The iPhone 12 Pro Max is so close to being the perfect smartphone. Shame Apple had to make one big and sucky mistake.
The iPhone 12 Pro Max is almost the perfect smartphone, but not quite.
Barcroft Media via Getty Images
For the last decade or so, I have been an almost totally content Android flagship smartphone user. My particular poison being a love affair with the Samsung plus-size models. I did not, however, take the obvious upgrade path from my Galaxy Note 10+ 5G to the Note 20+. Instead, I jumped operating system ship entirely and bought an iPhone 12 Pro Max. Another smartphone that leaves me almost totally content.
What’s so bad about Android phones?
Let’s start with my reason for not sticking with Samsung. Two words: fractured ecosystem. The hardware itself is gorgeous, no doubting that. The operating system also in almost every way. Without wishing to enter any kind of mobile OS battlefield, there isn’t much that Android does that I found wanting. Apart from updates.
Both the significant next-generation Android updates which are slower to arrive on a Samsung than London buses on a Sunday afternoon and more importantly the security updates. Theoretically, these are distributed every month that’s not the same as being on the receiving end. As a security guy, this is quite important to me and should be to you.
I can just about live with waiting many months for the latest UI, but I don’t appreciate being kept waiting weeks for something that fixes critical security threats to my device and data.
Yet as someone who did, indeed, wait weeks for the security update to finally push out to my device, I was one of the lucky ones. My delay was only two or three weeks as a rule of thumb, far too long to leave an attack window open but better than not getting an update at all.
Which is where many users find themselves courtesy of a combination of manufacturer, handset and network provider. The Android ecosystem is fatally fractured; it always has been. As someone who lives and breathes the security business, I couldn’t put up with it any longer.
Apple, with the walled-garden approach to such things, does not suffer from this problem. When an update is available, it’s available to all. Well, almost all; obviously those with truly ancient devices could likely find themselves left out.
A magnetic attraction to the iPhone 12 Pro Max
But it was more than just the security updates that attracted me right now to be an iPhone user once more. Privacy matters also held a magnetic attraction, especially with the release of iOS 14: that, and the hardware. I’m used to big phones; the Galaxy Note 10+ is bigger (though not heavier) than the iPhone 12 Pro Max I ended up buying. I like a big screen, and I’m not a one-handed user nor a thumb-typist. I also like the superior camera, and yes I know such things are open to debate, with the night mode being a particular pull.
There’s one thing that I don’t like about the iPhone 12 series though, and it prevents this from being what should have been my perfect smartphone.
And, no surprise to anyone, it’s security-related.
This is where it gets a bit weird: the feature that both sucks and excels is Face ID. When it works, it works better than any Android handset facial recognition I’ve experienced. Better in terms of speed of recognition, integration across most everything I do and better in the recognition itself.
When it doesn’t work, my iPhone 12 Pro Max really sucks. In fact, it sucks elephants through a straw.
One thing about the iPhone 12 sucks elephants through a straw
The problem being, of course, it doesn’t work when I’m wearing a protective face mask.
And, because I care about others enough not to want to risk spreading a killer disease, that means all the time when I’m not at home.
Would it have been too much to ask that this already large and expensive device could have found the room, both physically and financially, for a fingerprint sensor? I really don’t think so.
Apple has a perfectly good one that uses the power button, after all. The combination of Touch ID and Face ID would have made this the perfect smartphone, for me, without any doubt.
The lack of Touch ID may well lead to me upgrading in 12 rather than 24 months, although hopefully, the Covid-19 vaccine may mean that the face mask issue isn’t so pressing by then.
In the meantime though, I don’t regret leaving my Galaxy Note behind at all. Apart from when I’m in a queue and having to fumble around entering my rather long passcode to unlock a flagship Apple device…
