Lightning connector

I hated the idea of a new proprietary connector giving up the rich iPod connector heritage with all those lovely digital and analog AV outputs.

I embraced the rest-of-industry USB (its it mini USB or micro USB ?) connector with my Galaxy S4.  But I had lots of cables that didn't work, it was a troublesome connector that had to be just right, and ultimately that aspect of the Galaxy phone broke, the connector losing connection.  My replacement Galaxy was better, but by then I had discarded scads of troublesome cables, and just the few that worked with Galaxy (notably, not the one provided with the unit…) seemingly identical.

Every single time it was an issue to get the orientation right.  Usually had to turn on the lights, get out of bed, and examine it closely.

So, the Lightning connector is appreciated now.

Hey Siri fails

I've had a lot of Siri fails, not even related to unsupported apps like Sonos.

I'l try to keep a record here of juicy ones, starting now.

[Hey Siri assumed.]

Close the iPhone.

Syncing music: ALAC wanted!

When I last sync'd my iPhone 3G, it took over 24 hours.  I now believe this was largely because I was using an attached storage device with PC type formatting, and that OS X doesn't handle that efficiently for syncing operations which I guess rely on the OS X filesystem journaling feature.

Syncing my iPhone 6S Plus took an hour or two, but that was copying "50G" of music.  Syncing is now much nicer too, especially in that you can select individual albums.  I thought I selected about 30 albums but they took 50G of storage.  I will need to check this out.  I would think an uncompressed CD would require 0.5G of storage on average, so 50G would store 100 albums.

I will not ever store lossy compressed music, which is garbage IMO.

Unfortunately, that's the only choice Apple gives me other than the original files.  The best quality compressed format that can be done on-the-fly is AAC 256.

What they really should be able to do is convert to ALAC (if not FLAC) on the fly, so I could have ALAC on the phone and keep my universal AIFF files on the Mac.

Needed: Siri controlling Sonos

Siri is nicer than I expected.  Siri popped up while I wasn't paying attention, I recall being told about it after I had replaced my iPhone 3G with a Samsung Galaxy S4 in 2013.

Siri can play music on the phone itself.  Which is kinda cool.  I saw the suggested command "Play some blues" and sure enough it worked, though I wasn't sure where it got the Blues from or whether I was getting charged.  I hope not.

I then sync'd my phone.  Since my last iPhone experience sync'ing has gotten much better.  I can select the albums I want on the phone.  My entire library would take about 300Gb.  So I selected something like 30 albums, and it filled up 50 Gb on the phone.  That didn't seem right.  I'll have to investigate.

As I was doing this it was dawning on me: due to communication issues I never copied ANY music to my Galaxy phone.  The only way I found to copy large folders was to actually remove the memory chip, and I decided not to bother.  And it turns out that Android File Transfer is just as broken wrt the Samsung Galaxy S4 as it ever was…I downloaded the latest "version" (actually it looks identical to what I have) and it still can't even open a large folder.

So with 30 albums on my phone, I asked Siri to play some William Orbit, and I was Orbiting the rest of the night.

But it would have been nicer to be able to have Siri control Sonos…then I could have it play music over my real high end audio systems in every room, rather than just the puny iPhone speaker.  I tried a command to do that:

Hey Siri,
Play some Beethoven on the Bedroom Sonos system.

Of course that didn't work (even after I had downloaded and opened the Sonos app) and a tiny bit of web searching revealed that people have been begging for this feature for quite some time and still are up to last week.  They seem to be begging Sonos to add Siri support to the Sonos app, though I wonder if the limitation doesn't come from what Apple allows Siri to do.

Then, here is an article titled so as to make you (falsely) believe that Amazon's Echo will control Sonos.

No dice there.  But what I have found is a kit to make Siri control any kind of home automation, including Sonos and X10.  (Insteon please!)  The author says this is for truly dedicated geeks for now, eventually we hope the product developers will add their own custom shims.  But it looks sufficiently fascinating that I might try.

