I think you would like the SE. Give it a shot.I agree it should, that just hasn't been my experience with the 6
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Happily dumbing down
- Thread starter nnoble
- Start date
- Sort by reaction score
- Keyboard curser placement
- Safari link previews
- Shortcuts on bottom row of Control Center (flashlight brightness, etc.)
- Responding to messages and interaction with emails in the lock screen.
- Shortcuts to settings in Settings app
- Shortcuts to frequent contacts in Messages app
- Shortcuts to frequent contacts in Phone app
- Shortcuts to recently used stations in Spotify & Pandora.
- Shortcuts to specific settings in Camera+ app
- Other shortcuts in Fantastical, Feedly, ESPN, and AccuWeather.
My apologies for the (deliberately) misleading title. The irony is that this SE is pretty damn powerful. I use it in exactly the same way as the larger and much more expensive 6s+: Scanner Pro scans 15 student essays in seconds, this single scanned document is sent to PDF Expert and then PDF Expert on a MacBook Pro picks it up seemlessly via wi-fi. Students have their individual detailed feedback before they've arrived back from lunch. When confronted with the option in the store to get a replacement 6s+ or pay a little extra for the SE, I took the SE based on my own experience with a faulty iPhone 6s+, together with the small but significant number of people also reporting problems with the bigger phone. The SE is clearly not for everyone but the satisfaction level with this handy, unobtrusive sized little beast appears to be very high. When a bigger screen would be more comfortable then I try and grab the first generation iPad mini that's still in great demand around the house.
I've owned the 3G, 4, 5, 6, 6S and SE.
The SE is by FAR the best iPhone I've ever owned. The form factor, the portability, the ease of use in one hand, the speed, the camera, and most importantly, the battery life all work to make it my favourite.
Force touch on the 6S felt like a gimmick and it's design was unintuitive. I don't miss it, in fact, I completely forget it exists until I come to this forum.
I have no desire to ever stop using this phone. I'll use it till it dies and hope at that point that there is a decent product like the SE available for purchase.
The SE is by FAR the best iPhone I've ever owned. The form factor, the portability, the ease of use in one hand, the speed, the camera, and most importantly, the battery life all work to make it my favourite.
Force touch on the 6S felt like a gimmick and it's design was unintuitive. I don't miss it, in fact, I completely forget it exists until I come to this forum.
I have no desire to ever stop using this phone. I'll use it till it dies and hope at that point that there is a decent product like the SE available for purchase.
3D Touch always seemed to bring up shortcuts that I don't want, leaving me to use the previous method. I think it's puzzling that an org the size of Apple could get it so wrong after its being out; note all reviews out there are ambivalent about it,
I also have a 4S going strong, keep it in a backpack when we go hiking or to the beach… and when my eyes get strained, I reach for the iPad.
So do I. It just hits the sweet spot for me.
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Ha! Well you caught me with the title.
The beauty of older things still being useful. Many people lose sight of that these days…
I've been using the iPhone for so long that none of the shortcuts really save me any time, so I don't bother using it. I know exactly how to get to where I need within an app, so I just do it the old fashioned way.
Also, 3D Touch isn't required for responding to notifications. Well, it is on a device with 3D Touch, but other devices just let you swipe right and give you the option alongside "clear".
But yeah, dang, you use it a lot. I only use the first one.
as my 6 becomes more and more unusable, I'm torn on where to go from here.
honestly I've had such a miserable experience with the 6 I'm about to throw in the towel with apple completely (maybe android will be garbage too, but maybe I'll at least get cheaper garbage).
that said, for me my 3.5" 4S was the most usable smartphone experience I've had, and it appears the SE is the only thing left on the market that even remotely caters to fans of that form factor. but its 1.5 year old tech, and my 6 hasn't exactly stood up well after 2.5 years, so again, I'm kinda in a disillusioned state with what to get anymore.
in all honesty the 6 was a poor update. Should have had 2GB RAM from the beginning.
Virtually everyone I have seen has been plagued with the screen clicking/popping off in the bottom corner and the front camera moving to show crescent shape.
Force touch is so useless that Apple should pay us to carry around the extra weight and bulk that's required because of it.
