Gadgets

D;

Gadgets, Random
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I’m starting to feel old. Like, for real.

I used to love customising my phone’s home screen – to make it as minimalist as possible. Now, I look at all the widget apps in App Store… yes all very nice but I no longer have the urge to tinker with them. I also can’t think of a specific home screen look that I really wanna go for, so what I’m having right now is basic but utilitarian. Nothing fancy.

I’m trying to visualise what I would want to see if I’m gonna dig deep into this customising part, when I realised if I do go customise and overhaul the home screen layout completely, I won’t be able to get to the apps I want quickly. And right now, utility outweighs aesthetics in my mind (for now, that is).

Is it because I’m getting old, that’s why I’m starting to not care that much about aesthetics? I mean, no one’s gonna be looking at my phone but me. My phone is a tool (yes I’ve always said my phone is my boyfriend and it still is!) and being able to get to my apps should be my priority, aye?

That aside, I’m still trying to visualise a good looking home screen while having all that I want to see at the same time… if I can come up with an idea, I’d still go for it. Unless it’s gonna kill my battery life, which I’m sure can happen to some extent… widgets eat batteries quite a bit since they need constant background app refresh to work…

Some Thoughts on my iPhone16PM

Gadgets, Random
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So after about 7 days of usage, here are some thoughts on my iPhone 16 Pro Max after using Android for more than a decade.

Pros:

  • Face ID is quick, but a little iffy with mask on. Absolutely zero issues without a mask though. Authenticating apps without mask on is a breeze.
  • Apps don’t need to be killed in order not to slow down the phone – iOS’ ram management is great (but it has it’s downsides obviously)
  • Camera wasn’t as bad as I expected. Pretty sure digital zoom would suck more than my Pixel, but I’m already mentally prepared for that, and likely won’t even attempt to take photos that require max digital zoom. But at least I do get photos that appear to have the same colours as what my eyes are seeing. Whether I want any post edits or not – that’s up to me. And iPhone original photo already looks rather decent, just not as vibrant since iOS didn’t slap aggressive AI edit on the original photo.
  • Battery life is amazing (yes, probably due to the phone being extremely new)
  • I finally can have digital Suica and don’t have to fumble for the physical card anymore when in Japan!!!!!!
  • Spatial audio is holy shit amazing
  • Airpods Pro 2 ANC blows Pixel Buds Pro out of the water

Cons:

  • Bought a magsafe cover, hoping to have my office access card in a magsafe cardholder that snaps to the phone so that I don’t need to juggle with my phone, office access card, breakfast and coffee every morning at work, but nah my office NFC reader just couldn’t read the office access card off the magsafe wallet. Meh. The NFC field in iPhone seems way too strong…
  • Can’t set payment card to Express Travel Mode in Singapore yet… having to authenticate transport payments via Face ID is quite a pain with a mask on
  • Phone isn’t that heavy, but slapping on the magsafe case makes it very heavy, thanks to the magnets on the case…
  • Wish the snooze button on the alarm can be bigger and that I could choose my own song in the sleep schedule under Health app.
  • Tapping the widget in control center to off wifi will only kept it off for the rest of the day – it auto connects back the next day. I have to go deep into settings to turn Wifi off. And I can’t turn on personal hotspot for other devices to connect if my Wifi is off. WTF? Why, Apple??
  • I still can’t get used to the keyboard…… aaaaahhhhhh *tears hair in frustration* Gboard sucks in iOS too. Default keyboard sucks ass too. Worse still, iOS Swiftkey doesn’t have Chinese and Japanese language pack. Seriously, Microsoft?!
  • Siri sucks. I miss Google Assistant T_T
  • I miss Android’s “Mark as Read” feature in most notifications. Why do I have to go into the individual apps just to see what I’ve already seen in the notifications in order to clear badges? And if I turn off badges for all apps, I could jolly well miss some important messages because I swipe away the notifications too fast….
  • Camera control button too iffy to use. I’ll be sticking to onscreen buttons instead…
  • I miss my “back” gesture on Android. Swiping from left to right to go back in iOS is such a user-unfriendly feature. How to swipe left to right if you are a right hander holding a 6.9″ phone?! You probably need to have a hand as huge as Yao Ming’s in order to do that comfortably with one hand…

My main gripe is still the keyboard. And that I don’t have the “Mark as Read” feature in notifications anymore.

But, there’s no best of both worlds… I can only continue to try and adapt…

Am I happy with the phone? Yes, despite all the gripes and cons that I was ranting about, it’s still a very good phone, more than enough for my usage, actually. Can’t wait to bring it with me for my JP travel this coming December!

Happy birthday Sis! (and some updates)

Family, Gadgets
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Yup, it’s my sis’ birthday today! She was here with her family as my mom cooked her favourite dishes for her.

Apart from that… I just got my hands on a spanking new iPhone 16 Pro Max yesterday (day of launch!), and spent the whole of yesterday trying to set the phone up. I think it’s gonna be really hard to get use to it… but I guess eventually it’ll be fine. I’m liking the Face ID, but not a fan of having to unlock every time I need to take the public transport. Sigh.

