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I just switched to an iPhone, what should I do to make the most of this change?
Basically the title. I've been an Android user since 2012, but have have an iPad and a Macbook that I really like, especially how well they work together. My pixel 5 was on its way out, so I finally took the plunge and bought an iPhone 15 Pro earlier this week. I'm still getting everything set up, and I'm particularly excited to play with the different focus modes and shortcuts. I'm curious what apps and features should I be using to make the most of this switch?
Tips on various settings:
I've thought this was just an SMS bug for years... Thank you so much, as someone who regularly chooses to ignore my phone buzzing for a bit the double notifications would always make me think someone was urgently trying to get a hold of me. I've disabled it.
This is a relatively recent improvement in functionality, but it does much better at automatically switching autocorrect / autocomplete to the language being typed even if the keyboard is left in English (or the other language, I only use two daily so only have two installed).
Relatedly, press and hold on a letter pops up a list of “similar” letters. Press and hold on i to select ı, n for ñ, s for ß, etc.
Auto-brightness seems like one of the least transparent things on my iPhone. Sometimes it indeed takes a while to go back to being auto, and other times it's practically right away. But I don't want to have to go all the way into settings every time either. Quite annoying!
Swiping sideways on the little bar on the screen switches apps. You don't need to do the "pull slightly up and then to the side" -thing.
You can also swipe sideways on Safari profiles and the address bar.
Fuck me that is so useful, ive had this phone for 2 years now...
In the small-but-neat category: The Shortcut app really breathes life into an otherwise underwhelming Alarm (Clock) app. The Clock app itself has almost no options for Alarm customization, but Shortcuts that trigger via Automations for Alarm/Snooze/Stop lets you do pretty much whatever.
Shortcuts are one of my favorite tools to customize iPhone behavior. Stock settings are often very limited.
100% correct.
I have one that plays a sound if the phone is disconnected from power during charging (and if still below a certain percentage threshold), so you don’t accidentally leave it expecting to be charging while it’s not plugged in anymore.
For some extra privacy (I have this on Photos, Notes, Files), you can also add a shortcut “when any of 3 apps are opened” to lock the screen, and set it to run automatically without asking and without notification. But it might be too annoying for other use cases (e.g. if you never/rarely hand other people your phone while it’s unlocked).
Edit: I don’t know if it’s even still the default, but for OP, also definitely know that you can turn off the keyboard sounds when typing. Those used to annoy me so much in trains/buses, but these days most people (myself included) have them disabled, thankfully.
My charging shortcut is a lot less practical. Siri just says "ooooh, that tickles" every time I plug it in.
I had mine with a moan for a day... which was hilarious until it wasn't :)
For the privacy shortcut, I assume that’s “when these apps are opened and your face is not detected” or something?
If not, how do you personally open the apps?
Good question, quick thinking! The apps already get “foregrounded”, meaning there is no infinite loop after the first device lock. I can unlock by the typical means (Touch/Face ID, passcode) and then I’m “in” the respective app, and it remains unlocked until I go back to the home screen/another app.
But in general, no, it doesn’t “secretly” check if I’m the one viewing. It just defaults to locking the device. The shortcut consists of one action fittingly titled “Lock Screen.”
I've had a bit of a play with them on my iPad but I'm keen to see what use I can make of shortcuts on my phone, which is really my primary computing device these days.
Shortcuts also supports API so you can actually integrate it with hundreds of apps ala zapier.
When I first switched, I often denied app permission requests for random things. I’d recommend not doing that. It can severely hamper the usability and as a new user, it’s not always obvious how/where to re-enable the permission.
If you use a calculator often, I think this app Solves is much better that the stock app, and it works on iPad (the iPad doesn’t have a calculator lmao).
I highly encourage setting up and using Apple Pay/wallet. It works great, simplifies online purchasing, and is so handy for travel and concert tickets.
You can make backups of your phone to your computer if you don’t want to use iCloud. I’m pretty sure the messages about iCloud storage are buggy and annoying on purpose.
The iPhone has a really handy measurement tool that uses the lidar sensors on the back. Excellent in a pinch.
You can press and hold the space bar to move the cursor like a trackpad. Trying to tap is futile.
If you have family members, you can setup family sharing in iCloud to share subscriptions for Apple Apps and some other apps from the App Store.
