistic, but I do get a very consistent 7:30–8:00 hrs. Average last week was even 8:01h.
 
iPhone 12 Pro shipping times slipping into January... effs sake. :p
 
iPhone 12 Pro shipping times slipping into January... effs sake. :p
Yes, it's ridiculous.

But still, this year is a so called "super cycle", which means that Apple introduced next generation stuff both on the inside and on the outside. Featuring both a new generation of chips on the inside, as well as a new design which is instantly recognizable to people. The last time they did this was 10 years ago with the iPhone 4. You could argue that the iPhone X was something like that as it was the first full screen/notched iPhone, featuring their first Bionic chip, but most of the exterior stayed similar to it's predecessor with the rounded edges. Then there is the whole 5G hype, which I guess is a train many users want to board, if only just to have a "future proof" phone.

You can also assume that the sales will follow a similar path to last years phones, where the 11 "Pro" models dominated the sales statistics in the beginning, but were solidly overtaken by the lesser iPhone 11 after a few months. This is because the most enthusiastic customers, who are most likely going for the "Pro", are always first to upgrade. Everyone else, who just want to replace their 2-3-4-year-old iPhone with the latest iPhone will buy later, and they are likely pocketing the couple of hundred bucks difference, and going for the 'vanilla' iPhone 12 or the mini.
 
Noob question : Any recommendations for mp3 players? I know, Spotify, itunes etc all have tons of stuff but I’m old and have a massive mp3 collection of which many things are hard to find online.

VLC kinda works, as does VOX but I’m getting frustrated with copying songs file by file and getting many ‘there’s already a file here with that name’ errors. Anything out there that lets me copy whole folders over or is this locked by iOS?
 
Noob question : Any recommendations for mp3 players? I know, Spotify, itunes etc all have tons of stuff but I’m old and have a massive mp3 collection of which many things are hard to find online.

VLC kinda works, as does VOX but I’m getting frustrated with copying songs file by file and getting many ‘there’s already a file here with that name’ errors. Anything out there that lets me copy whole folders over or is this locked by iOS?
MusicBee. It can read the folders and bring them up decently. What I liked about it when getting album art so that music in my Golf would show the album was that you can have the program scan the entire folder and give multiple options/resolutions for the album art. Provided your folders are organized alright which, my library started in iTunes 5, was a bit of a mess.
 
Noob question : Any recommendations for mp3 players? I know, Spotify, itunes etc all have tons of stuff but I’m old and have a massive mp3 collection of which many things are hard to find online.

VLC kinda works, as does VOX but I’m getting frustrated with copying songs file by file and getting many ‘there’s already a file here with that name’ errors. Anything out there that lets me copy whole folders over or is this locked by iOS?

Apple had this little product called the iPod. Maybe you've heard of it, since you're old? :p It was made for playing pirated mp3 files, long before streaming existed. All these features still exist in your iPhone and iTunes today next to the streaming stuff.

Drop your collection into iTunes (and watch the world crash and burn if your ID3 tags aren't done properly), then copy what you want over to your phone.
 
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