Switching from iPhone 7 to Google’s Pixel 2 XL

Switching from iPhone 7 to Google’s Pixel 2 XL

Hardik Gandhi   January 26, 2018

The Google product lineup

I recently spoke to a friend who said he “didn’t care about what a phone looks like anymore — they’re all the same”. It’s true; pretty much every phone looks like the same cold, lifeless slab of glass and aluminium. Even Apple’s iPhones, once lauded for bringing hardware design to a higher level, have started to feel boring. It seems like the looks of a phone played a way larger role a few years ago. Now, we want a phone that works well and takes great photos.

Google’s announcement of the Pixel 2 phones, Google Homes, the creepy camera, the VR headset, their Pixel buds, speaker and laptop/tablet hybrid made me think of Dieter Rams’ work for Braun—although the great Teenage Engineering also popped up.

Rams has created or overseen the creation of numerous products for Braun. Most, if not all these products, have a certain elegance and timelessness, mostly due to their materials, the sparse use of colour and typography, and their ease of use.

Without lingering on it too much, I think this line of Google products is close to achieving the same thing. Their speakers and Home products look like furniture that will seamlessly blend into their surroundings. Their phones feel like—bear with me—a useful utility made for a human being, rather than a brick of computing power. From a product design point-of-view, the look of these products is an exciting development.

If you’re interested in reading more about Google’s hardware design, have a look at this article on Design Milk.

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The Google Pixel 2 XL

On size and battery life

I’m not going back to 4.7”

One of my fears was that the phone would be too big. I’ve been an iPhone user since the iPhone 4 and have never chosen the larger model. After six weeks with the Pixel 2 XL, I don’t see myself going back to a small phone anytime soon.

While comparing the Pixel 2 XL to the smaller version, I noticed the difference in size between the two is minor. I’d say the Pixel 2 is more awkwardly sized than the XL version, and the XL gives you a lot more screen. It runs all the way to the edges, while the screen of the smaller version reveals larger bezels. Even if you have small hands, it might be worth holding both before deciding that a big phone is not for you. I worried it might slip out of my hands, but the Pixel 2 XL has an aluminium body and the matte coating provides more grip.

I’ve enjoyed the larger screen a lot so far. Reading articles on Instapaper’s black background is very immersive. The edges of the screen seem to disappear completely. With this phone I’ve done more reading in the Kindle app than I used to, and watching YouTube or Netflix in fullscreen is great.

Instapaper in fullscreen

One charge every two days

My iPhone 7 running iOS 11 was a shitshow when it comes to battery life. I had to charge it around 8pm every evening if I wanted to keep it on until bedtime.

The Google phone’s battery lasts me so long I can afford to forget charging it. On a full charge I can use it for at least a full day. That’s snapping photos and Instagram stories, sending messages on Telegram or Whatsapp, listening to podcasts for about an hour, a Headspace session, and reading an article or chapter of a book here and there. I’ll go to bed without having thought of charging the battery. When I wake up, it’s usually at 55%, lasting me another day before charging it the following evening.

From iOS to Android

Many friends mentioned being “locked into the Apple ecosystem”. For me, switching was as easy as or easier than switching from one iPhone to the other. The phone comes with a dongle you can plug into your iPhone. Within half an hour it has copied your contacts and whatever apps you’ve decided to keep, provided they are available for Android.

After switching I realised I’m more locked in to Google’s ecosystem than I am into Apple’s. I use Google Maps, Google Mail, and Google Photos, as Apple’s offering has sucked on those fronts for as long as I can remember. I only used iCloud to sync iA Writer documents between my phone and computer, but using Dropbox instead was a piece of cake.

Nifty details and customisation

I had a ton of duplicate contacts on my iPhone for whatever reason. Deleting them on iOS is a pain, so I never got around to it and accepted a contact list three times the size it should be. After importing all my contacts, the Google phone first asked if I wanted to merge all my duplicates in one tap. Aces! ✨

It’s details like those that make the Android OS a delight to work with. The control centre is customisable — I know, Apple also introduced that recently — and if the keyboard is not to your liking, you can choose a theme (light, dark, with or without button shapes) that better suits you. It listens to music playing around you and provides you with the song on your lock screen, which is scary and more convenient than I’d imagined. You can choose to set several widgets on your home screen; my calendar widget shows me my next upcoming appointment, if available.