I held out a really long time on giving in to iCloud and using the stock apps. I eventually accepted my wife was never going to back up her phone to her computer. A couple bucks a month to get space on iCloud will save us the headache of a restoration or transfer of data, which is worth it. Sharing notes between phones is really nice, too.
You can set really granular reminders now, such as when you leave or arrive at a location, or when you are texting someone. Siri is pretty helpful in this regard.
In the US, Apple Maps is comically better at driving directions than google maps. I tried to hold out for a long time as some contrarian, but inevitably gave in (no regrets).
The SwiftKey keyboard is a good replacement if you want a persistent number row back.
This point is pretty important. To expand on that point, here's specifics on what permissions to expect:
And you can always review all these categories in Settings -> Privacy & Security, or Settings -> Notifications.
This is pretty close to how I use permissions too. For notifications specifically, apps on iOS seem much better behaved than apps on android, although my android experience is a few years old now. I almost always give apps the benefit of the doubt. If they want notification permissions, I will give it to them. If they abuse it by sending me shit I don’t want, they get once chance for me to go into the app and see if I can turn off just the annoying notifications. If not, they loose notification permissions entirely. (FYI you can long press a notification and revoke the permission directly from the notification area.)
So far this has worked pretty well. The one exception is Venmo, because I really do what payment and request notifications. Every few months they send me a notification for the Venmo credit card, which I don’t want, and will never want. Also their bitcoin. Venmo, if you are listening, I want a barebones app that lets me send and request money. If you do anything besides that, you should remove it because it’s shit. I have tried to switch to Apple Cash transfers wherever possible.
Contacts I find to be a tricky one. I default to disabling it until an app has proven that it both
It’s especially iffy with social media apps. If someone I know just allows uploading of their contacts, Facebook, Snapchat and the like will get to know things about me again, despite me possibly not wanting that to happen.
I really feel like that’s one that Apple should take steps to limit, like they’ve done with location tracking and sharing pictures. Giving granular access where the app can only have A) a single contact number and first name, or B) all names and numbers and email addresses, or C) full access that it currently grants.
I have a friend who works at Google Maps, and my husband was one of the people who first worked on Apple Maps before it was released. Google maps is great if you follow their directions exactly, but apple maps is way better at recalculating your route to make sure you're going in the best direction.
The trouble for me with Google Maps is that the instructions are really ambiguous, particularly for complicated interchanges. For traffic and reviews it’s very handy, but it’s slipped as a navigational tool for me. I find Apple’s heads-up directions for lane choice and roadway features make it much easier to use. In CarPlay, the UI is also just easier to follow these days. Their 3D graphics of buildings, greenery, and flyover ramps is remarkable.
Apple also integrates real-time transit information in my city, which is great for tracking buses and whatnot since a lot of “scheduled” buses just don’t come. Much better to use the GPS tracking in Maps.
Yeah agreed, especially about when there are two intersections near each other. I’ll often hear something like “in 500m keep left” when they actually only mean “don’t take the exiting/merging lane” but I swing all the way over to the left lane… and then 100m later it tells me to take the next exit and I’m already two lanes over and no chance I’ll make it!
Never really tried it before but just did and it was off by 5% to 10% so definitely not fully reliable
Will you expand on this? What is a granular reminder for?
Interesting to hear the measurements were off by that much. They have typically been within 1-2% for me, at least for length. I think the angles are probably less sensitive.
Regarding reminders, they can be for something like “remind me when I get to Alice’s house to get her coffee mug from the back seat.” Or, “remind me when I get in the car to grab my meds from my suitcase,” which I used in the case of a very early trip and wasn’t sure I’d remember to grab them from my bag before I started driving. Because the Reminders app also supports subtasks, you could even set up a series of things you needed to check off at a particular location. I have started to use reminders faithfully as a way to make sure I do what I said I’d do and avoid silly mistakes.
Which model of iPhone was this on? I've found it to be relatively accurate on the 14 Pro ("standard" models do not have lidar), but I only ever use it when I need a rough approximation ("how much cat6 do I need to go around the perimeter of this room"). Definitely stick with a measuring tape for anything requiring precision.
iPhone 13. I just measured some poster frames is all - phone said 21 and 36 cm but checking after and it was 20 and 41. Maybe it was because of the angle being too steep though
ah yeah if it’s a non-pro model it’s just using the cameras and is much less accurate
I have actually thought that about Apple Maps for quite some time now. It’s kind of ironic however, as my friends still using Google maps laugh at Apple Maps based navigation, because of the various issues reported around the time it was first released. Such as telling those tourists to drive into a lake in Australia (which, is like totally on them LMAO)
Another vote for Apple maps here from a long time Google maps user who held that same superiority for years based on an outdated understanding of Apple maps.
