Apple iPhone 12 Pro Max

I upgraded from an iPhone 8 randomly one day. I don’t care much for mobile phones, or telephones in general. My primary device is an iPad Pro, the 13” one as I use it for work and for fun. I’m semi retired having developed simulation engines in my past. Now I create and sell art I make from my iPad. I also adore my Apple Watch. Nothing else like it on the market!

But that’s the thing. There’s nothing like apple devices.

Other manufacturers seem to use an operating system that is just, from my experience toying around with many of them, clunky, and dangerous in its amount of user tracking and data selling. I’ve noticed that Apple are dead against that behaviour.

I know how the system works: take televisions as an example. These days you can buy massive TVs with (claimed) high end features like HDR and 4K for cheap. They’re ridiculously cheap infact. I once questioned this and researched it. I discovered that these TVs are harvesting SO MUCH information from their users. It’s disgraceful. Verging on unethical in my opinion. One has a right to privacy. That’s happening to mobile phones too. You have to pay more to escape the clutches of data harvesting as the company has to make money somehow. Either they get subsidies from data harvesting, as dark shady networks build detailed profiles of YOU, your search history is even included. Your contacts, your bank information, your buying history and locations. Shady profiles that mirror you that are bought and sold like immortal cattle. But if you pay more you can escape that as the company has already made its money from you.

This phone takes pictures like I never imagined a smart-phone could. They rival my dSLR! Amazing visuals. My relatives are always impressed when my photos of family events show up on the shared Family events folder on iClouds Photos app. Same for friends at friends events too!

The build quality too. How anyone can vote this less than perfect needs to get a bias check as the phone feels amazing in the hand. I’ve even dropped this (sans case) onto a hard floor once and not even a ding in the stainless steel material. Why other people don’t use such premium materials I don’t know. It’s tough, the glass is outstanding too. It has a MOHS grade between glass and diamond which no other phone has. Apparently the glass has ceramic crystals too, which, as a highly educated human being I know will slow down OLED degradation, as the heat is better dispersed. OLED ages faster when it’s hot. So it’s genius of apple to want to prevent that, to help these machines last longer, by using such material.

When paired with an Apple Watch (love my series 6!) and AirPods Max it’s unbelievable. Such a smooth fluid experience. When one is subscribed to iCloud 2tb so I can store all my photos, & have my computer be “in the cloud” as I jump between 5 devices & computers, and Apple Music it makes life’s fun and easy and smooth. No maintenance just good fun living.

The "wow" effect is already a rarity for the iPhone. Overrated by at least 30%. Charging speed over the network and using wireless charging is just sadness and sadness. The quality of the contrast, the brightness of the display is not bad, but at low brightness levels, the defects inherent in the AMOLED display of low quality are visible. Work true Tone it is just disgusting 90% of cases the white balance is incorrect and this is on 3 phones in the family. Accessories are more expensive than the originals and the quality is not better. In Russian, there is no continuous text input.Limiting a child's screen time through a restriction service almost never works correctly.
very poor build quality on half of the phones that I met there are gaps between the frame and the display where dust gets clogged.
For some reason, the speed of the Internet is always lower than on similar android smartphones.

The 12 series was really disappointing, it is not a bad phone overall, but for a flagship and at the current price level is just not worth it, in many areas it is bettered by mid-range phones. The design is outdated, the notch an unnecessary eyesore and it lacks a usable biometric in Covid times. IOS desperately needs improving especially in customization, it too is outdated. IOS updated need to bring features before the competition not years later and Apple needs to improve the quality of the updates. Score is lower because this is supposed to be a flagship, class-leading phone, yet has a flagship price.