My old phone started showing some issues after five years. The battery was getting worse by the day. The charging cable no longer fit properly, and I had to patiently insert it the right way or otherwise, I’d end up with a dead phone. The memory was full, and I could only install new updates after clearing out all my photos. I definitely wasn’t having an optimal user experience, so it was time for an upgrade.
After some thought I decided to go for the top of the line, and I got myself a crisp new iPhone 17 Pro! I have been using my new phone for about a week, and I am quite happy with it. Here are the key highlights.
The positive points:
- One hand: I can still operate it with one hand. Some corners are a bit hard to reach, but I can do it. The missing button, compared to my previous phone, is not really a problem.
- Speed and battery life: The phone is really fast, and it works a long long time with its battery
- Design: It looks pretty good, I’m happy with the phone’s aesthetics, and inside its cover it doesn’t tip over when it is lying on my desk and I click the screen.
- Screen: A bit bigger so that is good, although I really did not mind the smaller screen and the button that I used to have.
- At night: Pictures really capture a nighttime image as it looks to me, with all the light sources and details. The phone knows when you are making a shot at night, and it tells you to hold the phone still a couple of seconds. My old phone simply shot a black image, where you would see nothing, which was always quite disappointing.
- Favorite new thing: I love the dual mode video option, where you get a video with the both the front and back camera. Great for small youtube clips.
What I did not like:
- Overly flashy: The interface might look good, but for me it did not work. I turned off most animations and turned off the always-on option, which I was looking forward to, but eventually just ended up frustrating me because it seemed like the phone would not turn off.
- Hiccups: Sometimes things are not working right away (or I am doing it wrong). They were not intuitive enough, and that is exactly what iOS should be. I had problems turning on the flashlight and turning on the camera, both buttons available on the very first screen, and this should be simple, but frustatingly I did not get it to work every time I wanted to.
- Redoing old stuff: I had to re-add all my bank cards to my wallet, and re-authorize all my bank apps. Probably to make sure it was still really me, but it was a bit troublesome because I needed passwords I had not used in five years. Another pain was that all my time based authenticators stopped working and had to be recreated.
- Imperfect fit: I normally carry my phone in my pant pocket
Overall I’m happy. I feel like for the next couple of years I will have a good phone. It’s really very fast, but I doubt I really need this speed. My old phone was clearly slower, but it was enough for me. The best point is the new battery, I went for charging my phone three times a day to a phone that just keeps working for two days, and a quick charge is enough to keep it working for a day more. I did have to turn off all the fancy graphical effects, and turn on low-power mode, but that gave me exactly what I wanted. A phone I can use when I need it.
I started with my brother’s old 
Artificial intelligence is a thing we keep hearing more and more about, but what are we really talking about? Is it really something smart and intelligent. It is certainly smart, but sadly the intelligent part still needs to be created.