It gives better more detailed directions, looks better, integrates into the Apple ecosystem better, and isn't always directly selling my location data like Google maps is.
This is a pretty wide question. You can take a look at Apple's own Tips app on iOS and read past topics on the subject but if you can clue us in as to what your workflow was like on Android and what do you generally expect from your mobile device, I think you'd get better tailored answers.
This is a fair point. I know a lot about how I use my phone already, and I guess I'm mainly just curious to know what other people find valuable!
In that case, I'll mention my use cases for Focus and Shortcuts. Admittedly, I don't use the Focus feature all that much. I use the sleep focus, which sets itself up automatically when you let the Health.app know when you go to bed and what your sleep goal is, and work focus, which drastically changes how my phone behaves. Siri knows who I am1, where I live, and work via the Contacts.app, so on the rare occasion that I'm at the office, my phone turns off all the notifications except for the apps I use for work and hide the icons of the rest from the springboard. This helps me focus and protect my privacy by hiding my personal apps, in cases where if I happen to hand my phone over to a colleague.
Unlike the Focus feature, I use Shortcuts quite a bit. They're pretty specific to my workflow, but I have some general ones like searches for different things. You can think of it like DuckDuckGo's bangs. Say I want to search for a film (which is a separate shortcut), I tell Siri, "Film Search", she then asks me what film I'm looking for and then where to look for it, whether it be IMDB, Letterboxd, or Rotten Tomatoes. I can do it all with my voice, or by typing it in. I have different versions of it for word look up, network testing (pinging, IP check etc.) and some other similar stuff. They're pretty trivial to set up, once you understand how Shortcuts work. I also have another one that's been made somewhat redundant by a relatively recent iOS change. When it runs (which you can specify within the app), it changes the wallpaper from a specified folder. It's rather smart, as it keeps a tab on which wallpaper was selected from before, so you never get the two of the same wallpaper again until you run out of wallpapers.
Shortcuts is pretty powerful, people do all sorts of crazy stuff despite the app fighting against them. (It has lots of papercuts Apple don't seem to bother to fix.) Federico Vittici of MacStories and Matthew Cassinelli are masters of the app. Cassinelli himself created (or worked for, I can't recall) Workflow, which was bought by Apple and then integrated into iOS as Shortcuts. They have a library of free shortcuts on their respective2 websites. I'm sure you can find something you can integrate into your workflow.
Generally speaking, Apple has a very diverse group of indie developers. More than Apple's own walled garden, that's what's been making me buy iPhones whenever I need a new phone. If you've not been following them as an Android user (and why would you, they seldom develop for cross platform), try to find out about some of them. They're mostly on Mastodon nowadays. What separates iOS from Android is the care developers show for their apps and I'm sure you will run into some well crafted apps made by people who care about them3. Slowly you will find out about who's important, and how you can find out new apps worth checking out4.
The last thing I'd say is, if you're all in on Apple's walled garden, try to use their products first to see if you like it, be it the Notes, Calendar, Mail apps, etc. Apple priorities their own apps by using APIs only available to them, and sometimes that makes their products a lot more useful than a competing third party product, even if they don't have feature parity.
I hope that was helpful, have fun using your new phone!
1: You can let Siri know who you are by following these steps.
2: MacStories' library, Cassinelli's library.
3: I'm sure Android side has developers with a similar mindset, but Apple has always had an edge with passionate indie developers, regardless of their product's overall market share.
4: I'm not providing you with any links as I don't know your workflow. That being said, if you're gonna follow just a single person, make sure you follow Steve Troughton-Smith, as he often shares what other indie developers are cooking and he's a respected member of that community.
Since you have an entire shortcut for looking up movies, I would recommend checking out the app Callsheet. I used to use IMDb for looking up movie actors and finding what other movies they are in. Callsheet is exactly that, but not a terrible experience unlike IMDb app and website.
I am aware of Callsheet, but thank you for the recommendation!
I prefer not use it because it's just another subscription on top of 50 other subscriptions I feel like I'm paying for every month. Frankly, I also don't consider it to be a subscription worthy app, given the APIs it's using are provided for free by TMDB, so the app, unless I'm mistaken, has no recurring costs or any overhead. Its developer also has a tendency to abandon his apps (as much as he seems like a nice guy, who I've been listening to for years on ATP).
