Apple iPhone XR: Three features that I love and one that I hate



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The Apple iPhone XR is the best iPhone available for most users. Not only is the XR more affordable than the iPhone XS and the iPhone XS Max, but the overall experience is not lacking for most of the major features that XS users will have access to.

Also: Apple reveals what the R stands for in the iPhone XR

I've been using the iPhone XR as the main unit for a week. Sometimes I forgot that I did not use my iPhone XS Max, and other times, I really wanted a personal device. Here are three things I love about the iPhone XR and one thing that does not impress me much.

Apple iPhone XR: What I like

L & # 39; display

Listen, we can sit here and say that on paper, the OLED screens for iPhone XS and XS Max are better than the LCD screens of the iPhone XR. We can talk about the fact that, technically, the screen resolution of the iPhone XR is lower than that of the iPhone 8 Plus. And how does it all mean that the iPhone XR's screen is lower and that it will definitely create an even worse experience.

And we would be wrong. Technically, yes, on paper, these are the facts. But in practice, when you hold the iPhone XR in your hand and look at a photo or watch a video, this screen is as good as the iPhone XS.

Also: Apple's iPhone XR: the reasonable choice

Not once in the last week, I have looked at something on the iPhone XR and wanted to have the XS Max. Even with the two phones side by side, the differences are minimal. There is a little more clarity on the iPhone XS Max, but it's not so much that it catches you in the eye immediately. You must look for that.

The Liquid Retina display on the iPhone XR is perfect. Great, even. And at 6.1 inches, between the XS and XS Max screens, I found that the overall size of the XR was a happy ground of understanding.

Battery life

Maybe it's just because there is not a lot of pixels to process on the screen of the iPhone XR, but the autonomy of the battery of the iPhone XR is amazing. I took the iPhone XR to New York where I attended and covered the October event of Apple, and not once during the trip, I did not exceed 20%.

Also: Apple knows that record sales of the iPhone are over and wants you to stop obsessing how much it is selling now.

While traveling, I constantly have my iPhone in hand. I coordinate with colleagues, I monitor my family back home, I use Maps to determine where I'm going and how to get there and I play music in my AirPods. On flights, I usually watch some shows in the Netflix app. All of this occurs during 12 to 14 hours a day and is usually difficult to use over the phone. I carry external batteries while traveling for this very reason.

Not only did I not need to use a battery with the iPhone XR, but I never even considered it. The battery was able to cope with everything I threw at her, and she did it easily.

iphone-xr-potrait-mode.jpg


Camera

The iPhone XR does not have a dual camera configuration, unlike the iPhone XS. There is a single 12-megapixel wide angle camera. The telephoto configuration used by the iPhone X and the iPhone XS is not only meant for close-up shooting, but also for collecting depth information for photos in Portrait mode.

The iPhone XR can still take pictures in Portrait mode, which usually have a neat subject and the background is blurry. These types of photos are usually reserved for more expensive lenses and cameras. However, in recent years, companies such as Apple and Samsung have used a two-camera camera to recreate the effect, with the help of software.

Also: Apple was right, people love expensive iPhones

With the iPhone XR, Apple relies heavily on software and on a single camera to recreate the same effect. This is the same approach that Google used with pixels 2 and 3.

There are some limitations to the Portrait Mode of the iPhone XR. For example, you can only use Portrait mode on humans. If the software does not detect a human face, the feature will not work. There are third-party applications that allow you to work around this limitation, but the examples of photos I've seen on Twitter are not very good.

That said, the photos I took of people with Portrait mode are as beautiful as the iPhone XS Max.

The iPhone XR camera, for me at least, is just as good as the iPhone XS Max. Not once, I was told I wanted to have telephoto for a specific photo – and I even used the XR to capture photos of the Apple event earlier this week.

In one way, I appreciated the elimination of another option and the streamlining of the decision – making process. I did not need to switch from one camera to another to see what I wanted as a frame. I simply launched the camera, aligned the plane and pressed the shutter release.

Apple iPhone XR: my strongest complaint

Haptic touch

Two weeks ago, I was convinced that I did not often use 3D Touch. The feature, which turns your iPhone's screen into a pressure-sensitive keyboard, allows you to preview messages or web links, display messages on the locked screen and move the cursor in the text.

The iPhone XR does not have 3D Touch. Instead, he uses Haptic Touch. Which equates to a glorified long press, Haptic Touch will tap your finger when it's used, in the same way as 3D Touch. At the moment, Haptic Touch is only used in three places on the iPhone XR: enable camera shortcuts and flashlight on the screen of lock, in the Control Center and on the space bar to move the cursor in a text field.

Also: Would you buy an iPhone at $ 2000? I know that some of you

It is in these three areas that users have the most used 3D Touch. With this knowledge, Apple has given priority to where Haptic Touch has been implemented.

In the 10 minutes that followed the use of the iPhone XR, I realized that I used a lot of 3D Touch … a lot. I use it for tasks such as previewing links in Tweetbot or shortcuts to disable conversations in Facebook Messenger. But the most common place is to take a look at an alert on the lock screen and then take action.

For example, when I press a Gmail alert on the lock screen of my iPhone XS Max, I get a preview of the message, then two options just below it. I can answer or archive the message. Most often, I preview the message and the archive. It is a fast process: press, read, press Archive. On the iPhone XR, this is not possible.

Instead, I have to slide left on the alert, press Show, then preview opens with the option to reply or archive.

The absence of 3D Touch adds two extra steps to something that I do countless times with countless applications every day. This is not a compromise, but it is something that I missed a lot when using the iPhone XR.

Apple would not tell me if they intend to increase the number of slots used by Haptic Touch on the iPhone XR, but I hope that it will not be possible for them to do so. is a domain that has been added – and quickly.

ZDNet Matthew Miller recently examined the iPhone XR. So be sure to read carefully his thoughts on Apple's mainstream iPhone.

Even with the lack of 3D Touch, I still think that the iPhone XR is the reasonable choice for most iPhone users. The areas in which Apple has sacrificed in the name of cost reduction have no significant impact on the overall experience. In some ways, like the display and the battery life, the experience has been improved.

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