The Apple Train

The horn has sounded. It’s time to get on board or be left at the station holding an iPhone 8.

The iPhone X’s missing home button is a high-end feature for 2018 but FaceID, rounded corners, and screen gestures are the future of Apple’s iPhone. If you plan to cling to the iPhone 8 because you hate the new iPhone X design, I totally understand and empathize with you. But, I’m getting on the this train so that I can adjust now. The notch will get better over time. The gestures will improve and be more predictable. But, this is it. This is the plan and I think we’ll all be fine.

My Treo was a good frenemy in the early 2000’s. I understood what a physical keyboard was. I understood how to connect peripherals and how to compare memory footprints between Treo models. I worried about the virtual keyboard on iOS but trusted that Apple’s iPhone was the future of mobile computing. I still struggle with typing accuracy in ways that I never did with the Treo. The loss of that physical keyboard came with so many more benefits in iOS that it’s ludicrous to think back about how much anxiety I felt over it.

There’s long been an understanding with Mac users. You either get along with Apple’s plan our you’re left behind, because Apple’s roadmap internally is long past what we see as consumers. They are already working under the premise that home buttons are laughably out of date. It’s hard not to be a the old man yelling at the sky insisting that Apple is doing it wrong. I try not to forget that there are a lot of thoughtful and enthusiastic people at Apple trying to move me toward their future. And, they try to do it as slowly as I can keep pace.