I do not want to change my workflow a couple of iOS versions later just when I get accustomed to it because the developer abandoned it. (They obviously have every right to do so.) The aforementioned shortcut (TMDB is also included in it, which has a clean web interface) works pretty well for me when I need it and has little to no risk to break after an iOS update.
I have the same experience with Callsheet. It's good but not $1/month good.
I mean it's chump change in the grand scheme of things. I certainly don't shy away from subscribing to apps that's useful to me. My avoidance of it stems more from philosophical differences on how different type of software should be monetized. I've also been burnt by picking new and shiny thing over the proven and more efficient method in the past, so I'm a lot more wary of that lately. Sort of like the Lindy effect, but for software if you will. If CallSheet releases a feature I think might be useful, I wouldn't mind paying for an amount significantly more than what it currently costs, but in its current stage, it's just a wrapper for TMDB whose work rely entirely on volunteers.
Bookmarking this post. Do post a detailed write-up if possible about how you're finding the new system compared to Android after a week or so.
One reason for sticking to Android is that I know a little bit of Java/Kotlin programming and Android lets me build APKs on my laptop and then install directly on my phone. AFAIK, Apple ecosystem doesn't provide this facility, you need a proper paid subscription or developer license in order to do so much as deploy a custom built app.
That isn’t quite true, but it’s close. Apple lets you deploy a custom app to your phone with a standard free developer account from Xcode. But you have to deploy it again every 7 days. There are apps like altstore that automate this process, but it’s definitely more hassle than on android.
Since you have a Mac and iPad, you might already do this, but just in case:
Go all in on Apple’s way of doing things. Apple contacts, Apple mail app, safari, etc. Switch everything you can to an Apple version of the service. Most of the time, apples services are really good, especially when you have multiple Apple devices. Use these services for a while, and after you find out what you don’t like about them (they are not perfect) you may consider switching back to your previous services.
Also, consider the Apple Watch. I won’t try and hard sell you on it, but here is my experience. When I first switched from android to iOS, I felt like on the phone, they were roughly equal. Each had advantages and disadvantages. iOS has some crazy stupid decisions that have somehow stuck around (like not having empty spots on the Home Screen). So the switch for me was a sidegrade. The reason I switched is because the Apple Watch was light years ahead of anything the android world had to offer. I now run almost every day with wireless earbuds and a watch listening to audiobooks. Being able to do that is amazing.
I've been tempted to try and do a full switch, but the opportunity cost of changing back is high enough that my own self-hosted options for most services remain perfectly sufficient. That said the integration that I have used is unreal!
Oh I very much am! But I've spent the better part of $yearsSinceSmartWatchesBecameAThing convinced that I don't need a smaller computer on my wrist. The main thing that's tempting me is the health tracking, but I vehemently dislike the idea of having to charge a watch every day.
For me, the smart watch idea has always seemed like a way to get even more invasive notifications to now to be attached to your body.
I absolutely detest notifications. They're a good idea; let you become aware of time sensitive, useful information all in one place. The problem is that they've been abused so horribly by sleezy marketing types over the years that the sound of a notification bell or my phone vibrating now just annoys me.
I generally want to know when a friend or family member texts me. What I don't want to know is when a new Amazon prime show comes out, when something is on sale, a random news article that some app somehow decided I really need to see right now, or worst of all that "we haven't heard from you in a while, is there anything we can do to help?".
I find that unless they're carefully managed, notifications from my phone just absolutely drive me up the wall; and they do need to be carefully managed. An app that I may want one kind of rare notifications from will frequently update, either reset all of its notification preferences, or add new notification types that I'm automatically opted in for.
Worst of all are apps that have a "mute notifications for one month" feature as the default.
One of the few points of solace I have is that if I don't want to be bothered, I just throw my phone in a drawer and forget about it. I have an analog watch that I can use to see what time it is, and I can happily go live my life without this stupid thing in my pocket trying to extract every bit of my attention from me.
The main draw of a smart watch seems to be more, and better access to those notifications, which for the life of me I can't understand why anyone would want. It's pretty close to my personal idea of hell.
Have had a smart watch since the original Pebble. Very much agree with your notification stance.
Everything is disabled by default, basically only thing I let go to the watch is text messages (because smart) and calendar reminders (because watch).
