jdw

Having upgraded to an iPhone 15 Pro Max from an iPhone 7, the first thing I did was switch OFF 120Hz Pro Motion.  Honestly, I don't see the appeal at all.  Switching it off saves battery.  And on that note, I also immediately limited charging to 80%.   If I am out and need to record videos for hours (rare), then I could switch off the 80% limit, charge to 100%, then switch the limit back on.  That way it gives me full battery during those rare times I might need it, but honestly, I don't.  This battery is great.  And no doubt my switching off ProMotion helps a lot too.

While my main reason to upgrade was for improved performance, the larger screen, and a vastly better camera.  The camera in many cases is not "vastly" better.  There are still times when it shoots photos that don't have a lot of pixel data and therefore the photo is not sharp as a result.  That always happens when I need to zoom, and there are times when 5x zoom is too much.  In other words, I wish it had more cameras so I could get the full resolution of the sensor at every zoom level.  That's really what separates an iPhone camera from a dedicated camera like my Panasonic GH5.  It's also why dedicated cameras aren't going away anytime soon.

And while the price stings at a lot.  I'm not one of those people who lacks understanding about money and blows it all ever 1, 2 or 3 years.  No, I will keep a phone for 5-7 years and be happy with it all that time, even if that means I need to pay to get the battery replaced during that time.  But hopefully, this iPhone 15 battery will last longer due to the 80% charge limit.  We shall see.

Who does the file-loss bug impact?  I only ever access files via Safari on my Macs.  I never use an "app."  Does that mean I should not need to worry about file loss?  Is the issue one that only pertains to an app bug?

Unless Apple is planning to drop the price into the $500 range, there's not much meaning to drop the price while gutting key features.  Sure, they want more people to use the thing, but the entire product centers on the unbelievable experience it currently offers, which is superior to other VR and AR products out there.  Gut the features, and then you are competing with Meta and the like.  Make zero sense to do that.  With that said, it is desirable if the price can come down a bit, but without harming the user experience at all.

Now if they only eliminated the front screen (which shows simulated eyes), maybe some people would go for that, at a lower cost, assuming all other features were retained.  But Apple made a big deal about that, and such differentiates VISION PRO from competitor's products, so dropping that feature would seem odd.  But it wouldn't ruin the user's experience at all though.

I guess the biggest issue that no one can argue against is when somebody keeps a device long after Apple calls it obsolete.  

When no official Apple parts are available, you would normally go to 3rd party parts.  At that point, the device is old enough to where it really doesn't matter if those parts "aren't up to Apple standards."  You want your vintage/obsolete device to keep working, just like we in the vintage Mac community want to keep our SE/30s running strong now in 2023.  But if your modern Apple device won't pair with a 3rd party battery -- the one component that WILL need to be swapped out every 3-5 years -- then the device becomes junk that must be discarded.  That contributes to unnecessary waste while at the same time pisses off the vintage device community.

So I would say for that reason alone we need a way to at least allow vintage/obsolete devices to pair with any parts, not just Apple official parts, which at that point would not be sold anymore.

And for those nuts badmouthing iFixit, they really do advocate for us in the community who want or need to repair something.  It's not merely about self-interest.

I like Apple and as such am very pro-Apple in most matters.  But when they need to be called out on something, which is the case here, I don't shy away from the discussion.

You really need to reformat the T9 as APFS and retest.  That's because I've been watching a lot of videos of late on Thunderbolt 4 SSDs to see which is the most consistently fast, and many reviewers are getting speeds much slower than rated speeds only because they used ExFAT so as to test on both a Mac and Windows.  Those who reformatted APFS and retested get closer to the expected speeds.  So I strongly suggest you retest the T9 using the APFS format on your Mac.