OV9

It’s annoying that it doesn’t work horizontally, say you’re watching a video and accidentally press the side button and turn the screen off, you have to hold it vertically again for faceid to work.

I'm also going to be swapping in the near future. I'm leaning towards the XS rather than the XR at the moment mainly due to the better screen and slightly smaller size. Optical zoom camera may also be useful too but not sure about that yet.

The face recognition does sound like it will be a pain in the nuts at points but other than a significant downgrade to an iPhone 8 there's not much I can really do about (like having to move to Bluetooth headphones)

Jobbo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 10:14 am

tim wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:46 am

Jobbo wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:14 am Two reasons I fancy an XR: the bigger screen and the bigger battery. Two reasons I'm unsure: the bigger size and the face recognition (I like the fingerprint method, particularly when the phone is lying on the desk an arm-stretch away). So I'm not swapping yet.

I was a massive sceptic of face Id, but in reality it's pretty seamless and impressively quick even in dodgy light.

What about in the situations Ste described?

Swapping between screens - I assume he means task switching - yes it's slightly slower in operation, but you soon get used to the new gestures and they're second nature to me now.

As far as unlocking in the car - mine is located where about 80% of the time it'll unlock automatically without me having to move my noggin. I tend to leave my phone alone in the car though.

Overall I wouldn't go back to a fingerprint method anymore.

FaceID on XS Max (and presumably XS) is much improved over X. Seems to work faster and at more varied angles, ie you don’t have to hold the phone so perfectly parallel to your face.

It’s worth it for the larger screen/body ratio, and almost always is better (for me) than TouchID

Now FaceID works at all orientations on the iPad Pro, I guess the new iPhones will allow that too?

Nope, just tried. It doesn’t work if you hold the phone horizontally.

It works properly enough of the time that the few times it doesn’t aren’t annoying. It’s no less reliable than the fingerprint opening on my old phone.

Battery in my XS Max lasts a little over two days, and I tend to play music quite a lot in the office so to me that's pretty good. Faceid works ok for me although I've not yet tried it with it placed in the cradle in the car. I suppose I'd just take it out, set the GPS speedo app or whatever, then remount. And swiping up then holding your finger in order to view open sessions (to select or then close them) became quite natural very quickly. I don't miss the home button at all.

I'm hoping the battery is a big improvement - my 7 being used in the cradle in the car for sat nav duty was burning through 1% a minute. Pretty hopeless.

tim wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 11:38 am Swapping between screens - I assume he means task switching - yes it's slightly slower in operation, but you soon get used to the new gestures and they're second nature to me now.

As far as unlocking in the car - mine is located where about 80% of the time it'll unlock automatically without me having to move my noggin. I tend to leave my phone alone in the car though.

Overall I wouldn't go back to a fingerprint method anymore.

Yes task switching, it just doesn't work as well as a physical button. You have to swipe up, hold the running app there for a second and it then brings the other apps into the party for you to scroll through. Likewise if you want to stop an app from running; swipe up and again you have to pause and then you can swipe further up to stop it running. before you pressed home and instantly could swipe between stuff or delete the running app. I'm not really into the swipe down from the top to get to Wifi / torch etc either, but I think that will come with familiarity.

The face ID thing is because i have the phone in a cradle horizontal in the car. If Waze is running it'll sometimes disappear from the screen if you get a call. Car answers call. You speak, hang up and you won't necessarily get the Waze nav back. before i could reach over without looking, thumb ID would unlock and Waze would be back. Now I have to try to stick my face sideways in front of the middle air vent and 9 times out of 10 have had to pull over, take the phone out of the cradle and turn it back to portrait orientation for it to unlock and for me to switch the nav screen back on. Ditto when Waze and music do that annoying glitch thing where Waze takes over the bluetooth audio in the car and you have to switch back to either spotify or phone music library, re start you music anad re-open Waze so that the naz voice plays over the music not instead of it. Had to pull over the other day just to get music back on as I couldn't reach over, use my thumb and swipe to the music app and back to Waze.

