iPhone 15 Pro Max

 

Despite my interest in technology and consumer electronics, I've never been too excited about getting a new phone. I think the modern smartphone is one of the coolest inventions ever. They are so powerful in their ability to affect personal and professional workflows that they have literally changed the way we live. Once the original iPhone was released, we've seen incremental improvements with periodic large jumps in performance throughout the years. As the capability of phones has increased, so has the required processing power, and thus cost. Mostly because of cost, I don't typically get too excited about getting a new phone until either my battery life becomes an issue or my phone is no longer supported with updates. I feel like most of the time an upgrade isn't needed until my current phone becomes several years old.

I bring all of this up because I recently got a new phone - the iPhone 15 Pro Max. I wasn't really in the market for a new phone as my previous phone was still being supported and the battery life was still pretty good. However, the company I work for currently uses human scribes to help us with documentation. We are switching to AI scribes later this year which uses a phone app, and I wanted to make sure I had a phone powerful enough and with a good enough battery to last all day long. I had been using an iPhone X, which had become a bit long in the tooth. The X was released in 2017, which is ancient in tech time, so obviously a lot of advancements have occurred in the past 6+ years. 

Every time I get a new phone I'm surprised at how fast they are (or how slow my old phone had become), and this time was no exception. This is the first time I've purchased Apple's flagship phone. In the past I've saved a few hundred dollars and picked the model with the slightly smaller screen and/or slightly slower processor. Since I rely on my phone so heavily for work functions these days I thought the time was right to spend the extra money and get the top of the line model. Several lifestyle upgrades came with upgrading my phone from the X to the 15 Pro, many of which I did not expect. Many of these upgrades aren't specific to the 15, and are available on the 14 as well. Regardless, they are upgrades for me since I came from the iPhone X.

• The biggest upgrade is Stand By Mode (see picture above). I've used my phone for an alarm clock for years because of the ability to save multiple alarms. I wake up at different times each day of the week and so it is nice to have scheduled alarms for each day and not have to set them daily. Previously I used wireless charging for my iPhone X but still had an alarm clock on my night stand so that I could see the time without picking up the phone. With Stand By Mode, it allows my phone to more naturally act as an alarm clock. I bought a MagSafe charger in order to do this. When the phone is placed sideways on the charger, it automatically goes into Stand By Mode.
• I've enjoyed the "Always On Display" as well. I put it in quotes because it is more like a "mostly on display". I'm not sure if it works on sound or motion, but if you don't touch the phone for quite a while the display will turn off. Sometimes when I'm coming down the stairs, I can see the display turn back on as I'm coming down. Regardless, most of the time the display is on, which allows you to check the time or see notifications without picking up the phone. This is a feature that I would have shrugged my shoulders at on paper, but in reality is really quite nice.
• I almost never use my Canon camera anymore and instead rely heavily on my phone for taking pictures. With that being said I do appreciate the upgrades to the camera that come with a new phone. The iPhone 15 comes with a 5X optical zoom, which allows for zooming without pixelation. I believe this is the first iPhone that has an optical zoom, which is a really nice feature to improve picture quality. I haven't had a great chance to test it out yet, but come this summer when we start taking trips I look forward to seeing the quality of pictures I can capture with zoom.