Samsung Android has been a lousy Smart experience

UPS says my iPhone is scheduled for delivery this afternoon.  Of course it will just be a pet rock until I take it to Sprint and have them switch my service from AT&T.

Meanwhile, before I go all gushy on Apple, let's be clear.  The reason I am returning to iPhone is not because iPhone is wonderful in every way.  I am gradually remembering my universe of complaints regarding Apple and their closed software "ecosystems" including iOS, which I think are somewhat better now in newer phones.  But the problem is this: in my limited experience, Samsung Android was a worse smartphone experience.  It is possible had I decided to devote my life to it, I could have customized my Samsung/Android phone to make it a tolerable smart phone.  But I don't do that sort of thing anymore.  Either it works fairly nicely out of the box or it goes into the junk pile.  My Samsung Galaxy Android phone was a great phone, but the smart features were not only not very smart, they grew positively annoying.  Despite my efforts, I couldn't turn off all the annoying features, or make up for the missing ones.

And now I'm facing one of those major missing features.  I am unable to copy my photos back to my Mac.

At least one person was told in 2012 that Samsung does not support Mac.  And that has been my experience.  When I first connected my Samsung phone to a Mac via USB, I recall it did absolutely nothing.  I had been lured to Android by the siren song of it being an "open" system.  I expected the Android to make itself visible to my mac as a filesystem I could deal with directly instead of Apple's stupid and intentionally limited syncing device.  Instead, it makes itself visible as a "media player" which can only communicate through special apps.  Or, if no such media player is available, as nothing at all.

I was fortunate at the time to have an android guru at the next desk in my office.  He helped me get past a few things, but couldn't help with others.  Samsung had this app called Kies, which they then discontinued support for.  I don't remember the whole story, but in the above blog you can see the recommended path, which sounds familiar: you install then uninstall Kies so it can update your drivers, then you can use AndroidFileTransfer with files larger than 4GB.

I think by the time I got my phone however, this workaround using Kies was no longer available.

Well 4GB files is not my problem.  I don't have any such files.  My problem is that I cannot even open any of the folders that have photos in them as the folders themselves are too big or something.

Somewhere in the distant 2.5 years ago, I copied something called AndroidFileTransfer to my Mac.  Every time I hook the Galaxy phone to USB, AndroidFileTransfer pops up.  It shows a visual file tree, and I have been able to download lots of files through it.  But I can't even open any of the folders where my photos, movies, or music files are.

I recall that's about when I lost interest in Android as a system about two years ago.  I had forgotten the fact that I have never downloaded so much as a single photo from my Galaxy phone to my Mac, despite a couple weeks of messing with apps and getting advice from an Android guru.

You can take all your air gestures and other geewiz features and shove them very deep, IMO.

Just get the basics right, the very simple things, and I can be happy.

My sense was that up and down the line both Samsung and AT&T were deliberately hobbling the Android system so that you had to buy extra cost "services" that make up for the deliberately hobbled features.

If that's the business strategy, you can forget it, and this is a large part of the reason I'm happy to dismiss both Samsung and AT&T.  I felt that I was paying plenty for a top notch phone and top notch service, and that is what I should have gotten.  Instead I got a bloated trojan geared mainly to selling me even more stuff.

I continue to feel this way very strongly.  I am especially not interested in Cloud Storage that I would have to pay for, simply to make up for the lack of basic transfer facilities which should have been standard.

I'm quite happy with storing files on my existing networks of computers.  Just give me a way to copy the files.  Not a path to becoming an even deeper prisoner.

The intent of both iOS and Android is to make you a prisoner, though they go about it in different ways and to slightly different ends.  What we need is the User Smartphone, one that's actually programmed for smartphone users and not corporate conglomerations.  A Free Software smartphone (some have been working on these I see now) would be different.  But I can't say I always like the Free Software product best either (though I love many of them deeply).  A Free Software product like Linux can also be more annoying than it's worth (so I concluded 13 years ago when I dumped Linux and BSD and adopted OS X as my household standard).  Too many options, too many choices, not all defaulted correctly can be a prison too.  Sadly, I decided then, I need to pay a fascist (you remember Steve) to get enough of the details right out of the box.  The fascist does this for us precisely because that's the only way he can get us to accept his bargain.  The Free Software gifter doesn't have to do anything at all, and wrt Smarphones doesn't yet, because Free.  Perhaps someday that won't be true--wake me up then.