I've tried the SE a month ago for only a week and brought it back to the store. I used it as a second phone (I like using two phones), next to my 6S. All I can say is that in my opinion the 6S is a much better phone than the SE. Sure, you get the same A9 chip and main camera but there are some big differences.
The 6S not only has a much bigger screen, but also a better screen-to-body ratio (65% vs 60%). The higher 750p resolution vs the lower res on the SE is very noticeable to me. The glass on the 6S feels smoother to the touch and of higher quality in general. You even hear a different sound when tapping both screens. The screen on the 6S has a colder tone with purer whites which I prefer to the warmer LCD displays on the SE and 7. Also I just couldn't get used to the tiny 4 inch screen, for browsing, social media apps and especially watching YouTube videos.
I'm one of those guys who uses 3D Touch a lot, so I really missed that on the SE. Very useful for shortcuts, quickly sending a photo or saving it from the Safari browser. But I use it the most to launch the app switcher instead of pushing the home button twice all the time. Speaking of the home button, the 6S has a faster finger print reader which I prefer to the slower one on the SE.
Front camera is much better too, I thought I would never get into the selfie hype, but I find myself using it more and more and a better and sharper camera comes in really handy. A lot of times my girlfriend and friends just grab my phone out of my hands to make a selfie with me on the background, so yeah, the front camera is being used regularly.
Also the 6S seems to have a wider wifi range. In my bedroom at around 10 meters (33 feet) my 6S still has no problem to connect to my router, of course it's slower but still very usable. With the SE I had a weaker connection which was obviously unpleasant to say the least.
The SE 64 GB is only a hundred dollars cheaper than the 6S 32 GB. For a lot of people 32GB is more than enough. The SE has a great advantage in portability and one handed usability, but I have no problems at all with the size of the 6S which is still comfortably usable with one hand.
Conclusion: For me personally the 6S has a better value for money than the SE.
The 6S not only has a much bigger screen, but also a better screen-to-body ratio (65% vs 60%). The higher 750p resolution vs the lower res on the SE is very noticeable to me. The glass on the 6S feels smoother to the touch and of higher quality in general. You even hear a different sound when tapping both screens. The screen on the 6S has a colder tone with purer whites which I prefer to the warmer LCD displays on the SE and 7. Also I just couldn't get used to the tiny 4 inch screen, for browsing, social media apps and especially watching YouTube videos.
I'm one of those guys who uses 3D Touch a lot, so I really missed that on the SE. Very useful for shortcuts, quickly sending a photo or saving it from the Safari browser. But I use it the most to launch the app switcher instead of pushing the home button twice all the time. Speaking of the home button, the 6S has a faster finger print reader which I prefer to the slower one on the SE.
Front camera is much better too, I thought I would never get into the selfie hype, but I find myself using it more and more and a better and sharper camera comes in really handy. A lot of times my girlfriend and friends just grab my phone out of my hands to make a selfie with me on the background, so yeah, the front camera is being used regularly.
Also the 6S seems to have a wider wifi range. In my bedroom at around 10 meters (33 feet) my 6S still has no problem to connect to my router, of course it's slower but still very usable. With the SE I had a weaker connection which was obviously unpleasant to say the least.
The SE 64 GB is only a hundred dollars cheaper than the 6S 32 GB. For a lot of people 32GB is more than enough. The SE has a great advantage in portability and one handed usability, but I have no problems at all with the size of the 6S which is still comfortably usable with one hand.
Conclusion: For me personally the 6S has a better value for money than the SE.
I really don't use it...nice to know I'm not only the only one who feels that way.
But if the SE ever gets updated, I would like to see that feature on the 4" phone...this fragmentation (of sorts) of certain features really doesn't help anyone.
Other than not having 3D Touch and not being so great for watching videos for a long period of time (but that is what my iPad Mini is for), the SE is still a stellar device. As the majority have noted in their posts, I hope that Apple continues to release a 4" device moving forward, even if they only update it every two years.
Just like Touch ID is pretty useless to those who don't care about it, or front facing camera, or even rear facing camera, or Bluetooth, etc., etc., etc.
Once I purchased my Apple Watch, my iPhone screen time dropped significantly, thus the SE more then meets my useage.
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I must be one of the dissenters in this post.
I love the iPhone 7 Plus and haven't had any issues, and love the 3D touch too.
Looking forward to the 7s/8 Plus with the reduced bezel and no home button.