If you feel like going all-in with customisation, you can tap the phone’s build number 10 times to enable developer mode. “You are now a developer!”, it’ll say, after which you can customise even more things, like the speed of animations. I won’t encourage messing too much with those, but the fact that the OS has numerous ways of customising it to your personal preference is a big plus.

Squeeze for help

The Google Assistant — which you can bring up by long pressing the home button or squeezing the phone — is a gazillion times better than Siri. I actually use it now and, occasional screw ups aside, it’s very accurate. Also, you can squeeze the phone to bring up the Assistant!

😏

At home I use a Chromecast Audio to stream music to my speakers. Pairing it with an iPhone was pretty OK, although it did force me to turn Spotify or wifi on/off on a regular basis. With the Google phone, connecting is instant and I haven’t had any problems. I wouldn’t expect otherwise from one Google product talking to the other, but it’s nice nonetheless.

Swiping and squeezing

Fingerprint sensor and NFC payments

The fingerprint sensor is on the back, conveniently placed for your index finger. Swiping down on the scanner brings down the notification/control centre. When the phone is on its back, you don’t have to pick it up to see your notifications. Double tap the screen to light up the lock screen and see if you have any. The way notifications are displayed on the lock screen minimises my urge to open apps, which is a plus.

Photo: Mark Wilson (Fast Co Design)

The phone has a built in NFC chip, so I can now use it to pay at PIN terminals. I had to install an app from my bank to enable it. After that I could hold it near a terminal once the cashier had entered the amount. It has proven to be quicker than pulling a card out of your wallet, and it has worked without fault almost every time.

Photos of my food have never looked better

The camera is great. I’ve taken some photos in low light and they come out very well. It has a Portrait Mode, which blurs the background and leaves you with a nice portrait. Much has been said about the difference between Google and Apple’s portrait mode (one being software-based while the other is created by hardware), but I don’t see or care much about the difference. I’m not going to use this phone for professional photography. I just want to take a nice picture of my girlfriend or a plate of food now and then, and it more than does the job for that.

A photo in low light and Portrait Mode used on a bowl of ramen

Google Lens

The camera has Google Lens integrated. Snap a photo, hit the Lens button and it will try to find whatever it sees in the photo. Again, this works very well and has been convenient for looking stuff up now and then. It’s also built into the Google Assistant, allowing you to open the camera and tap anything you’d like to find more information about. See below.

Google Lens integrated into Google Assistant ✨

A note on apps

The only apps I’ve missed so far are Darkroom, for editing photos, and Things, for my to-dos. Luckily, Things recently added a feature that allows you to email tasks to your to-do list, so that helps. It’s a bit of a bummer that I can’t look at my to-dos on my phone — and judging by Cultured Code’s development speed, an Android app might be scheduled for 2022 — but it’s not that big of a deal. For editing photos I’ve simply switched back to VSCO.

I used iMessage with my girlfriend and 6 other friends, and have switched to Telegram or Messenger with them. This might be a hassle if you’re all-in on iMessage, but it was hardly an issue for me.

Google’s apps are high quality and I enjoy using them. Some apps from third-party developers have proven to be a little less great than they are on iOS. Instagram’s compression on videos taken with an Android phone is lousy, for whatever reason. Instapaper crashes more often than I’m used to, and it expresses the time it takes to read an article in a range of dots instead of minutes. I have no idea why an Android user would prefer that. Goodreads is an absolute mess on Android, but that’s no surprise.

Watching videos on YouTube in fullscreen is glorious 👌

I’ve found a worthy replacement for the iOS Podcasts app in Pocket Casts. For email and my calendar I use Outlook — which is basically Sunrise, rest in peace—and I’ve been keeping my notes in the great Dropbox Paper more often. The Twitter app on Android is fine (as it is on iOS). Google’s Inbox is great for email too.

Overall, the Material Design language does make well-designed apps more fun and immersive to use. As Owen Williams put it:

Apps are full of color, playful animation and fun design flourishes. Where iOS has become flat, grey and uniform, Google went the opposite direction: bright colors, full-on fluid animations and much, much more.

