Mandaris

I went to the Apple Store¹ to check out the new iPhone Air Saturday. The mall parking lot was horribly crowded and I got to experience the insanity convenience of car culture in America. After driving around and avoiding getting hit by people who follow different rules of the road than I do, I finally parked across the street in the overflow parking. I walked into the mall and saw that the line to purchase new phones only had a couple people in it. Maybe most people had already bought theirs online?

I went inside and picked up the new phone.

And just felt a little sad.

It confirmed that the issues that I was seeing when running iOS26 on my phone were there by intention.

Photo libraries that cut off the top row of options show up with plenty of space on the new phone.

Menus at the top have plenty of room for options.

Animations are fluid - almost like flowing liquid - and not sporadic or slow.

Is it unfair to complain that the newest os doesn’t run that great on my 5 year old iPhone SE?

Maybe.

I remember a report that engineers would be required to use older phones to test these things out. Feeling my phone get warm as I navigate between different apps, makes me think that it didn’t happen as much. Trying to get my phone to take a picture and having to wait for the last picture to load or trying to find where they placed options has decreased the amount of times that I want to do something with it.

Holding the new phone brought up all the joy that I’ve been missing about being someone who identifies as an Apple Enthusiast. The thrill of new possibilities from exciting applications is tarnished by drama with the App Store. Services that only increase in price but not functionality. The community that I used to share my enthusiasm is shrinking as people move to other platforms.

All in all, I’m actually a little discouraged from spending money on something like this.

I put the phone down and it zips back into place due to the antitheft tether.

And, I think that’s where I’m at.

I’m not tethered to the idea of getting one.