a new iPhone after 6 years
A few days ago, I upgraded my iPhone 11 to the new iPhone 17.
I’m glad my previous phone held on as long as it did, because jumping so many generations of models (11 —> 17) makes it truly feel like an upgrade.
I also bought a new phone while my previous phone still functioned. That helped it feel more like a special event and positive experience, rather than waiting for my old phone to totally die on me, then rushing to the Apple store to get a new phone to only experience relief that I have a functioning phone once again. I quit while I was ahead with my 11.
So far, the two most noticeable improvements have been the camera and the screen. The 17’s camera is noticeably better than the 11, even to my untrained eye. I take a lot more pictures now that I’m a dad, so I care a lot more about camera upgrades than I used to.
The screen on the 17 is 120Hz. One thing I’ve learned from playing video games is your eye notices refresh rate changes a lot from 0-140Hz. After that, it becomes almost imperceptible. But a doubling from 60Hz on the 11 to 120 feels like a massive upgrade. It’s much more smooth and responsive.
The camera button and the “action button” are just strange. They don’t seem genuinely useful. They’re more like bolt-on features added just to have something to point at when someone says “so what’s actually different about this new model?”
Hopefully I get some useful years out of this phone and it proves just as durable as previous models.