The battery life is kinda impressive in a way though, though I see from YouTube tech reviewers’ testing was that it still performs worse than Samsung S24 Ultra… which is kinda sad though. Oh well.

The Spigen screen protector is easy to put on, but even though I specifically bought a Spigen hybrid case to match with it, the left bottom corner of the case still somehow pushed against the screen protector and can cause it to lift every now and then. Argh…

Ok enough ranting about this phone… I’m sure I’ll get used to everything at some point. Aye. Good luck to me!

Decision Made (?)

Gadgets
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I’ve (kinda) set my mind to get an iPhone 16 this fall.

But whether it’ll be my main phone will still remain to be seen.

It’ll definitely be for my work and all banking apps though. I’ll hold on to my P7P at the same time in case I get extremely frustrated with the camera on iPhone.

It’ll also definitely my go-to phone when it comes to travelling in Japan. I just need to figure out how the Apple Wallet works…

My P7P will still come along with me for the ride, of course, at least for this December’s trip. I still need it’s trusty zoom when I’m taking photos.

It’s almost like a betrayal though… 一脚踏两船的感觉 🤦🏻‍♀️

I always said my PC is my hubby; my phone is my boyfriend. Now it’s like I’m entertaining the thought of having two boyfriends… 🤦🏻‍♀️

我觉得我必须澄清一下啊，我很专一的！真的！😭

It’s just that… If I don’t ever get the iPhone, I will never be able to determine if the phone works for me. At the same time, I want to be able to fall back on my Android if the iPhone doesn’t work out somehow (yay for iPhone resale value?).

It really doesn’t make a lot of sense for someone to switch to iPhone after being so used to Android, I know.  Android can do soooooo many more things. Almost everything is customizable, including notification sounds. And did you know – my Pixel can automatically set itself to vibrate everytime I left my home, and set the sound settings back on when it detects that I’m back home. Likewise, my phone automatically goes into unlocked status and stays that way whenever I’m home, and it’ll go into screen lock status the moment it detects I’m no longer home. This is such a huge jump in QOL. I’m not exactly sure if iOS’ shortcut is able to do this – I might need to delve deeper into that iOS app and play around with it more, but based on my previous interactions with it, this can’t be done.

But, I have my reasons to try and attempt the switch, and I believe they are all valid (refer to my previous post 2 weeks back) as well. Of course, I don’t need to justify to anyone, but I’m writing this all in order to convince myself, obviously… ;x

Now that’s outta the way…

Why am I sneezing non stop in office?! 谁在骂我！

还有，为什么我的偏头痛回来了啊 😭 今早就一直在疼… 现在眼睛都跟着疼了，救命 😵

Oh Dear…

Gadgets
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I haven’t quite really decide if my next phone is gonna be an iPhone or not, and I’m already bingeing all the iPhone accessories recommendation videos on YouTube…

The latest iOS18 updates do somehow gave me little nudge towards the iPhone camp (thanks to the new homescreen customizing features and that default Photos app is closer to what I like to see on my Google Photos app), but my main beef is still how limited the iPhone’s alarm features are, and the camera… I’m not saying iPhone’s camera isn’t good. I just like Pixel’s AI when it comes to photo processing – It’s so user-friendly. I didn’t have to do any sort of post-edit and the photos all looked pretty good after I hit the shutter button. Yes, I do complain that the AI processing can get a bit too over-aggressive at times, to the point where I couldn’t capture the real colours when I wanted to, but overall I was still pretty satisfied with it. I wouldn’t have been able to capture Fuji-san so clearly back in Feb-23 at Shonan-Enoshima station if I hadn’t had my Pixel 7 Pro with me.

This is taken with 12x zoom, if I remembered correctly. Can the iPhone camera do this? I’m pretty sure the answer is no.

So the question to myself: Am I ready to give this up?

I’m not sure, to be honest.

That being said, iPhone does have other pros that are tempting me to make the switch:-

  • apps that are optimized for iOS and hardly region-locked (for SG App Store, that is),
  • relatively more secure ecosystem (my problem – because I have to sideload APKs on my Android due to some apps being region-locked and only available in Japan Play Store; and some official apps from China couldn’t even be sideloaded, even though I can find their official counterparts in Apple App Store)
  • Magsafe (!!!)
  • NFC that can be used in Japan (yes I’m quite tired of rummaging for that physical SUICA/ICOCA card when taking trains / making payment in shops and restaurants, and not to mention the daily trips to the ticket machines to top up the card with cash)
  • Company seems to prefer staff using iPhones… sigh

The cons with iPhone:

  • Limited default alarm features with limited third party alarm apps too
  • Abysmal notification system
  • Expensive accessories and apps / high chance of getting trapped in the Apple ecosystem (phone, watch, tablet etc… I’m pretty sure I won’t ever switch to MacBook though)
  • No ultra zoom for camera
  • No fast charging

That said, if iPhone 16 Pro Max is gonna have a zoom of at least 10x, I’ll jump at it, even though the rumoured size of an iPhone 16 Pro Max is bigger than what I would like. I’m sure I can live with the rest of the cons, if need be…

Now onto my to-buy list if I really do get an iPhone:

  • iPhone itself (duh)
  • Airpods Pro
  • Magsafe case (haven’t decide on which yet, though I have a few brands/models in mind)
  • Apple Watch
  • Aukey MagFusion Qi2 (not a necessity, but I really like the design – just need to clear a space on my PC table for it…)

Now, I’m keeping my eyes peeled for iPhone 16 camera features’ leaks…

iPhone next…?