I've also become mildly addicted to fitness tracking, but that's traveling to the phone and doesn't cause more stuff to go to the watch.
Charging the watch is really not as bad as it seems. I throw mine on the charger when showering and by the time I’m ready it’s generally charged up all the way
If you’re seriously considering an Apple Watch, I’d also highly encourage you to look at the Garmin Venu 3. It’s their newer smartwatch-oriented offering. I just did a lot of researching smartwatches from both camps, and ultimately prioritized the health/fitness tracking over notifications and integration. The Garmin does get notifications, (on android you can actually text back, on iPhone it's just the notification), and has a button for siri, and integrates directly into Apple Health. But, the battery life is like 6-9 days. I realized I'd lose my mind charging a watch every day. It's been useful enough to keep me from checking my phone for a notification then getting shucked in, since I just check my watch (but the phone needs to be roughly nearby). Using siri works fairly well, and I can just set timers on the watch instead of my phone. And, there's a lot of overlap between the feature sets. I think Apple has an uneven heartbeat detection algorithm that Garmin doesn't, but garmin has pulse ox, temperature/cycle tracking, sleep tracking, and an ECG app. I'm also a big fan of Garmin's little "morning report" on how I slept and the weather. Really great to get that summary without needing to check my phone.
I'm in the exact same boat! I've been an android user since 2010 or so and I bought an iPhone 15 just last week, coming from a Pixel 6. I desperately needed something smaller and I kind of wanted to switch up ecosystems a bit and try something new. There were also some annoyances with the Pixel platform (mostly from it being a cheaper phone, like it just didn't have as good of a camera, for example), so it was time to switch.
The biggest thing for me was setting up sleep focus (and customizing the do not disturb focus). What it does (or at least what I have it set up to do) is that you can set a schedule where your phone turns off notifications at a certain time at night and then automatically sets an alarm for the morning. You can also have certain contacts or apps bypass the notification blocker. So I have it set up to stop notifications at 11:45pm (bed time for me is usually 12:30-01:00 am) and set an alarm for 8:10am every day and allow texts and calls from my family in case of emergency. You can also have it change your phone's background or other options, too, to help you wind down.
As far as a "do not disturb" focus, I found that when the "ring/silent" switch on the side is set to ring, you cannot have it set to vibrate only, it always has an audible ringer (though you can make it quiet, but I was hoping I could use the switch as a toggle for vibrate and silent, and you kind of can't). So a DND focus was the closest thing I could find to a silent mode on android, so that's why I set that one up (I only ever use vibrate or silent, I hate using ringers).
In the same vein, I recommend getting a magsafe charger on a stand that lets you charge your phone landscape, like this one https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0B9X1RY8G because "StandBy" is fantastic. I have it set so it shows a clock and the weather when I tap the phone while it's charging at night, so if I get up before my alarm and want to check the time, I can use it as basically an alarm clock without having to pick it up and then see notifications and all that.
I'm sure you'll hit the same learning curve annoyances as me, but I've been using my phone heavily for about 10 days to get used to it now and I'm very satisfied. The keyboard still feels not quite right to me and I keep forgetting I have to go to the phone's setting menu to change app settings instead of through apps themselves, but I'll get used to it. I definitely found some great features so far that will keep me satisfied with this phone for at least four years. I wanted to get something that I would be okay using for more than 2 years to stop being wasteful and I just couldn't stick it out on my pixel 6 for another 2 years.
I wish you good luck. I was a lifelong android user that didn't dislike the platform, just decided to try something new because I wanted a small phone, and ended up with an iPhone 12 mini 3 years ago.
That phone ended up just frustrating the hell out of me. I've realized after many, many attempts with their products, that I'm just not built for the apple product mindset. Their products are all very, very opinionated, and getting them to do anything outside of that opinion is always just so frustrating.
They make some very good software, and probably the best consumer grade computing hardware in the world, but if you want to use any of it in a way that they have not explicitly deemed the apple way of doing things, then you're going to just be fighting with the phone.
My advice would just be to not bother. If you don't like the way certain things work on the phone, just deal with it. Spending time and energy trying to hack around and fix it isn't going to be worth it. If you don't like too many of those things, you might be like me, and not be an apple person.
Personally I got a Pixel 8 pro a few months ago, and coming back to Android has made me really appreciate the platform a lot more. I hope you end up enjoying the phone though!
