We are about two months away from the annual new iPhone launch in September (typically). I cannot wait to get a new one this year, because the battery life on my current iPhone 14 Pro has been the worse I’ve ever used. (And I’ve had every single iPhone since the 7.) The iPhone is famous for robust battery life compared to the Android competition. In my experience, this has been very true. I’ve never had to plug my iPhone in mid-day to top up the battery ever. It’s never gone down past 20% at the end of the day even in my heaviest usage days.
That is, until the iPhone 14 Pro. 10 months in, the battery life have not held up to standards. These days I’m down to 20% by the time I get home from work in the early evening. Mind you this is without any heavy usage of social media apps whatsoever. I’m only chatting with friends on Signal and reading ebooks on Kindle. I joked to my friends that I’ve become just like them: having to charge the phone battery during the day, otherwise risk running out of juice.
The forthcoming iPhone 15 Pro could have zero new features - only improved battery life, and I would still happily do the yearly upgrade.
Obviously, this is the most first world of problems. Here’s some quick perspective to bring me back down to earth. A new coworker of mine recently remarked that in all of his previous jobs, he’s never had the major holidays off. In the typical service industry-type jobs, the holidays is when you definitely have to show up for work. That’s where the money is made: restaurants needs tables filled, shows need to go on, and parcels need delivering. That coworker’s remark is a humbling reminder that I’m so lucky to only have had jobs where major holidays are actually a thing.
It reminded me of my younger (than me by 10 years) brother. He’s currently working his way up from the bottom at entry-level service jobs. There are no holidays off. And should he wish to take any time off, he has to find others to cover his shift. A two week vacation? He can certainly take one, but just don’t come back to work afterwards. It’s tough work for not that much pay. Fingers crossed he can eventually find a job that provide proper benefits and time off - like my coworker did.
The cord of shame!