Hello friends! It’s Sunday, again. And it’s evening again. Sorry about that. Time is flying by. (I’m writing this sentence while listening to Sunday Bloody Sunday by U2. Sort of fitting.) We’re edging into the last quarter of the year — yellow leaves, the first freeze, hot tub weather, and yet another school year. This is my last year of school for the foreseeable future. I am very excited to experience next September and October without any deadlines.
My deep, deep anger and rage after the events of September 10th has subsided. In its place, a sincere joy has grown. Around the world, you are seeing deep, long-lasting change. There is something afoot. He is afoot. This afternoon’s memorial — though put on by flawed people — was the most uplifting event I’ve witnessed in my life.
As for you, you meant evil against me, but God meant it for good, to bring it about that many people should be kept alive, as they are today. — Genesis 50:20
It is not our story, but His. We’re minor characters, at best. That sort of peace is the type of transcendental peace that can only be experienced through the Spirit. Not my will, but The Lord’s will be done.
I am so thankful for that rage to be gone. Anger eats the human soul alive. I am so thankful for the peace of my Saviour.
Onward.
My iPhone Air First Impressions
It’s thin.
Some More iPhone Air First Impressions
(That’s the best I can do when it comes to pulling off a joke in written form.)
In all reality, though, the iPhone Air’s thinness is really the only impression I can write about. Everything about this iPhone revolves around its thinness — each trade-off, each design choice, each surprise.
The iPhone Air is the most magical device I’ve ever held, taking the crown from my beloved 12.9-inch M4 iPad Pro. It’s the first time I’ve shown off an iPhone in a decade. It’s the first iPhone I’ve had people approach me to see when they’ve caught a glimpse from afar. The iPhone Air is truly something to behold.
You can sort of see Apple’s design decision-making in real time with the iPhone Air. You know the story already — all the computer chips and spare parts are crammed into that camera plateau at the top of the back of the iPhone, and the rest of the phone is a battery. To cram everything into that plateau is an evident display of trade-offs — in almost every corner of this phone, you’re going to find a compromise or shortcoming we’ve become spoiled with in the larger iPhones Pro. The question is whether the sum of those parts — those compromises — tips the balance away from the iPhone Air’s unbelievably future-feeling chassis.
Here’s the list of compromises I’ve discovered so far.
The singular speaker vs. stereo speakers in past iPhones Pro. There’s no doubt this speaker is quieter than what we’re used to with the iPhones Pro. My test: I watch ASMR videos most nights to fall asleep. I tend to watch with volume somewhere between the first and second step on the iPhones Pro. My first night with the iPhone Air had me all the way up to the third step.
On the flip side, I think I’ve listened to a song on the external speakers twice in the past five years. And listening to ASMR videos to fall asleep is far easier with this thinner, lighter iPhone — it hurts slightly less when I doze off and the iPhone smashes me in the nose.
The slower charging speeds. (Has anyone else noticed Apple’s devices shipping with half or even less than half of a full battery on their devices in 2025? My iPhone Air opened up with 45% battery. These new AirPods Pro 3 came in with 29% battery in the buds and 60% on the case. The MagSafe iPhone Air Battery came in with 15% battery. I don’t ever remember this being the case in the past.) But because of that half battery when the iPhone Air was unboxed, and because of all the battery life fear out there, I immediately put the Air on the MagSafe Charger. I can’t give specific metrics, but I couldn’t get from 50% battery to 80% battery in the 2 hours it sat on the charger. Now that’s quite the compromise.
On the other hand, once I achieved that first full charge, I seldom require a fast charge to top up my phone. It slow-charges all night long. It sits on a slow charger during the day at the office. And I have chargers all over the house at home. Plus, I now have the MagSafe Battery Pack, so charging on the go is possible, too.
The singular camera system. The last time I used an iPhone with only one camera was the iPhone 6s — I remember that dual-camera on the back of the iPhone 7 Plus fondly. And the last time I didn’t purchase the highest-end iPhone Pro was the iPhone 12 mini, which jettisoned the telephoto camera in favour of the ultra-wide camera. I lamented how much I missed that telephoto camera at the time.
Admittedly, I haven’t run into a situation yet where I was looking for either the ultra-wide or the telephoto camera on the iPhone Air. Overall, I can’t really comment on this compromise. I was at Ikea yesterday where I shot a photo of the new Ikea pegboards and I had to take a few steps back to fit the entire display into my iPhone Air viewfinder. In the past, I would have just used the ultra-wide camera to capture everything I wanted to remember. Otherwise, I don’t have enough time to determine whether I’m going to miss those two extra cameras.
