Thursday Thirteen - another case of red

I know, I originally posted this picture a few days ago.

There's an update though. I've persisted with the leather phone case for a few more days and it's kind of broken itself in. The main difference from when it was new is that it has now acquired a small amount of flex. Real leather.

This is a good thing, because it is now much more easily removable than the first experience.

I'm still waiting for the replacement car cradle for the phone, and had originally decided to jettison the case when the cradle arrived. Now I'm less sure, because the case is becoming more pliable and consequently easier to flip on and off of the phone.

Bizarrely, since I detached the old 'factory fitted' car iPhone 4 cradle, the car is properly recognising the new phone via Bluetooth and all the controls are working.

Main personal observations on the new phone, which replaced my iPhone 4.

• Better reception - holds signal better - both voice and data - like on the Waterloo train line.
• Better speech quality on incoming calls - noticeably clearer
• Better battery life - although the other phone was over two years old - I'm getting more than a day from the new one, with lengthy bizzo calls included. Still nowhere near my olden day Nokias which managed 5-10 days, but were -er- phones only.
• Slightly larger form factor than the 4 but still fits pocket etc. About the maximum conveniently portable size though. Bigger and it starts to become a pingpong bat.

• Fingerprint recognition works really well. Although I've had to use three of the 5 slots for two thumbs and an index finger. And I sometimes forget that I can use it. What do they say? motor memory?
• Snappier response than the old phone which was fine on iOS6 but seemed slower on iOS7.
• Transferring old phone stuff to new phone was easy. It re-loaded the latest versions of all the apps in the process.
• Needed a new SIM card - nano SIM now. Cutover was via web site and a couple of text messages. Very simple.
• I was already using the new iOS7 on the iPhone 4, but tidied up folders and similar on the new phone. Simplified access and better organisation through the revised iOS7 embedded folders.
• I'd already switched to the new tones, warbles and vibes of iOS7 - some of these are better and more tranquil than the old ones
• Low power Bluetooth 4 is useful working with telemetry gadgets, like Fitbits (it was also on iPhone 4s, but not my iPhone 4)
• Surprisingly good camera. I'm thinking of using it as a 'main' day to day carry-around camera now, along with a few of the camera apps.
• Siri is generally usable. To my surprise.

They say the iPhone 6 will have a bigger screen. I'm not convinced that the larger devices are not as usable, because once they fail to pass the 'jean pockets test' they start to be more like a small tablet device (aka phablet - eek.)

I'm not convinced that the form factor needs much work. There's a fashion thing about being able to recognise the next version and the range of colours etc, but some of that is mainly eye candy rather than functional. Like a pen is still a pretty good design as a writing instrument.

Other things missing still include Near Field Communications and, given that they've added a MEMS device for movement, they could have added the altimeter circuit too. There's talk of new edge based sensors for the next generation, but as they've just added the fingerprint gizmo, it would seem slightly odd to remove it again. And as the pixel counts increase, the processor power and ultimately the battery need to get bigger too, so there's a creeping size challenge to these things.

Maybe the rest of any telemetry will be part of the thingiverse iWatch, whenever it gets released? Although for me there is a flaw in any prerequisite to have the phone nearby in order to use the watch. I'm also not wild about having to charge a watch every few days either.

It's interesting though, because it starts to herald the next turn of gadget innovation.