It is new iPhone season, and this year I am not upgrading. Even though I can easily afford to, my days of getting the latest iPhone model every year is over. The proper adult thing to do is to check if it serves a purpose beyond the glow of a shiny new toy (it’s a lovely glow for sure). Is there a critical fault with my current phone that warrants a change?
It helps the answer quite a bit when the current phone is a still relatively new iPhone 16 Pro. It’s barely one year old at this point, and the internal systems remain zippy and responsive. Battery life is stellar, and it’s got AppleCare+ warranty for another year. Again, no particular reason to switch.
However, Apple knows how to tug at this hobbyist photographer’s heart. The new iPhone 17 Pro has an upgraded telephoto lens. My style of shooting leans towards the longer focal lengths. The typical 24mm to 35mm range (what the wide lens would be on most smartphones) creates incredibly boring photos. The compression and separation you get from telephoto can tell much better story.
I must resist! As much as I would love the new 48 megapixel telephoto lens on the iPhone 17, I have to be content with the lowly 12 megapixel shooter on my iPhone 16. There’s got to be a “good enough” at some point, right? Innovation is great and all, but certain things can simply be allowed to withstand the test of time.
There’s been newer monitors that are better, brighter, more colorful than the Pro Display XDR I bought back in 2020. However, I’ve no desire to replace it because the mini LED technology in the XDR is good enough. Partly also because I paid $5,000 for it…
That liquid gold.