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- I wrote an article about why I hate my new iPhone X.
- A lot of people didn’t agree with me.
- That doesn’t change my opinion.
When I published my article on the iPhone X, I was prepared for a bit of hate mail.
After all, I was going against the consensus, and I knew many people didn’t think my biggest complaint – that it’s difficult to use with one hand – was anything to make a stink about.
And if I didn’t know that before I published, I certainly would have realised soon after. Both my inbox and my Twitter notifications flooded with reader responses, almost all negative and condescending.
Apple fans are a notoriously loyal bunch – the company regularly appears on lists of consumers’ most-loved brands – so it’s no surprise the article’s publication stirred a hornet’s nest.
Some people seem to have taken personally my wish to have a phone that works for me. Some told me to stop driving and texting at the same time (I don’t own a car). Others insinuated I might be new to technology or Apple products (I’ve used an iPhone since 2012).
One reader email used a flawed example of how we have adapted to touchscreen technology over time, and how my issue is no different. This reader conflated issues of adaptation and ergonomics. I say you can’t fit a square peg in a round hole.
There were, of course, jokes about the size of my hands. I like to think of my hands as relatively average-sized, but they might be below-average. The point being, there are plenty of people with smaller hands than me, who probably would also like to use Apple’s latest device with one hand.
Many, many people told me to enable “reachability,” Apple’s solution to using large-screened phones with one hand. Some even went so far as to tweet screenshots of the function’s location in settings. Very helpful.
If they actually read the post, they would have seen that I had enabled reachability, but I found its usability very poor and very inconsistent. Oh, well.
The general sentiment was that I was using the phone wrong, and that if I could just fix that, the phone would be perfect. I don’t know if the anger was directed towards me out of loyalty to Apple, or to justify their own choice to spend $US1,000 on a phone. It was obvious that much of the criticism came from people who had never used the phone themselves.
Many readers guessed correctly that I was not a user of the Plus models of iPhones before. I believe I am in good company here, as Apple’s smaller phones remain their most widely used models. If the iPhone is going to reach a mass audience, it needs to take concerns like mine into account.
Macalope, a pseudonymous Apple blogger, even featured my post as one of his “big complaint” features. I was honored.
I understand his point – I should have anticipated the difficulty based on how big of a screen the phone has. But the fact is, as much as I had read about it, I didn’t. I was focused more on how the case size seemed so similar, which ended up being misleading. There’s only one X size, after all.
A lot of Android fans told me I should consider defecting. No chance there. Despite how alluring the new Android-enabled handsets are, I’m way too deep in the Apple ecosystem now.
I was prepared for the criticism – but not how ridiculous it all was.
For what it’s worth, I did receive some positive notes from readers. A number of people agreed with me, with some saying that they returned their iPhone X after just a few days with it. I’ve also talked to a fair number of people in person who agree with my take.
Who knows, though. It’s hard to tell who is just humouring you when it’s face to face and not over the internet.