Aside from this, apps are able to integrate more closely with the OS. A good example of this is that Spotify, Sonos or Pocket Casts can show on your lock screen persistently, allowing you to skip or pause playback. Overall, I’m finding the Google ecosystem to be much more pleasant to work with than Apple’s, and agree (again) with Owen that Google is eating Apple’s ecosystem for lunch.

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TL;DR — I am very happy with this phone

The Google phone is here to stay. I’m not tempted to go back to iOS, as I haven’t missed it since I switched. If you’re considering making the switch, I’d fully recommend the Pixel 2 XL 🔁

I’m currently tempted to purchase a Google Home Mini and might even replace my Apple TV (which has mostly been an expensive disappointment) with a Chromecast. Slippery slope.

I look forward to see what Google will do on their next iteration!

The iPhone is Dead

The iPhone is Dead

Hardik Gandhi   January 24, 2018

I’ve switched back-and-forth between iPhone and Android in the past and I’ve always felt the iPhone edged out any Android phone, but not any more.

I switched to a Galaxy S8 months ago and I don’t see myself going back to iPhone, even the X. The iPhone is dead to me. Here’s why.

iPhones don’t age well

On my iPhone 6+, most apps crash on first open. Apps freeze for 5–10 seconds whenever launched or switched to. I lose 3–4%/min on my battery and Apple Support insists that my battery is perfectly healthy. I went through “apps using significant power” and uninstalled most of them.

On top of all of this, it was recently discovered that Apple is intentionally degrading the user experience based on your battery quality. Yes, they’re releasing a software update to give transparency to users and reducing the cost of a battery replacement (which is on a months-long backlog — more on Apple support later), but it feels like planned obsolescence and they’re just trying to avoid losing a class-action lawsuit.

The video app is busted. Many times I record a video and all I see is a zero-second-long black frame saved. I’ve given up on taking photos because the camera app takes forever to start up and has seconds of shutter lag.

This phone worked just fine three years ago. The minimal benefits of the previous iOS updates are far outweighed by the horrible user experience it’s created.

I have the original Moto X (from 2013) and it still runs buttery smooth.

AppleCare and Apple support are incompetent

This isn’t related to my previous iPhone, but it illustrates the lack of quality of Apple.

Recently, a bottom rubber foot on my MacBook came off. It was still under AppleCare so I took it into the store, my first time to the Apple Genius Bar. They told me that AppleCare wouldn’t cover the replacement because it was cosmetic. How the rubber foot isn’t part of the laptops utility is astonishing. When you typed on it, it would wobble. To fix it, the entire bottom chassis had to be replaced, which would cost $250.

I told the Apple rep that I was surprised and I’d call Apple Care later. I asked him to file a ticket for tracking and he replied that he had.

Later, I called Apple Care and they assured me that the replacement was covered. They also said they didn’t find a ticket in the system from the Apple rep that I had spoken to earlier. They told me I would have to go back into the store to get a rep to look at the physical laptop again and verify the foot was missing. Frustrated, I asked them to call the original store I had visited to confirm. They agreed and and eventually confirmed it.

Before this, I had asked them to send the part to an Apple store that was closer to my house and not the original Apple store that I had visited. A week later, I received a call confirming the part had arrived at the store furthest away. Surprised, I asked them to send it to the other store (which was ~15 miles away). They said that they’d have to send it back to the warehouse and then the other store would have to order the part.

A week later, the other store finally receives the part. I visited the store, they took my laptop, and I waited a couple of hours to replace the bottom. The rep came back with the laptop telling me that it’s ready. I inspected the bottom and the rubber foot was still missing. Confused, he sent the laptop back. The rep returned five minutes later with a new chassis, fixing the rubber foot. So not only had they some how not repaired the bottom originally, in reality it only takes a tech five minutes to repair it, not hours.

The cascading incompetence at Apple support was mind blowing.