Here’s what I do know:
- I shoot over 90% of my iPhone photos with the main camera.
- I’ve always preferred the main camera portrait photo field of view over the telephoto portrait photo field of view.
- I only share photos I’ve shot on my Leica Q2. I haven’t shared an iPhone photo on a social network in years.
That list of behaviours and habits bodes pretty well for the iPhone Air’s singular camera system. But I’ll report back more in the future.
Quick tip: You can unlock a 28 mm field of view (my favourite field of view) by going into the Camera settings and toggling the additional field of view in the Fusion Camera menu.
Battery life in an extremely thin iPhone. Yesterday, we travelled into Winnipeg to pick up a few things. I used the day to test out the iPhone Air’s presumably terrible battery. I charged to 100% before we left. I didn’t require navigation, but I did set up wireless CarPlay to the truck, so the girls could listen to some music about 3/4 of the way through the 1.5-hour drive. We went for lunch and made a stop at Ikea before heading to the Apple Store. When I got to the Apple Store, I picked up all the fun goodies, pulled out my phone to pay the wonderful Apple sales-lady, and my iPhone said 95%.
Yes, 95%.
And, to boot, Winnipeg is the only area I would regularly traverse that has 5G service, which usually eats my iPhone battery alive.
Did I cheat somewhere? Why was it still at 95%?
By the time we got home about 3 hours later, the Air was down to 71%. I played a bit more on the phone in those 3 hours than I did on the way into the city.
But this is so far from being a worry for me at this point. As I mentioned above, I have chargers throughout my daily life, from the office, to home, and even in the truck whenever we go on a family trip. I now have the MagSafe iPhone Air Battery Pack as a backup (which has some compromises of its own). Battery life is for sure the least of the compromises I’m worried about at this point.
Slow USB-2 transfer speeds. I have not yet tested these speeds, as I don’t regularly plug anything into my iPhone for transferring. I do, however, occasionally transfer photos from my Leica Q2 SD card to the iPhone for quick edits in Lightroom Mobile. Leica Q2 raw photos come in around 75 MB per photo, meaning I’m sure to feel those USB-2 speeds at some point. When that time happens, I’ll let you know how it goes.
Sitting flat on the table. Is this a joke? A single, long camera plateau spells an opportunity to improve how this iPhone sits on the table. Instead, it’s worse than ever. I don’t know how Apple pulled it off, but if tilt-gate were a thing, iPhone Air would be its headline performer.
Now, it’s time for some impressive impressions.
This is easily the most elegantly and beautifully designed iPhone, and it feels the same. I would bet most of us remember the first time we picked up and experienced an iPhone. For me, it was the iPhone 3G (the original iPhone didn’t come to Canada, if I recall correctly). It was my cousin’s iPhone and my eyeballs popped out of my head — it was a floating magic screen that could summon the internet, email, and messages in just a couple swipes.
That’s almost how I felt when I first held the iPhone Air. And it’s basically how I feel when I hold the iPhone Air now. I’m not sure if I’ll ever get used to how wonderful this iPhone feels to hold and use. It’s so thin. It’s so light. It’s so incredibly sturdy that the thinness and lightness still feels consequential in your hands. It’s the first breath of awe-struck innovation out of Cupertino’s iPhone department in half a decade.
I absolutely love how this iPhone feels to use.
Somehow, Apple stuck in the best display into this iPhone. Again, I don’t know how they did it. It feels impossible. A device this thin and light with this kind of display. It literally leaves me with a smirk and a small shake of the head.
Hyperbole aside, this iPhone Air display is stunning. Where I thought the iPad Pro’s display was the best I’d ever seen, somehow this looks better. Colours are vivid. Animations are smooth. The display is super bright (though I haven’t been able to test in outdoor conditions due to the dreary conditions). Where I’ve noticed the bright display is, on the opposite end of the brightness spectrum, while in bed — the iPhone 16 Pro always required a sliver of screen brightness to see everything, whereas the iPhone Air requires less than half the display brightness step to see everything in the same light. If this is helps with battery life at these lower brightness levels, I’m unsure.