Meanwhile, if we choose to go on with this (as some don't for principled reasons), we go with the less painful prison.

And it's sad wrt the Samsung phones, they are designed and made very well hardware-wise.  Unlike Apple, who is just a designer/programmer/marketer, Samsung is an actual industrial company who is a world leader in electronics and especially display technologies, of which the Samsung Galaxy phones are a prime example.  The AMOLED display is the worlds best technology, capable of the truest colors and blacks.  Even here, though it's not clear that Samsung gives us the best color display, they have a "vivid" option which uselessly goes beyond the standard gamut.  The problem is that if standard material is mapped to an extra-wide gamut, there will be color distortion.

Apple does however use the best available other stuff, it uses the world's best LCD displays and gets full color accuracy and the full HD resolution (which is already beyond what is needed, though Samsung gives us twice as many pixels fwiw).  Back when others were thinking of color displays on phones as a gimmick feature, Jobs insisted on display accuracy.  Now most phones are among the best displays and cameras most people will own.

Since I bought my Galaxy phone with the old style plastic removable back, Samsung has decided to compete with Apple in the much ballyhooed cosmetics department, with fancy metal back and generally much greater attention to box construction details.  I will concede I missed the iPhone sylishness and solidity a tad when I went to Galaxy S4, but I though the removable back a good idea, and in fact it turned out to be essential for that phone, I think that was how I copied my iPhone photos into it, by swapping out the memory chip, and I think the plastic back actually protects the device better by cushioning shock, even if it itself doesn't wear as well, but how important is wear for something you're only keeping a year anyway?  Well my phone is 2.5 years old and since I'm planning on keeping it forever now, it's not immaterial.  It clearly shows wear around the trim which my iPhone 3G which was used for 4.5 years doesn't.  But now it's a good thing I can remove the back again to get my photos out.

So now, with no removable back, another Galaxy would be even worse for Mac users?

I see now that Apple and Google have settled their ancient warfare over Android as Stolen Property.  I don't like software patents and I think they are a huge negative for users and still a negative for computer programmers.  They are "not" a negative for corporations that want to rule the earth, or at least they don't think so for the longest time, until they don't.  Funny how in the extra big Apple logo, the bite looks more like a mouth that's going to eat us all.  Continuing in the vein, of course Google is those go go goggley exes that never stop watching us.  It would figure that these would be the ultimate representations of corporatocracy.  Anyway, given a world of corporate klutzes, Apple may have never needed to be a patent warrior.  Just to keep on doing things slightly nicer.  Really good design can't be copied it seems because the copiers always mess it up.  Here are the five patent claims Apple had/has been making.  Nothing here looks all that important, and apparently the crucial one now (last in litigation, perhaps still) is the on-off slider.  I might say that the invisible "slider" on my Galaxy phone has been another nuisance.  Unlike the one on my Apple phone, it doesn't usually work.  I have to slide about 2-5 times to get the phone to turn on.  I never had that trouble on iPhone.  Is that because no slider is visible (Samsung's attempt to evade the patent?)  I've always though it because it's not sensing properly, not because of how I swipe, but it was certainly reassuring if not helpful to have a visible slider too.  This does seem like such a trivial idea it should not be patentable, and I think most software patents are like that.  But it would also seem to be one easily worked around well instead of poorly.  Anyway it seems to me that when I turn the power button on, the phone should just come on rather than bothering me with some secondary trick just to open up.  Or perhaps just double click the power button (is that patented?).

