An unexpected decision
September 19, 2014 at 9:14 AM by Dr. Drang
I’ve been reading reviews of the new iPhones in a sort of detached manner. I have a 5S, and although I could upgrade through a intra-family swap, my wife likes the size of her 4S and is skeptical about the advantages of moving up to a 4 inch phone. Also, my 5S is black, and she likes a white phone.
So I figured I’d wait until next year. My thinking was that the A8 processor isn’t that much of an improvement over the A7, and the RAM hasn’t been increased, so it’s not like I’m missing out on a huge leap in power. This is not like the jump from the 5 to the 5S. A lot of this year’s functional improvement is coming from iOS 8, not the internal hardware.1
Last night, as I was making this argument to myself for the tenth time, I remembered that the reason I have a 5S is that I did an intra-family swap with my son last year. The buttons on his iPhone 4 had crapped out; I bought a 5S through his account and gave him my 5. Which means I haven’t bought a phone on my account in two years. And I’ll be able to swap with my son again next year if I want.
Suddenly the differences between the 5S, the 6, and the 6 Plus were no longer theoretical.
In a week or two, when the crowds thin out, I’ll stop in at the local Apple store and see and feel the differences in person. I probably would’ve chosen to do that even if I’d remembered from the start that this was my account’s year to upgrade. It’s fun to have a new phone on the first day, but I don’t think walking around with a paper cutout in your pocket gives you a real sense of a device.
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No, I’m not overlooking the elephant in the room. I just don’t think you need to read another exegesis on the advantages and disadvantages of a larger screen. ↩