Gadgets
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I’m actually considering getting iPhone for my next phone… thanks to Company Intune Portal starting to flag my Pixel 7 Pro as a rooted device every now and then, and preventing me from logging into company’s email and Teams on my mobile. I have no idea why it was doing so… my phone wasn’t rooted! Yes I did sideload some apps, but that’s the whole point of using an Android phone isn’t it… :(

In order to prep myself mentally for the cost of getting an iPhone (together with all the accessories), I did some homework on Amazon and found that buying an iPhone is just a huge investment…

  • iPhone 16 – Price TBA
  • Magsafe portable power bank (at least 10,000mAh) – S$70
  • Airpods Pro (2nd gen) – S$370
  • Apple Watch Series 9 (optional… but I’ve seen reviews saying Garmin app sucks on iPhone) – S$605
  • Portable magsafe charging pad (for travelling) – S$231

All these added up to be almost S$2K, and that’s not including the price of the iPhone yet. Ugh… I’m not sure if I’m willing to fork out S$4K for a new phone (and it’s accessories). The charging pad probably can be optional too, since I have my Anker and UGreen wall chargers (I just need to bring lotsa cables, meh).

I can look past the home screen being non-customizable, but I’m not sure if I can accept the slow charging of Apple products, now that I’m already so used to Android’s fast-charging capabilities.

Ugh, I hate making decisions…

New Phone. New Job Scope. Busy As Hell.

Gadgets, Work
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The title says it all.

On a side note, I have updated the Taipei trip in my travel blog.  Feel free to read.

My new phone is my first Huawei phone. So far it’s quite all right.  I bought it for it’s OIS feature in its camera. It was difficult to search for its accessories though… but otherwise the phone seems pretty decent.  Here’s an obligatory shot:

Not bad eh? At least it doesn’t have that irritating blue tint that my Samsung Note 4 used to have when talking photos from this tinted glass at my office.

I’ve got a new job scope – and…. I don’t feel like talking about it right now because it reminded me that I have many things yet to be done and I should be doing them now.  So… I’ll elaborate about it at some point.  For now, I’m just busy as hell….

Update, update!

Gadgets, Random
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Right!  So I haven’t really been doing much lately, to be honest.  Just playing WoW (thanks to the WoW anniversary XP buff that’s gonna end tomorrow) whenever I’m free, and listening to radio dota in the meantime.

I’ve finally spent the $200 Fraser Mall Giftcard that my insurance company gave me last year, and I used it to buy Fitbit Alta. It’s actually quite interesting, and it kinda really motivates me to walk more in order to reach the goal / milestones.  I even wore it to sleep because it’s pretty interesting the way it tracks my sleep.  It tells me how long did I sleep for, how many times did I actually wake up during the period (and I didn’t even know about it) and how many times I was restless throughout the sleep.  The bands on the Alta are interchangeable too, so I’ve bought a few more colours off from Taobao.  God knows when they will arrive, but I guess I’m not in a hurry to get them.

So yup, I’m now a proud owner of a fitness tracker!  Can strike that Charge 2 off my wishlist already, lol.

Two more weeks to Japan trip!  Suddenly the trip seems so near… Not exactly sure if that’s a good thing. =/

Meh, I should be more positive.  >_<

New rig!

Gadgets, Gaming
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So yup, finally got my new rig on Friday.

The specs:-

  • GIgabyte H170-D3H i5 6500
  • Zotac GTX1060 Twin Amp
  • Superflower 550W Gold Edition
  • Samsung 850 Pro 256GB SSD
  • Corsair Vengeance LPX 2400MHz 16gb DDR4
  • Fractal R5 casing with additional Fractal fan

I initially wanted MSI GTX1060 Armor, but it was out of stock.  I initially also wanted Seasonic X Series 650W – also out of stock.  And I wanted that Zotac 480gb SSD – ALSO out of stock.

Sigh.

But anyway, Bruno came along to help me out – helping me with the transport, and also to install my two old HDDs into the new rig.  Much thanks to him.

In other news, Pokemon Go! is out in Singapore! Bruno and I spent the entire day walking around Yishun to catch pokemons before we went for our Suicide Squad movie.  I’m two minds about this game…. yeah it was fun catching the pokemons, it was a little surprising to see the number of people walking around looking at their phones, and also the amount of turnout at pokestop clusters (with lures on each one).  It was almost like an unofficial event / gathering of sorts.  But that’s where the positives end.  In Singapore, it’s really too damn humid and hot to walk around.  It gets very uncomfortable after awhile.  And god, don’t even let me mention about the battery usage.  It drains the battery like mad, because the game needs to keep running as you walk around.  And the phone gets SO HOT.  RIP, phone components.  Maybe I should use my Note 2 strictly for pokemon go instead….?

 

 

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