Now here's an ancient link I think I looked at back in 2013 which appears to have "the answer."  First, I can't even follow the advice given by another Samsung device user because the "settings" are organized completely differently.  On my phone all the settings are uselessly (or worse…I can never find anything in Settings) divided in 4 major categories, or so it appears,   Connections (nothing regarding USB), My Device, Accounts, and More.  Of course it would follow that most crucial things are in More.  And even there, most of the essential stuff is under "Developer Options."  And once you get there, there is little organization at all, and you'd have to be an Android Guru to know what is what unless you have some advice like in the above link.  So this is like a car where in order to steer you must have your OBD programmer connected.  And to understand what direction you are going you must be continuously cruising the web on another system.

Anyway, I had apparently already tried unchecking "USB Debugging."  So when I just looked at it now, the box is unchecked.  So that would not explain why I don't see my files in Finder.  I noticed underneath that there is "Revoke USB debugging authorization."  I just now tried doing that.  And now, when I connect my Galaxy phone to my Mac through USB I get…nothing.  AndroidFileTransfer no longer comes up.  But my files do not appear in Finder or elsewhere either.  In short, this esteemed advise (which was actually cross linked from another discussion thereby proving its merit) does nothing for me at all.  On tablets you might get some limited freedom to move your files around, but on this phone apparently Samsung just doesn't want you copying files indiscriminately.  And they're so fixated on this I can't copy my files at all (without removing the back and taking out the memory chip).  At least on iPhone I get this curiously restricted (of course, it's to restrict your ability to use your stuff so you have to get more stuff from them) syncing thing.

Now, funny thing, I just downloaded Android File Transfer again, straight from Android.com.  I had been thinking this was some way off hack, not Android.Com (which is straight from Google, right?).  And right away I was able to open up the DCIM directory that apparently contains my camera photos and copy them all to my Mac.  As soon as I tried to open Photos a friend called and that was that.

Now what I see is curious (and I don't know who to blame, exactly) when I click on the triangle next to the Photos folder icon it just turns darker.  I think that means it is working, but it would be nice to get a clearer indication.

Well I didn't have to wait long.  After about a minute I get that old complaint reasserting itself:

    Can't access device storage

    If your device's screen is locked, disconnect its USB cable, unlock your screen, and then reconnect the USB cable.

Only the screen isn't locked, it's still wide open, and doing those things has in the past done nothing other than repeat the same error report.  I tried again now, and same result.  It just won't open the Pictures folder.

I tried using Android File Transfer to copy the "First Photos" folder on my memory card, which must have been the original photos I copied to Android from iPhone.  Once again, that brought up the familiar error report.

So it's 2015, and Android File Transfer, now proven to be direct from Google, is still broken.

Now it's pretty simple to see how a user oriented phone would work.  If you connect the phone to a computer over USB, it should be a USB storage device from which you can copy files, delete them, or copy files to.  Anything other than that is a deliberate effort to control the User, and a rather ham handed one.  I mean, say you have COPYRIGHTED MUSIC files that may not be copyable.  Then just give some kind of warning message and skip copying those files and copy the other ones.  It's pretty easy to understand how, from a user's perspective, things should work.  It just that the other priorities are so much higher these mega corporations overlook that.  Simple file copying via USB isn't a company priority especially when they are selling the Cloud Storage alternative.

And instead of fixing the fundamental problems, more gloss and hype is added every year.  Well that was why I wasn't getting on the buy-a-new-smartphone every year strategy back in 2011 when my first iPhone contract expired.  I had bought it thinking lifetime purchase, not phone-every-year.  But I've given in now.

Anyway, I should applaud Apple for at least taking one stand..against spying.

http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/20/apple-oppososition-to-cisa/

http://9to5mac.com/2015/10/20/apple-locked-iphone-data/

Moved to iPhone Forever

I've gone and done it.  Switched back to iPhone in a big way.  I've switched to Sprint and started iPhone Forever, with a 6S Plus 64G to start.

The way these things are priced, once you go a particular direction, it only makes sense to go in a big way.  So the 6S and not the 6 (a year newer model with many many improvements, only $100 more) and so 64G and not 16G.  And I've never exactly been an Apple fanboy (most often seems to me the reverse, though I grudgingly go with Apple for lack of equally friendly alternatives) but it doesn't really make sense, or at least it hadn't, not to upgrade every 2 years anyway on a contract plan.  Let me also post my contrarian view that contract plans, or Sprints new add-in purchases or leasing, make a lot of sense.

