Apple at 50 and the iPhone

iPhone
Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

Apple started back in 1976, though I am old enough to remember 1976, my personal history with Apple begins half way through their fifty year history in 2001.

I have already written about my computing for personal and professional reasons, the iPad, and the iPod; this post is about the iPhone.

I have used a range of iPhones over the years, some through work and those that I bought for personal use.

I now have an iPhone 17 Pro Max and the main use case I got for this was the photographic capabilities which have made dramatic improvements over the years.

I have also used the iPhone 13. It’s interesting that in the early iterations of the iPhone there was often very good reasons for upgrading, with the more recent versions, the improvements have been marginal at best. You notice the improvements when jumping from something like the 13 to the 17.

I didn’t buy the first version of the iPhone, mainly as it didn’t have 3G, which I felt was important for how I was using a phone.

I did get the iPhone 3GS. I liked it, but it was a secondary phone and I kept the Google Nexus One going for a few years.

Through work I then got an iPhone 4. The iPhone 4 is what the iPhone should have been from day one. Finally, the iPhone came of age. It is one of the best phones I have ever used. The camera was better than ever before, and the phone also came with a front facing camera. At the time the iPhone 4 was one of the best phones I had ever used, and I was really pleased with it.

My next iPhone was the iPhone 5S. I also had a work phone in the iPhone 6 Plus for a while, and I replaced my dependable Google Nexus One with an iPhone 6S Plus. Later in a different job I had the iPhone 8, but the iPhone 6S Plus kept me going for a few years.

I then had an iPhone 13 for a few years, but now I have the iPhone 17 Pro Max, which I am hoping will last a few years.

Replaced the iPhone

With my iPhone 8 randomly turning off and then always turning it off, I had it replaced with a new iPhone 13.

iPhone 13

I decided not to transfer the full iPhone 8 settings over to the new phone and start (nearly) afresh.

Sometimes I will “clone” my old phone when I have a new one, but most times I like to start from scratch and install the apps I need as and when I need them. This means I don’t install stuff I have stopped using.

What I did do, was copy over my “settings” so I could automatically connect to my known WiFi, use saved passwords and so on.

I configured the phone for multi-factor authentication for work and this was nice and simple.

Overall it was an easy experience moving over to the new phone.

iPhone 8 still randomly turning off

I wrote about the problems I was having with my iPhone 8 randomly turning off.

It is still doing it.

It doesn’t do it when it is connected to the charging cable.

So though it probably is software, I wonder if it is a physical problem.

Still not sure of the next steps.

iPhone 8 randomly turning off

iPhone
Image by Jan Vašek from Pixabay

On Saturday I started having a problem with my iPhone 8. I was attempting to take a photograph when it turned itself off. I turned it back on and found it had just 10% battery charge. Initially I thought I had forgotten to charge it, but I was sure I had. It then turned itself off again. It wouldn’t switch back on, so as I was out, I left it to deal with later.

At home I connected it to the charger and switched it back on. The charge was 100% so I disconnected it from the charger. It then turned itself off (as before). I turned it back on again and it then showed a charge of 10%. Bizarre behaviour.

I then did a reset of all the settings.

The iPhone then behaved as though I had applied a system update. It restarted itself and looked anew.

I did think maybe an aborted system update had caused the problems.

However today the same issue with the iPhone randomly turning itself off. So not sure what to do next. I think I might have to undertake a full reset of the phone.

Unexplained blurry photographs

So there I was on a cycle ride down to Brean, just to note that I am following government advice during this national emergency and cycle ride was for my government sanctioned exercise, when I decided to take some photographs.

As part of my photo of the day I decided to take a photograph of The Great Bird Screen of Brean. I took a few so that I could choose one later to post to Instagram and my personal blog.

I used an iPhone 8 to take the photographs and have not had issues with it before.

I managed this shot fine, which is the one I eventually used.

This wasn’t the one I thought I would be used, as when I got home I found that some of my later images were blurred.

No clear indication why they were blurry, it wasn’t as though I was moving the camera or the such like.

When I took a photograph later that day, it was fine!

So I have no explanation of why these photographs were blurry and earlier ones weren’t and nor were later ones.