Related to the battery issue above, if you try to replace your battery you’re facing months-long delays. On top of that, you have to mail your phone in or take it into a store, with both options facing the risk that you’re without a phone for as much as a week. Who can really live without their phone that long? Is this incompetence or intentionally meant to drive people away from replacing their batteries?

iPhone’s hardware design feels dated

Even the iPhone X feels dated compared to the S8. This is much more of a personal opinion, but the S8 feels damn sexy in your hand. When I watch a movie, the true blacks of the OLED screen just blend in to the body. It feels like a bezel-less phone from a science fiction movie. Whereas the iPhone’s design still separates the screen from the chassis with bezels.

More objectively, even thought it was released after the S8, the screen on the iPhone X isn’t as good. It’s lower resolution and it has more bezel.

Here are the specs: Galaxy S8–5.8-inch Super AMOLED, 2960 x 1440 pixels (570 ppi pixel density), 1000 nits, 83.6% screen-to-body ratio vs iPhone X — 5.8-inch 18.5:9 True Tone OLED, 2436 x 1125 pixels (458 ppi), 625 nits, 82.9%, screen-to-body ratio.

Plus, iPhone X has that notch. As a developer I abhor it. As a user it’s annoying to have wasted space when, for example, I’m browsing the web.

Price

Not only is S8 a better phone than iPhone X, it’s significantly cheaper. I just bought my S8 and a 256GB SD card for less than $700. The equivalent iPhone X would have cost me $1,252, plus another $10 for a dongle to use my headphones. That’s nearly the price of two S8s.

Android and S8 has better features

Where to start? Here’s an incomplete list in no particular order.

• LastPass auto-fill. Sure, this is an app feature, but it’s impossible to build on iPhone. This felt like a game changer when I switched, shaving a ton of time setting up my phone.
• NFC for two-factor auth. You can use a Yubikey on an iPhone but it requires a dongle (like everything else these days).
• SD card slot. I ran out of space on my previous iPhone and had no way to deal with it other than buy a new phone or delete apps.
• Trusted locations for unlock. It’s a huge time saver to not have to constantly unlock my phone at home or in the office.
• Samsung Pay works on any credit card reader, Apple Pay doesn’t, which hamstrings its use case massively.
• The notifications are better. Interactions are great, they actually work, and the overall design is better.
• I don’t have to buy a dongle for my headphones.
• Androids unlocking mechanisms are generally faster than iPhone X’s facial recognition. And there are more options. And the fingerprint scanner feels better on the back.
• More battery saving options.
• GearVR.
• Built-in call spam detection. Call spam has been ramping up in the United States so this is very welcome.
• A free hardware button. Yes, that side hardware button on the S8 that’s dedicated to Bixby sucks at first. However, with BXActions, you can make it do whatever you want, like triggering the flashlight. Now I wish every phone had an extra hardware button.
• Google backs up your data. I’m thrilled not to have to use iTunes any more (which deserves a completely different post) or be forced to pay for iCloud.
• An option to keep the phone on if you’re looking at it.

iOS is suffocating

On Android, you can install apps that automatically update your wallpaper, change your entire app launcher (I’m using Evie) including a dedicated search bar, start Google Now by swiping up, handle your SMS. Also custom phone dialers, Facebook Messenger chat heads, Samsung Edge (surprisingly I like this feature). You can even download apps outside of the app store.

Did I mention that Google Photos actually always syncs in the background? Versus the iPhone, where you need to open it every 10 minutes to make sure it’s syncing. Custom keyboards are reliable, whereas on iOS they still crash randomly.

iOS doesn’t offer any of this because they restrict what developers can build.

Even if you eliminate all of the “power user” features above, I think the S8, and Android broadly, is a better choice for the average user.

Siri is still next to useless

Google is just hands down better at search, including things that you would imagine Siri would be good at by now, like dictation. I think everyone already agrees with this point, so moving on.

Apple doesn’t feel like Apple

Apple has generally been a fast-follow copier, perfecting features that that have already been released. Lately they’ve just felt like a slow follower that has the same or fewer features.

For example, Samsung devices have had wireless charging for a while now and Apple is just catching up with the same feature set. The charging speed is the same.

Samsung is also experimenting with fascinating things like VR and DeX. Are they perfect? No. But I also don’t believe that Apple is capable of swooping in and perfecting them now.