So why should I pay $399 down and only $5 less a month to own the phone in 2 years?  And forgo the opportunity to have a new phone every year, and to avoid having to worry about trade-in.

Of course it's a risk, and that's the point of a good deal.  To get a good deal, one must take a risk, and here the risk is that you're going to continue liking Sprint service or iPhone selection will continue to appeal.  Part of the deal here is that you're locking in that service.  But even here you can simply wait out the contract, and return the phone, and save $280 on total outlays and not have a spare phone to think about.

Part of my problem, actually, may be that I'm too attached to old things.  I was completely unwilling to trade in my iPhone 3G when offered to do so when getting my Galaxy S4, and I was completely unwilling this time to trade in my android phone…android is another set of things…perhaps good to have at hand, if not as one's pet rock.

But in future, if I stick with iPhones, just having the latest one…unless too unhappy with it, really appeals.  Apple does add stuff, and the newer phones are always better, but also older phones get slower and less friendly with OS updates.  That has been especially true in the past, some say, maybe not so much in future some are hoping as I was.

Well isn't there also an opportunity to get a different color or size?  So if I really screw up on this I have an out in one year.  I personally held a S Plus at an Apple Store and it seemed very fine, shocking me that the power button accident issue I have with the Samsung simply did not occur.  But will it become wearing in some other way, over time?  That's the risk.  I'm onboard for now.  I may be becoming a fanboy after all.

It's actually an upside that I know in advance I will not be keeping this, but getting even greater over time, and staying on top of the planned obsolescence rather than being devoured by it, for what seems now to be a modest charge.

New Cadillacs every year may have been even more a big deal back in the days when people did such things, but at much higher cost.  New iPhones every year has a lower environmental cost too.  And you actually hold and use your phone far more than a car (at least many people do).  It's far more the fashion accessory/status emblem/ego trip even than new cars now.  And then, the new features and staying on top of the world rather than being crushed by planned obsolescence.


Strangely I had a heck of a time subscribing to iPhone Forever and having it start before the Sprint rate increase on Friday October 16.  I first went to the iPhone store on Tuesday October 13, and after deciding I didn't like the sharp edges on the iPhone 5S (a model I had planned to buy because of the top mounted power button) and that I could live with the 6S Plus (because it's power button is beyond my natural grasp and therefore can't be pressed by accident) I asked the very helpful Apple salesman about Sprint service (he said it was fine in San Antonio, and then even looked up my address on a Sprint map to verify that) and then if I could switch from AT&T to Sprint and get an iPhone.  He recommended I go to a Sprint store because they could handle the change from AT&T to Sprint.  This was my first attempt to buy 6S Plus on Tuesday.  A friend at work suggested the Sprint store would be happy indeed to harvest my account from AT&T.

On Wednesday night I went online to Sprint.com.  I went through the ordering process, selecting my phone, entering personal information including my Social Security number, and then the ordering app froze up.  I got a blank browser screen.  The URL made it clear this was a "Review Your Order" page. I waited 20 minutes for slow network or Mac to catch up.  I didn't change.  Then I tried back to the previous page, then fill stuff out and forward.  Same result: blank page.  An hour later going back simply brought me to the Sprint.com home page.  In fairness I learned afterwards my Safari browser was out of date by some months.

So then on the way to work the next day, 3:00 PM, I stopped at the Sprint store near where I work (and would therefore be getting support from Sprint).  I told the Salesman I wanted iPhone Forever and a 64G iPhone 6S Plus in Space Grey.  He said he couldn't sell me one because they had no phones in stock.  He checked the computer, and confirmed there were no iPhone 6S Plus phones in Space Grey with 64G in San Antonio.  He apologized for my experience online, and gave me a card with the phone number to call.