I very much feel that. I’ve had a Mac for work for a couple years now and a personal iPad for a year, so I knew coming into this that I’d have to do things apple’s way. For most things, that’s fine, but it can be a bit annoying when it comes to small things (like how I just will not have a keyboard with a comma on the main layout now).
Same. Tried the new iPhone because of USB C, two months later got a Pixel 8 and breathed a sigh of relief
I can’t speak for this particular model you pointed out but I would recommend the official MagSafe charger. I had two MagSafe-compatible chargers that were extremely disappointing. I went into an Apple Store on a whim and when my husband asked what they were I pulled out my phone to demonstrate and they turned out to be about three times stronger than the one I was using before. It gave a much better experience.
Step 1 is always “disable notifications for everything.” Eventually you can selectively enable notifications for specific applications that you want to be nagged about (I only have calendar appointments and messages enabled).
Other than that I’m mostly okay with the out-of-the-box experience. I’ve come around on getting rid of most apps from my Home Screen that I don’t access frequently. And I’ve started using the widgets to control things instead of apps which has been nice.
For example, I have 3 main apps that play audio: music, Overcast (podcasting), and audible (audiobooks). So instead of having 3 apps to launch, I have the widgets for each of them in a widget stack and swipe to whichever one I want to use. It’s handier because they have the playback controls right on the widget so I can control it without messing with the app.
Shortcuts are also immensely helpful. I have a tea-timer one where when I hit the button it gives me a single-select menu to pick the type of tea (green, puer, black, white) and sets the appropriate timer for it. You can do lots of little automations like that.
This is a great suggestion, thanks! I was thinking of making a shortcut for going into each app proper, but this way is much better :D
There are all kinds of super powers hidden in the System Settings > Accessibility page.
My favorite is Touch > Back Tap.
I have mine set to Double Tap = App Switching and Triple Tap = undo typing.
Why not just pull up and sideways on the bottom to switch apps?
As someone who has stuck with the much lower powered iPhone SE because of the home button still being the way to switch apps, I can tell you that if the swipe gesture fails once in 50 attempts that’s still too often for my tastes. I want the phone to just do what I want without thinking about it, and every swipe-from-the-edge-in-some-way gesture that Apple has introduced over the years has some failure state that’s infuriating, so anything to avoid that is a positive in my books!
Open “Calendar,” tap “Today,” then rotate phone to landscape to have a week (depends on screen size) view of your calendar.
If you got your hands dirty but you got Siri enabled go with: 'turn on voice control', 'go home screen' then 'show grid' (or 'numbers') and then tap number xz to navigate around
one thing I really like is back tap! Settings > Accessibility > Touch > Back Tap (right at the bottom)
These wallpapers 'hide' the dock.
For me, I have separate wallpapers for light and dark mode -- using a combination of shortcuts and focus.
If you want to make ringtones, get an m4a and trim it down to 30s or less then rename it to m4b --- drag it over to your phone in finder and you're set. You can look up instrumental versions of your favorite songs, save it with yt-dlp, then trim it down with ffmpeg, for instance.
One last thing, in that same Touch screen, there's 'Reachability'. You swipe down about 1cm at the bottom of the screen and it pulls the whole screen down so you can easily hit a back button or whatever without changing your grip.
To mash up your suggestions: I've had a problem with reachability since I got on a home-button-less model…a lot of apps' bottom row of buttons react whenever I try to do it. So I bound 2x back tap to reachability, and my now thumb no longer has to carefully stretch to the bottom then all the way back to the top!
double tap for reachability is really smart. I love the back tap stuff so much. It shouldn't be hidden away like that.
If you have an interest in retro gaming and enjoy emulating games old Nintendo games, I highly recommend the new Delta emulator for iOS. Apple recently allowed developers to release emulator apps on the App Store.
It is extremely polished and I have yet to find a game that runs poorly on it.
The biggest upside is your iPhone and Mac will work seamlessly together.
If my phone is looking at a site, there is an icon to pull the same site on the mac.
I can enter long text on the mac, copy it off the mac, and long press to paste it on the iPhone.
I can enter a contact on my Mac, and it appears on the iPhone.
I can manage messages or facetime calls on either iPhone or Mac.
Basically, when I have my Mac, the iPhone stays in my pocket.
If you have a small child: triple click the side button for a setting called guided access where you can make the buttons and touch screen not do anything or just limit the phone to a single app (like a video or game).
Guided access can also be added as a tile in the Control Center if you don’t want to accidentally activate it.