Impressions of the iPhone 11 Pro

My experiences going without a Home button.

For the most part I’ve gotten used to a phone without a Home button. I still have to get used to pressing the Side button and the Volume Up button to turn it off though. I’ve finally realized that you can just touch anywhere on the screen to wake it into the lock screen. Face ID works for the most part, but I’ve found that it doesn’t work very well when the phone is on the tripod in Landscape mode. I have to unlock it before I put it on the tripod. Swiping up to get to the app switcher is problematic also. It seems like I have to swipe really far up to even get to it.

The camera of course is really impressing me about the iPhone 11 Pro. Taking pictures of the stars and subjects in near darkness without a flash have been amazing. The digital zoom, while there are some artifacts in the picture when viewing it on the computer, looks a lot better than it used to. I’ve noticed that with Night Mode, the subject has to be still or noticeable blur will occur. It also helps to have a tripod for the best shots, but it is still possible to get pretty good results hand held. Even day photos are blowing me away. The camera is the best part of the new iPhone.

One thing that I will talk more about in another post is the ability to read NFC (near field communication) stickers and trigger Shortcuts. I have one in my car that I just touch my iPhone to and it starts playing all my music.

Overall, I’m really enjoying the new phone.