iPhone 5 • 64 GB • Black & Slate
iPhone SE • 64 GB • Silver
iPhone 13 mini • 128 GB • Blue
iPhone Air • 256 GB • Light Gold
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The iPhone 5 was stunning when it arrived. Last one overseen by Steve Jobs. Unibody design, jewel-like precision, Lightning port replacing the clumsy Dock Connector, 1 GB of RAM for the first time, LTE data for the first time, 8-megapixel camera, Assisted GPS with GLONASS. When iOS 7 arrived with 64-bit, AirDrop, and Jony Ive’s colour palette, it looked and felt like alien tech. This phone is recognisably modern even now. It did almost everything we still do with our phones today, except a lot of it was brand new to that phone. I splurged on the top storage tier to fit my music collection.
The iPhone SE was more of the same. I got it because I loved the old 5 form factor. It had the A9 chip and 2 GB of RAM, which was a massive leap in performance over the A8, never mind my iPhone 5’s A6. Stupidly fast and long battery life. Great phone, but not revolutionary or as ahead of the curve as the peerless 5.
The 13 mini attracted me for my usual reasons: small size and weight, a leap in performance, RAM jump to 4 GB, long battery life (hard to remember now, but true at the time), great camera. The new (to me) Face ID and lack of a Home button was mostly a downgrade and annoying, but added some display area. I now had Spotify for music, but even the base storage of 128 GB would have contained my old music collection anyway. This phone did not age as well as my previous two iPhones. It didn’t have enough display size and battery capacity to escape the ensh!ttification of the web and apps. And Apple’s slow decline in software quality, feature-bloat to keep up with Android, and endless chopping and changing of basics like timers and alarm clocks started to take a toll on my enjoyment of the iPhone.
I recently got the iPhone Air after multiple attempts to get a decent screen. The one I kept is merely OK and a clear downgrade from my 13 mini screen. On the plus side, the screen is large, the A19 Pro is a beast, there’s now 12 GB of RAM, the storage speed is incredible, and the new form factor with unnecessary features removed is finally some fresh thinking for the iPhone. Would it be too much to hope for a similarly pared-down, de-cluttered iOS? Probably, but I hope.