Apple’s “new and innovative features” aren’t impressive either. Animoji could be done with a standard camera, but they’re locked the the iPhone X. It’s pure marketing to sell more Xs. I’ve had force touch for years now and have never used it. And the list goes on.

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iOS 11 Password Problems

iOS 11 Password Problems

Hardik Gandhi   January 17, 2018

People appreciated how Apple addressed security. For decades, the company was building multi-layered ecosystem to secure its customers and protect its software and hardware systems from most online threats. Apple products do have some flaws (who doesn’t?) but overall its mobile systems were the most secure among all competitors.

Things have changed. Although iOS 11 brought us great SOS feature and the need to type in the passcode for establishing trust with new computers, it also introduced some questionable changes that will be described in this article.

The final goal of these changes was making it easier for users to operate their devices but each new small change caused a tradeoff in overall security.

Put together, these tradeoffs stripped all layers of protection off once secure ecosystem. The only security layer that is left in iOS 11 is the passcode. In case someone gets hold of your iPhone and manages to find out your passcode, you end up losing your Apple ID, your data files, all passwords to third-party web accounts, access to other Apple devices registered with that ID. It is possible to do even more bad things thanks to the fact that Apple removed all previous protection levels and left only the passcode in iOS 11.

The key problem:

In sensitive environments, it is not enough to secure only the front door of the building and leave all inner rooms without additional keys and checks. Sad, but it is exactly what happened to iOS. If you have a passcode, you may get everything else.

Bellow, you will see what attackers can do to user’s data if they have access to the device and passcode.

iTunes backup password

iPhone backups that are made with the help of iTunes can be safeguarded with a password. With each new version, Apple successfully increased backup passwords security addressing the growing threats coming from password breaking crooks.

All of a sudden, in iOS 11, Apple allows resetting that extremely secure password. Having the device and knowing the passcode, there is no need any more to break your head creating sophisticated attacks, you can just remove the backup password.

Before I tell you why this is so important, let me explain how it was implemented earlier. In iOS 8, 9, and 10 you could create a password in iTunes to secure your backups. You had to do it just once and all future backups on any of your numerous devices would stay protected with a password.

It is important that this password belonged to your Apple device and not the computer or iTunes. You were able to connect an iPhone to a different PC with a new copy of iTunes and male a backup. That backup would be safeguarded by the backup password you set previously, maybe very long time ago.

The iOS controlled all password changes and removal attempts. It required to provide your old password first. People who forgot their passwords had stuck with what they had or reset the device to factory settings thus losing all data.

That was really a secure way to handle passwords. But users wept, the police started to snivel, and the FBI started to complain. Apple decided to give up.

Pillaging backup passwords in iOS 11

Although you can still go to iTunes and get a backup password that cannot be later changed without the original one, this all means nothing because it is possible to completely remove the backup password from iOS.

Apple knowledge base says:

You can’t restore an encrypted backup without its password. You won’t be able to use previous encrypted backups, BUT you can back up your CURRENT data using iTunes and setting a new backup password.

Now for crooks to extract sensitive information from the device, they just need to make a new backup. They may create a temporary password 1234 for example for the new backup. Once it is ready, they may extract user data like credit card info, passwords, health data etc. Turning this information into readable format will require some forensic tools but they are widely available on the market.

While getting all those passwords, most probably you stumble upon the Google account password. With that in hands, you may access a whole lot of personal data. In case Google account has multi-factor authentication, the very iPhone in your hand (often) includes the tied SIM card.

Imagine hackers got control over an iPhone with the previous version of iOS. It is a win again because updating the iOS to version 11 is not a problem. Yes, iPhone 5 cannot run iOS 11 but good and old jailbreaking of 32-bit devices still allows to gain full physical control.

Again, this post implies crooks know the passcode. But if you grabbed your boss’s iPhone you can relatively easy brute-force the passcode with the help of numerous tools that are common these days.

Summarizing the above said, with iPhone and passcode, it is possible to get:

· Application data

· Local images and videos

· Passwords from local keychain

· Just everything located in a local backup

Is this just massive? Wait, it is just the begging. Next goes changing Apple ID password, disabling the iCloud lock, and locking or erasing other user’s devices remotely.

