I’ve Used iPhones Without a Case for Years – Titanium Is a Game Changer

April 19, 2025
Ever since iPhones transitioned to titanium, there has been a significant increase in the quality and durability of these phones. I have been using most of my iPhones without a case. The last two iterations, the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 16 Pro Max, are less prone to scratches and dents compared to previous models. The stainless steel iPhones, starting with the iPhone X in February 2017 up to the iPhone 14 Pro Max, looked premium. However, if you used these phones without a case, you would know that the sides scratched easily. Apple going with flat edges…

Apple not spending on AI efforts is why Siri is what it is

April 12, 2025
Stephen Hackett commenting on the NYT article on what is wrong with Apple. I haven't read the NYT article but Stephen's comment is spot on: For a company that says it doesn’t like looking back at its own history, very often, Apple makes decisions like it’s the late 1990s and the company is on the verge of failure. That drives it to make incredible products, but it also means Apple can be incredibly stingy. To play in the AI race, you’ve got to be willing to spend piles and piles of cash. The world's richest company unwilling to spend money…

Report on The Information about the state of Siri

April 12, 2025
Hartley Charlton at MacRumors has a recap of the new report in The Information about why Siri has remained so bad. Here are some of the bits that plainly make me angry, but not surprising the state of Siri today: "Apple’s AI/ML group has been dubbed “AIMLess” internally, while employees are said to refer to Siri as a “hot potato” that is continually passed between different teams with no significant improvements." "Apple AI chief John Giannandrea was apparently confident he could fix ‌Siri‌ with the right training data and better web-scraping for answers to general knowledge questions. Senior leaders didn't…

iPhone price increases

April 6, 2025
The iPhone X, launched in 2017 at a price of £999, hasn't gone up since. You can walk into an Apple Store and get the iPhone 16 Pro for the same price of £999 now. If I were to argue that prices of the iPhones have gone down - both in terms of increasing inflation and also in terms of the features the iPhone 16 Pro offers compared to the iPhone X 8 years ago - there wouldn't be much or any rebuttal against my argument. Every year it feels like a price increase is imminent, but the iPhone has…