I called the number from my desk at work at 5:30 PM.  The phone call was laboriously slow, with long waits between giving information, and having to spell my email out letter by letter.  Ultimately, it took 50 minutes, including about a 4 minute wait for the credit check.  (Mine should be somewhere between sterling and platinum, FICO about 785.)  The saleslady asked lots of questions like why I was switching from AT&T.  I gave the reason "personal."  She promised not to ask again.  Actually it is because I fear that AT&T is now a right wing company with political clout to lobby for rules not in my interest.  Sprint, not so much, at least I conceive of them as neither right wing nor pushing their (much lesser anyways) weight around so much.  Though I suspected my call, though handled by a lady sounding like a Californian, was actually in Asia.  So Sprint may well be as much into offshoring as much as anyone.  Maybe more than AT&T?  And that may have been the whole reason a local salesman couldn't order the phone for me…

There are other things that have bothered me about AT&T as well.  My Samsung phone was filled with AT&T bloatware as well as Samsung bloatware.  When my phone broke AT&T couldn't source one locally and I had to ship my phone to AT&T for replacement which took a week.  The AT&T store couldn't even ship it for me. Nor could the AT&T kiosk where I got my phone help me with some simple problems.  AT&T is endlessly trying to get me to buy UVerse, something I never will.  My AT&T cellular service has been fine though recently (in 2009 there were still issues, especially on trips, and they continued through 2012 but my cellular service has been pretty much perfect since I got my Galaxy phone in June 2013).  Certainly one gets the general sense that one is not getting the super premium service one is paying for at the highest priced carrier, and one wonders if all the extra money isn't simply being recycled as UVerse ads.  Many people would have and did dump AT&T long ago, but I stuck with them after my first iPhone contract feeling and hoping they were a better company, a feeling I subsequently lost over time.  Well now I'm seeing that my Sprint experience can be a bit difficult even when trying to buy the phone (where AT&T, and most everyone else is flawlessly obsequious--and you know not to expect that later from anyone) and this is not reassuring.  This may just be exceptional for various reasons, anyway, I trust the Sprint store to get my phone dialed in, and hopefully contacts copied. That's basically all the AT&T stores could do for me anyway.  If Sprint can at least do that much, they're fine.  Now that I'm getting an Apple, so I was told at the Apple Store, I can go there to get help even if I buy my phone at Sprint.  Arguably including this week, my experiences at the Apple Store have always been flawless (I hadn't been there in a few years though, and it is notably more crowded now than it was in 2009), a marked contrast to how things have gone at phone stores.  I have friends with Sprint and they've long been happy with it, so I don't think this is going to be a big mistake anyway.  It couldn't be much worse that AT&T was in 2009 when I got my first iPhone.  By and large I don't see my phone carrier as my best friend, mainly I just want them to get out of my way rather than staying in my face and endlessly trying to sell me overpriced add ons I don't need.

I do try to consider the global impacts of my decisions as well as the local and personal ones.  It's very hard to know much, and in situation like deciding which company to use, hard to decide if one company is really better than the other.

I am also getting something that AT&T doesn't even offer: an Unlimited Everything rate, and cheaper than what AT&T charges for just about any level of service.

Ultimately, I did get the confirming emails from Sprint.com before the 50 minute phone call ended, despite my very slow email system taking 10 minutes--the saleslady was as patient as me.  So it's now official, my new iPhone 6S Plus will be shipped to me next week.  I made it just in time to get the old $60 unlimited rate--mere hours before the rate rose to $70.  Sometime afterwards I'll be dealing with the switchover.  And hopefully before long enjoying being one of the kool kids.

I had images of a line around the block at the Sprint store.  Actually, when I got there there was only one other customer.  It ultimately took 4 attempts to order iPhone Forever before the Sprint rate increase, and at least 3 hours of effort (and far more hours of worrying).

Nilay Patel, one of the world's leading tech bloggers, says it bluntly. Buy an iPhone 6S Plus. It's the best, and a mind blowing experience if you have 5S or earlier.  And sign up for an iPhone upgrade service.

Stupid Power Button location on "Smart" phones

For 2.5 years now I have detested many things about my Samsung Galaxy S4.  Not that it hasn't been a good phone…it has actually been a great phone with wonderful voice quality, always reliable navigation, endless apps, etc.