Apple ID password

With all other services I use, to change an account password, I need to provide my old password. Apple sees it differently. To reset Apple ID password (using the device) you need just to confirm the device passcode. It works for accounts with multi-factor authentication but again most probably your device has the necessary SIM.

Moving forward on our list, now you can also:

· Change the Apple ID password

· Deactivate iCloud lock and consequently reset iPhone using different account

· Get access to just everything stored in that iCloud account

· See on the map the actual location of other i-devices registered with the same account and remotely erase or lock those i-devices

· Change the phone number and begin receiving multi-factor codes to your SIM

So, in order to reset the Apple account and iCloud password, you need to go to Settings > Apple ID > Password & Security > Change Password. You will now have to enter the passcode and then you will be able to change the password for Apple ID and iCloud. It is that simple.

Next, you can change the Trusted Phone Number. Just add and confirm a new number and then remove the old one.

Getting into iCloud

Having reset the victim’s iCloud password together with adding your own phone number to receive 2FA codes, gives us access to everything the victim has on his Apple account. These are call logs, contact list, iCloud Keychain, photos taken with all other i-devices, iCloud backups, etc. And ICloud backups may contain tons of information as Apple allows to keep three recent backups per each device registered on one Apple ID.

Synced Data

Moreover, iCloud allows crooks to access information synced across all i-devices like browser passwords, bookmarks, browsing history (but not the VPN data), notes etc. In case the user also has a Mac, you can get his desktop files and documents.

iCloud KeyChain

To sync Safari passwords, payment info, and auth tokens, Apple uses a cloud service cold iCloud KeyChain. Once you change the iCloud password, you can download all then KeyChain data. Now you will be able to even see the old (original) victim’s password for his (now yours) Apple account. Additionally, you will have access to email account passwords and Wi-Fi passwords, and actually every password the victims typed in his browser.

Bottom line

iOS 11 breaks the delicate convenience/security balance moving heavily into user convenience side.

If an attacker

steals your iPhone and recovers the passcode, there will never be any extra layer of protection to secure your data. You will be completely exposed.

As the passcode is the only protection left, be sure to use all six digits allowed.

I hope Apple will fix this security issue.

The True Reason You Want The iPhone X But can’t admit

The True Reason You Want The iPhone X But can’t admit

Hardik Gandhi   January 17, 2018

The world is on the brink.

Evil kills good people with mass shootings, tensions with North Korea increase daily, and actors abuse actors as sexual playthings.

Yet despite the torture of humanity, thousands of people complain about the iPhone X’s notch.

Not me. I enjoyed the iPhone tittle tattle. In the run up to the iPhone X’s release I salivated over articles on the X’s lush colours, OLED screen, Face ID, super-duper performance, glass construction, wireless charging, bionic chips. Oh, how I could go on.

I read political stories too but only to feel more adult.

On October 27th I sat by the iMac and waited until 08:00 am to pre-order the iPhone X — like millions of other people — I hit refresh repeatedly.

What is it about the iPhone X that drives me to pre-order, and because I expected a 10th anniversary phone, join the Apple Upgrade Programme?

Is it madness?

More money than sense?

Am I still 13½ years old?

(Those were rhetorical questions).

The answer might be clever marketing because after two months with the iPhone X, I’ve done nothing the one-year-old 7 Plus wasn’t capable of.

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Close Encounters of the Apple Kind

My first encounter with Apple — the iPod Classic — was a difficult decision. A friend recommended the Creative Zen MP3 player, but it was near obsolete so I opted for the iPod and the addiction began.

Perhaps if I’d opted for the Zen, I’d be using an Android phone today.

A few years passed and BBC News featured a new phone called iPhone. But I gazed at my silver Sony Ericsson and wondered what more you’d want in a phone?

And the cost 11 years ago? I would never pay £30 a month for a carrier contract. However after coffee with friends, who all had an iPhone, coupled with an illness in the family to emphasise the impermanence of life, I went iPhone.

One iTunes library, four iPhones, two iPads, one iMac and a MacBook Pro later, I’m beyond redemption.

But brand loyalty can’t be why I ‘rented’ the iPhone X. I could have kept the 7 Plus.

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El Notch, Yosemite

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Go Figure 8

I tried to resist the X and considered the smaller iPhone 8. The size was perfect, but the camera would be a step down.

