First Impression: iPhone 11 Pro Max and iOS 13

Apple has had quite a busy month, and with every September you can expect a new iPhone, and new software to go along with it.I recently upgraded from the iPhone 6s Plus to the new iPhone 11 Pro Max and I have some words about it so lets get started.

iPhone 11 Pro Max First Impressions

Without getting too technical, this phone is probably the most optimized iPhone of this generations current design. The new iPhone does have some weight to it, probably because of the battery it has in it. But it doesn’t deter me from enjoying the uptick in speed. The new Pro max has the new A13 chip and that basically means its Apple’s fastest mobile chip for now…till next year of course. Now given how much I use my phone for work, work and more work and having to take calls, answer emails, and do around 10 things at once I need my phone to be lightning fast. With my old phone it would take around 10-20 seconds to open my email app, and a additional 10 seconds to load up an email. So what I am is saying this phone feel is fast. Moving between apps, handling the many tasks I do is beyond amazing and the sound quality on it from the speaker to talking on the phone everything is crystal clear. Finally, the screen itself is quite amazing as well. I tested Avengers: Infinity War(of course) in 4K and you can really tell how great the screen looks and the audio does sound like its coming at you like a mini sound bar compared to my old phone which sounded like it was mono from one side of the screen.

I think the thing you care about most is probably the camera? Well let me tell you about that, having a triple camera lens is something I think all phones need. Now why is that? over the weekend I went to a event and was capturing 4K video and being able to take high quality photos was beyond amazing and the zoom in and zoom out with the wide angle lens was just something that needs to be experienced. If you have known me for a long time you know my favorite camera on a phone was last the Lumia 1020. Now I would happily say this takes the cake. Also what took me by surprise was just how the low light capture works. In the photos of me at IBM in the gallery below, the room was dark at some points and when I took the photo I was kind of like “wow” seeing the room looking all lit up, Apple wasn’t kidding about how great the camera works in low light.

Finally lets talk about battery life, which I was a little scared about cause Apple posted on their website originally that the battery life of the Pro Max was 5 hours longer than the iPhone Xs Max but what does that really mean? Well to put it into perspective at the event I went to over the weekend. My phone left the charger at 8am, went through an event with lots and lots of pictures, handled a few hour car ride back and forth of me doing work. And how much battery did I have coming back home? 30% I still had around 30% and we returned around 9pm at night. My old phone would probably last until 1pm if I was lucky on battery saver. It feels nice not always being connected to a charger. Speaker of chargers, thanks to WP Engine for the wireless chargers from the WP Engine Conference I finally can use it!

iOS 13 Dark Mode Everywhere!

iOS 13 is basically bringing the dark mode to every apple map and using what macOS has where you can have dark mode on all the time and it changes the apps. Now the reason why I love dark mode is that well its easier to read, and it saves some battery. Now there are a few apps that have definitely received updates that I love like the files app, health app, with also an improved sharing. This update was for mainly bringing dark mode all around, and improving the use of quite a number of apps. But here is the thing that worries me about the current update, the full reminders app isn’t out there for desktop and my reminders app is managed by Microsoft’s To Do App. Also for the record the new maps update is amazing it is definitely something that apple needed to update, I use Apple maps more than google maps cause it was always taking me the weirdest places and waze would always make me take the backroads and it made me go crazy.

I would say the problem with iOS 13 is that it breaks a lot of stuff, a few of my apps have been experiencing glitches with freezing, and lock ups. While also my non bluetooth apple devices have been experiencing connection issues. Such as with my car, I have to try and connect it multiple times. Or even my wi fi will experience cut out and lock up on occasion. I have heard from a few of my friends that their iphone will turn off wi fi when their phone falls asleep. I also feel that that a lot of the apps are still playing catch up. Going into the photos, it feels like google photos, the to do app feels like what I said before it feels like its trying to catch up to most to do apps and the notes app doesn’t hold a candle to one note or ever note. And seriously who uses the mail app? there are so many better options.

In Conclusion

Apples new phone update is definitely a great update for anyone who hasn’t updated their phone in many years. However if you are thinking about upgrading from the X or the Xs, I wouldn’t suggest it.This phone is the most optimized version of this current generations design. Also the new iOS update is focused on these new phones with the OLED screens to help save even more battery power by bringing dark mode to everything anything in the phone. Also I think I will be writing a review of iPad OS after some more hands on time later this month so be on the lookout for that. Overall I feel that this iPhone is a great upgrade coming from an iphone 6s plus but if you got an iphone in the last 2 years you can wait a few more years. Also with iOS 13, I just call this update dark mode.

see you space cowboy…