At the same time, it has been extremely annoying and infuriating in little ways that I haven't been able to get used to.  The number one most annoying thing has been just this: the location of the power button on the side.

What seems to happen is that nearly every time I pull the phone out of my pocket I press the power button.  This has often seemed to mess up incoming phone calls and do other weird things.  The shape and resistance of the side power button are also implicated.  It seems that often the power button gets pressed simply by my keys and phone jostling in my pocket.  This never ever happened with my iPhone 3G, which you might think worse--having power button at the top which is therefore resting on the bottom of my pocket.  But THAT was never a problem for some reason.  It's the buttons on the side which get accidentally pressed because of rubbing up against harder things than the cloth at the bottom of my pocket.  I've often had my phone shut down and/or restart all by itself rattling around in my pocket.

Now I can show you, and I've been meaning to take a video, of how when I reach for the Galaxy phone in my pocket it's almost inevitable than while gripping it I will press the power button.  It doesn't even matter which way the phone is turned or how I try to avoid it.  I can't seem to pick up the phone without pressing that button.

Prior to the 6 series, Apple iPhones had power buttons at the top.  This had always worked fine for me. I would even go against conventional wisdom and put the power button for a large phablet right at the top too.  A power button should NOT be right under your finger.  You should have to reach to press it. That's because you do not have to press it often, and you do not want to press it unless you really want to.

So when I started thinking about replacement phones, this was at the top of my list of features I would look for.  Since I had been planning to return to iPhone for other reasons (to get away from the horrid overcomplicated trojan horse otherwise known as the Samsung Galaxy Android user interface) I looked at the newest iPhones for the first time in years and was shocked to learn that the latest two generations had the same huge problem.  Contrary to my wishes, Apple has moved the power buttons on their phones to the side also.

I was just about to order an iPhone 5S which seemed to be the last of the mohicans, an iPhone with the power button correctly at the top.  But I just couldn't get used to the sharp feeling beveling on the side in my hand. I've grown used to smooth sided phones, sharp or square just doesn't work.

So I tried the iPhone 6S Plus.  I put it in my pocket and pulled it out.  And I did not press the power button.  The extra length from the "bottom" of the phone (which is pointing up when in my pocket) to the power button is just right.  I do not press it by accident when reaching for the phone.

You can see how this might be.  Put a smart phone in your hand so that the bottom of the phone fits in the groove of your hand.  Now see where your thumb contacts the side of the phone.  With the Galaxy S4, the power button is right underneath my thumb.  With the iPhone 6S Plus, the button is about a half inch beyond my thumb.  When I reach in my pocket, where the phone is upside down usually, the bottom of the phone hits the groove of my hand and then I close my hand.  This is the natural way to use my hand.  It shouldn't cause the power button to be pressed.

At least in some quick in-store tests, that half inch makes all the difference between a continuous annoyance and a phone which seems to have good ergonomics for me.  So that is why I have now ordered an iPhone 6S Plus.

And yet…I have relatively small hands for a man.  I'm now worried how well this will work for me in other ways, but after handling the Galaxy phone, which is very close in width (the important factor in holding the phone).

People talk about one-handed use, and claim that the 6S Plus is too big for that.  I don't get it.  Even with my iPhone 3G, a one-handed phone if there ever was one, I didn't find I could reliably text with one hand.  My fingers can't easily bend that much.  To do texting reliably, which is important, I hold phone with one hand and press virtual keys with the other hand.  That's what I did with my 3G and what I continued to do with my Galaxy.

Now for holding the phone up to ear with one hand, that is absolutely crucial.  It didn't seem to be a problem in the store with the 6S Plus whatsoever.  I could hardly tell the difference in width between the 6S Plus and my Galaxy S4.  Are some people's hands actually so small it is a problem to hold phone to ear with one hand?

Apple also seems to have done some other things with having the power button slightly inside the edge of the phone.  It doesn't "stick out" like the power button on the Galaxy S4.

These little details can make a huge difference.