The 8 is cheaper on the upgrade programme. £18 less than the X or £12 less for the Plus. But the iPhone 8 Plus offers little that’s new since it’s the 7 Plus in glass.

Wireless charging?

There’s no such thing. The charger mat still needs plugged in.

The iPhone 8 is a decoy phone — the iPhone 7s.

But iPhone 8 can’t be why I fell for the X. My 7 Plus was still a premium phone without a scratch.

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Drip, Drip, Drip

When I was a child, I got excited about Christmas from around September.

For Apple’s 10th anniversary iPhone my anticipation began one year before release. No sooner was the 7 Plus in my hand, the tech press speculated on the next iPhone.

The whole market place was primed by the media and whipped into a frenzy.

Rumours, from people familiar with the situation, leaked as usual but with one difference.

2017 saw the leaking of price. Customers needed to be acclimatised to the first £1000 phone so when it became official, the shock factor would be lost.

You’ve been primed.

In marketing terms, priming is the preparation of subconscious consumer behaviour through the subtle use of information. The new X for example, was secret, but there was just enough sexy news to whet your appetite.

The X was everywhere and nowhere.

But stories about a non-existent phone cannot be the reason I wanted one. There are stories about HomePods, cellular watches and iPad Pros and I want none of those (fingers crossed).

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Apple Framed the X as The Future… Today

After a succession of similar iPhones, the X promised reinvention.

The X’s keynote described the product as the future and you can hold it in your hand.

The message was misleading. Edge to edge displays, wireless charging, OLED screens and facial recognition, have been available on other phones for years.

But know this, the X looks beautiful, when switched on. When off, it looks like the Blackberry Leap. The build quality is superb though.

It’s a wonder of marketing. You can feel unique using a product when millions upon millions of people across the world have the product too.

But an OLED screen and facial recognition can’t be reasons to spend £56 a month. The 7 Plus screen is fabulous and fingerprint ID seamless.

If having the future isn’t enough to make you buy, there’s always fear.

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Scarcity

Scarcity and fear of missing out (FOMO) come into play.

If one thing puts the fear of God into consumers, it’s the wait to get what they want.

When I was a small boy, my favourite superhero was Spider-man. I begged Mum to buy me a Spider-man figure. At the toyshop we discovered it would be weeks before Spider-man would be back in stock.

So what did I do? I settled for the Human Torch (one of the Fantastic Four). I regretted it soon after and my impatience meant I didn’t get Spider-man, ever.

When impatience strikes, I think Spider-man.

Drip feeding consumers with stories of scarcity and production line problems fan the flames of fear, the fear of missing out.

I knew the X’s production would be fine and prepared to wait. Supply problem stories come out before every iPhone launch. In terms of missing out, of all features, only Face ID and Animojis were absent from the 7 Plus.

So, FOMO can’t be why I wanted an iPhone X.

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Prize Value

£1000 is scary for a phone but it’s not £1000 more than we’re used to paying.

Prices have crept up for years, and be honest, if you can afford £700 or £800 for a phone, you can also afford £1000. Apple know it too.

It may be borderline out of reach but it’s also borderline within reach.

A high price is one tactic marketers use to put the quality of a product in the mind of consumers.

The high price tag of the X may set it apart from competitors but cost definitely isn’t the reason to want the X.

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Here and Now and Why

My late Dad used to say there’s no such thing as a bad car. In the 1970s, cars looked good in the showroom but once you drove one and it rained, they rusted and fell apart before you got home. Cars are not like that anymore.

Like cars today, there’s no such thing as a bad phone. Most brands have caught up.

You’ll not do anything different on the X than you could do on many of the latest smart phones.

The X may not be the future, just a brilliant phone that perfects what others have already done, while leaving room for development.

Over a year I’ll pay £677 to hire Apple’s latest palm-top computer. The device I use everywhere to read, write, take pictures, research, web browse, meditate, enjoy music. Oh and make phone calls.

Why do I want one?

It’s not brand loyalty, decoys, scarcity or the features.

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In 1923 when asked by a New York Times reporter why he wanted to climb Everest, George Mallory said “Because it is there”.