I do like the XS and I've had it 3 weeks. I think it solves problems that weren't there though and it's only an incremental improvement in most areas over my 7. Not really sure it was worth £1400 or whatever it was either, but it's a tool for work and the Co can pay for it.

Things I like most:

- battery life
- optical zoom
- quality - it feels really nice and solid. The glass back actually seems super tough too.
- FaceID. In portrait mode and when at the right angle it's great.

You can task switch quickly by flicking the horizontal black bar at the bottom of the screen left or right. Took me a week to come across that feature.

Ah that's quite handy. Means you can only move one at a time, rather than scroll through all the open ones, but still useful.

I find when you swipe an app up it sometimes gets stuck in limbo and rather than open the sideways display of all running apps you end up with just moving the current app around the screen and it then disappears into nowhere and you get returned back to the home screen. *shrug*

Haven’t had that, my biggest bug so far is it’s inflicted with the same issue that’s been around for 5 years where the phone gets stuck in horizontal or portrait mode and the only way to fix it is to restart. Sometimes the whole thing freezes up but eventually after 30 seconds it sorts itself out.
Waze finally works with Apple CarPlay which is great. Battery life still seems to be coping well in this colder weather. It is surprisingly tough phone, either I’ve been very lucky or the glass on it is genuinely strong as I’ve dropped it on the street a few times and it’s survived without a case.

ste wrote: ↑Tue Nov 20, 2018 9:29 am eg phone in cradle in car, I have to tap the screen and arch my face over to the phone and it still rarely unlocks.

Is there not a function like googles Smart Lock yet?
Set the car's bluetooth as a trusted device, then it won't lock when paired with that particular device.

It’s so stupid it won’t trust apple CarPlay sometimes

Can anyone recommend an induction charger pad thingybob that doesnt light up? (Or has a light that is covered up by the phone when in use).

I got one for mrs mik (for her new XS Max as opposed to her personally) but when charging, it displays a slow pulsing blue light all round the edge of the pad. Placed on a bedside table - it is too bright in the dead of night.

Electrical tape, cover it up?

Could do, but would probably look a bit shoite.

Some sort of rubber grommet? Think they all have some sort of light to indicate they’re charging.

mik wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:15 am Can anyone recommend an induction charger pad thingybob that doesnt light up? (Or has a light that is covered up by the phone when in use).

I got one for mrs mik (for her new XS Max as opposed to her personally) but when charging, it displays a slow pulsing blue light all round the edge of the pad. Placed on a bedside table - it is too bright in the dead of night.

I have a Belkin F7U027 which fits your requirements. There's a tiny blue led but the phone sits over it.

tim wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:54 am

mik wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:15 am Can anyone recommend an induction charger pad thingybob that doesnt light up? (Or has a light that is covered up by the phone when in use).

I got one for mrs mik (for her new XS Max as opposed to her personally) but when charging, it displays a slow pulsing blue light all round the edge of the pad. Placed on a bedside table - it is too bright in the dead of night.

I have a Belkin F7U027 which fits your requirements. There's a tiny blue led but the phone sits over it.

Is it big enough to charge an Apple Watch too? If I go down the route of a new iPhone I will want a decent wireless charger with the bigger output and as Mik said, not a siding light to keep us away!

Orange Cola wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 2:47 pm

tim wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:54 am

mik wrote: ↑Fri Nov 23, 2018 11:15 am Can anyone recommend an induction charger pad thingybob that doesnt light up? (Or has a light that is covered up by the phone when in use).

I got one for mrs mik (for her new XS Max as opposed to her personally) but when charging, it displays a slow pulsing blue light all round the edge of the pad. Placed on a bedside table - it is too bright in the dead of night.

I have a Belkin F7U027 which fits your requirements. There's a tiny blue led but the phone sits over it.

Is it big enough to charge an Apple Watch too? If I go down the route of a new iPhone I will want a decent wireless charger with the bigger output and as Mik said, not a siding light to keep us away!

As well - no - you need a special charger for charging multiple devices at once. I'm not sure they're even out yet.