Over the years I have always enjoyed getting my hands on the latest gadgets, and my time as an Apple developer has been no different, as soon as a phone was announced I’d want to be among the first to get it. This year Apple announced that it would release to multiple countries on the same day, so being in Australia would mean we would be one of the first in the world!!
The pre-order site went live at 5:30pm local time on Friday September 12 and my order was completed within minutes…. let the wait begin.
At 8:30am on Friday September 19, the courier knocked on the door delivering my coveted device. My first thoughts on removing the wrapping … what a dull box, the rather nondescript plain white with slightly raised outline was a little disappointing, next the unboxing itself…
I must say that I felt a little underwhelmed when I first took hold of the phone, it felt, well, wrong. After a short wait for my backup to be transferred I was able to start playing. There is no dispute that the form factor is amazing, thin and feels nice, I’m just not a fan of the size. All of a sudden I’m using too hands or doing crazy thumb stretches to reach different parts of the screen. I knew a quick double tap on the home button would bring screens down to make this easier, but there are so many issues trying to do this I found it simply not worth it.
Three weeks on and I’m still getting used to the phone, I don’t think I could go back to an iPhone 5s, though its still a little awkward if not frustrating dealing with thumb stretches. A friend of mine decided to go with the 6 Plus, I’m pleased I didn’t, it just seems uncomfortable, we jokingly call it the iPad mini mini. One annoyance and I’m not yet sure if it is an iOS 8 issue or the phone, is the lack of rotation support (read: BUG), many apps (including Apple ones) do not respond to the phone being rotated, I have to go back to the home screen then back again, weird!
What has been really quite fun to play with writing code that takes advantage of the new sizing API’s in iOS8 but thats a post for another day. In the meantime I’m watching eagerly for the release date of the Apple Watch 🙂