I want the iPhone X for the same reason you do — because it is there.

Apple Will Reject Your Subscription App if You Don’t Include This Disclosure

Apple Will Reject Your Subscription App if You Don’t Include This Disclosure

Hardik Gandhi   January 15, 2018

Have you read Paid Applications Agreement, Schedule 2, Section 3.8(b)?

If you’ve ever submitted an app to the App Store, you know the frustration when Apple rejects your submission. Even more so when you thought you’d followed all the rules. As it turns out, Apple can bury requirements wherever they want, and it’s your burden to keep up.

About a year ago, Apple started rejecting apps that didn’t comply with Schedule 2, Section 3.8(b) of the Paid Applications Agreement, a verbose list of self-evident truths about subscriptions. The Paid Applications Agreement is a 37-page document that you had to agree to before you could submit your app. It is only available via iTunes Connect in the form of downloadable PDF.

The actual contents of Schedule 2, Section 3.8(b):

I really like the part about privacy policies.

3.8(b) requires that you “clearly and conspicuously disclose to users” all of the above bullets. The first few items seem harmless enough but then we start to get off into the weeds.

Apple wants you to reproduce, “clearly and conspicuously”, all the details of auto-renewing subscriptions. This information should be part of the standard StoreKit subscription purchase flow. None of these bullets have anything app specific to them. They are just boilerplate legalese.

iOS’s purchase UI, more than enough information.

Apple has an iOS level user interface flow for in-app purchases that is quite good as of iOS 11. This view already covers most of the in-the-weeds bullets, except telling users about the 24-hour renewal policy.

Requiring every developer to implement their version of 3.8(b) is costly and creates a fractured experience for the user. Apple should be putting it in the standard sheet. But it’s Apple’s walled garden. When they say jump, you say “fine, whatever.”

How to Comply With 3.8(b)

According to recent rejections that I’ve seen (as of Jan. 8th, 2018), reviewers are being more particular about what your purchase flow requires. From a recent rejection:

Adding the above information to the StoreKit modal alert is not sufficient; the information must also be displayed within the app itself, and it must be displayed clearly and conspicuously during the purchase flow without requiring additional action from the user, such as opening a link.

All of the information in 3.8(b) must be “displayed clearly and conspicuously during the purchase flow without requiring additional action from the user, such as opening a link.” Your beautiful and compact purchase flow must include in it, somewhere, nine bullets written by a lawyer.

Confide, recently updated, achieved it with the following:

According to one reviewer, being below the fold with a leading arrow qualifies as “clearly and conspicuously.”

For another data point, I know of one recently rejected developer who had the same information, but in another view that was linked from the purchase flow with a button. This did not qualify (according to one reviewer).

A Template

Include a customized version of the following “clearly and conspicuously” in your purchase flow:

A [purchase amount and period] purchase will be applied to your iTunes account [at the end of the trial or intro| on confirmation].

Subscriptions will automatically renew unless canceled within 24-hours before the end of the current period. You can cancel anytime with your iTunes account settings. Any unused portion of a free trial will be forfeited if you purchase a subscription.

For more information, see our [link to ToS] and [link to Privacy Policy].

Put it on the screen where you initiate the in-app purchase, below the fold might be OK, but you might want to put something to lead users there.

UPDATE: Readers are telling me it may also be required that you include it in your app store description. It’s a much easier change to include so I recommend you add it there to.

Why has Apple Taken a Legal Problem and made it Ours?

Apple shouldn’t be burying submission requirements in the bodies of contracts that nobody will read. If Apple wants developers to know something, they should put it in the App Store Guidelines, HIG, or developer documentation. The cost of making changes in a software project right at the end can be astronomical. Dropping a bomb like this on developers at submission shows a total lack of regard for our costs.

Why didn’t they just update the iOS in-app purchase sheet? I speculate that Apple discovered some legal exposure from in-app subscriptions and fixed it with lawyers instead of designers. This problem could be universally solved with an iOS update, but I think some side effect of Apple being a vast, lumbering bureaucracy made forcing 3.8(b) onto developers the more politically convenient path. Apple, if you are reading this, please either update the iOS sheet or move the requirements to the App Store guidelines, so fewer developers get caught unawares.

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