And though I haven’t had a chance to put the display to the ultimate test, I have done minor photo editing in Adobe Lightroom on the iPhone Air. A display this good for Lightroom is, again, a dream come true. I was prepared to eliminate all my photography from the iPhone if I went with the iPhone Air. Instead, it’s a pleasure to pull out the Air and edit a few photos casually on the couch.
The front-facing camera is the upgrade I never knew I wanted. It truly hadn’t occurred to me how annoying it is to have to shoot wide selfie photos in landscape mode to capture everyone in the scene. Things became easier for this type of shot with Camera Control, but wow, the hand acrobatics we had to pull to make this happen.
Without clueing in, I now hope those acrobatics are a thing of the past. A square front-facing camera sensor and Center Stage functionality take selfie photos to a new level of impact. It’s freaky. I have only tested with a few quick selfie photos, and I let out an audible “Woah” for the first one.
Score one for not knowing this would be such a solid feature upgrade.
Dual capture video. More than a few of the early reviews questioned the utility of dual capture video (wherein the front-facing camera captures a video inset on top of the video captured by the back-facing camera). And, more than a few times, I think these folks revealed they don’t have children.
Dual capture video is built for parents. It’s the perfect video feature for sleepless fathers and mothers. With a dual capture video, we parents get to capture our emotion while also capturing our children pull off something new. You want to know how valuable that emotional capture will be when our children view those videos later as adults? Oh, what I would do to have video of myself playing baseball growing up and to have a small little view into the emotion my mom and dad showed while watching my games. Or to have a redo of my little one’s first steps with mom and dad’s impressions caught on video.
I wish I could make dual capture the default video mode when I launch the video camera.
This is my first run with an eSim. What a delightful experience. Just a quick anecdote here. But what an experience. The transfer from my now-old iPhone 16 Pro to the iPhone Air was the smoothest transition I’ve ever experienced. Tap, tap, tap, and the Air was lined up with my phone number and taking in cellular data.
And then discovering the ability to switch between primary and secondary/tertiary phone lines in the Cellular menu — genius.
I’ve always used physical sims. But never again. This experience was far and away better than I expected it to be.
Overall, my first impressions could be put thusly:
The iPhone Air feels as though it was made for me. When I go car shopping, I never entertain the idea of buying a Ford F-150 Raptor. It’s far too expensive. It’s way too powerful. And it has a ton of features I would never use.
I’m also not interested in the baseline F-150 either — I want a 4-door crew cab, leather seats, auto 4-wheel drive, and a heated steering wheel. Which is why I’ve driven F-150 Lariat trucks for the last few years.
Though I didn’t know this was what I wanted in my iPhone, right now at least, it’s how I feel.
There are a gazillion features packed into those iPhones Pro, which I never touch. Apple highlights the iPhone Pro’s gaming capacity — I haven’t played a video game on the iPhone in probably 10 years. Apple highlights ProRes video capture with the iPhones Pro — I don’t know what “ProRes” means, let alone shoot video in it. Apple’s evident marketing on the front of their Polo Park store told the story: “PRO” was pasted to one glass wall in massive, bold font, and “Air” was pasted to the other glass wall in the thinnest font. One, maximal. The other, minimal.
For once, we actually have choice in our iPhones. I didn’t know I wanted a choice.
The Second Cup
Mario Tennis Fever
Every time Nintendo announces one of these kinds of games, my childhood just rushes over me. I can’t wait for February to come. Maybe I’ll be done Donkey Kong Bananza by then. (Not because it’s a bad game; it’s such an amazing game. But it’s long!)
Meta Ray-Ban Display hands-on: best smart glasses I’ve ever tried
What a fascinating way to interact with the glasses. I can’t wait to see this come to full fruition.
The Womb Analogy
I’m sure there will be a bunch of “Yeah, buts…” to this sort of analogy. Once you get thinking about it, though, it’s pretty spot on.
Daylish - Day Planner with Calendar, Alarms and Timers for iOS 26
I appreciate the combination of scheduling, alarms, timers, and pre-trip planning to ensure you can go about your day. I’ve tried and tried daily planning habits, and I usually get caught up in how long they take. When I sit down at my desk in the morning, the work questions start to fly. I don’t feel I have time to implement a 15-minute planning ritual. I could attempt to get to work earlier to ensure I can plan my day, but I try to be a dad in the morning before school, too.
Happy Sunday. I hope you have a wonderful week ahead.
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