Yeah, what can I say? I unpacked and set up my Iphone 7 plus late last night, after Night of the living dead and three hours of podcast recording.
It is too early, I have not tried to bring and use it anywhere yet. But some quickies:
- The low-light skills of the camera are much better than I expected. I knew there were improvements, but I expected to try something and be disappointed. Not this time. The only light source (apart from moon light through the window at 00:23 am) is the ceiling lamp in the next room. The brightness it appears to have in the photo shows pretty well how dark the rest of the room is.
- I would have liked the phone to lie flat on surfaces, but I like the look of the camera bulge in itself.
- Size feels like a straight win over the non-plus. I expected the plus to feel significantly more unwieldy, but so far it feels as if it wields the same and just gives me additional screen space. I think the non-plus size passed the wieldyness barrier for my hands. It pushed toward two-handed use, yet often let me get away with one hand. As a result I was switching back and forth. The plus is almost more honest: this is plain and simple two-hand territory. Less confusion, less switching. So really, nothing new to learn and adapt to.
- I do not mind the new home button, but I see why people do. It works like the force touch trackpads, detecting pressure and clicking by means of a vibrator (yes yes, taptic engine) rather than a physical button depressing. The click feels pretty similar to that of my Macbook's trackpad, but the thing is that the click is not local. Instead of feeling the button click, it feels like the whole bottom of the phone clicks, as if you got the click by squeezing the bottom edge of the whole device. Only your finger needs to be on the circle for anything to happen. Perhaps that is how a rumored buttonless Iphone will be? Squeeze the bottom edge of the screen to go home?
- There are little feedback-enforcing taps here and there in the system, for example when you long-press a keyboard key to get the alternate characters and when zoom resets in Safari. I like all of them.
- I love the two generations faster Touch ID sensor. I never relied much on the lock screen, so I just love ending up device unlocked and staring at the home screen or latest app almost before I can think of it.
- I was never bothered by the thought of using an adapter to connect wired headphones. Once I had unpacked the phone, I also realized that there is exactly one pair of headphones I will want to use the adapter with. I would guess that most people are in my situation: you get a pair of lightning earbuds with the phone, and when those feel inadequate you probably have a pair of big comfortable headphones you like to put on. I bet Apple knew this, so that in practise one adapter solves the entire problem for almost everyone. When my big headphones break, I will likely go Bluetooth. Or just keep using the adapter, it works perfectly. Some serious teacup storming we all did, all summer long.
- The new - to me - size is exciting. I look forward to discovering more details that differ between this size and others, like the sideways dock in landscape mode and seeing multiple pages of an app folder at once. I also want to find some wide color gamut images and comparing them on the phone screen to every other screen I have.
(Some of my quotes are too old. I should find more new ones.)