So, my work iPhone (5s) lasted me for nearly 3 years before tragedy struck last week and it died (there may or may not have been water involved – I can neither confirm nor deny). It first started going through a boot loop, which is did for half an hour or so, and then it stayed on and appeared pretty normal. I noticed the battery ran down a bit faster than usual (I attributed that to stress), so I charged it up and (since I was on call, which seems to be a perpetual state for me these days) took it to bed with a 100% charge. When I awoke, it was dead. Big time. Wouldn’t charge, wouldn’t turn on. Just dead.

I only used the stupid thing for checking work e-mail and getting work-replated phone calls, plus turnin on the Hotspot feature occasionally to connect my phone on those rare occasions when I’m away from WiFi or my home computer via a USB wireless adapter when my Internet is out (which I’ve actually never needed to do, other than testing). I often just forward calls to my real phone (which, had I known the damn thing would die on me, I’d have done when I had the chance). About the only thing I liked about it was the size – very small, so as long as I didn’t need to do anything that required a decent size screen, it was easy to shove into my pocket (which maybe wasn’t a great idea in the end, considering how easily it actually fell out said pocket).

So I wasn’t especially interested in getting a new work phone, but, hey, whattya gonna do? My company doesn’t support Android devices, so I put in my order for a new iPhone 7 plus at about 5:30 AM on Thursday, my boss approved it by 5:45, and I had it in my hot little hands before noon on Friday (came from Texas, of all places). I spent an hour or so setting it up and replacing all the shittly Apple apps with the equivalent Google ones (to the extent possible), and was back in business to be on call over the weekend.

I didn’t really have any complaints (you can’t argue with the fact that it’s a nice looking phone, and it’s got a nice heft to it when you’re holding it), other than the display isn’t really as good for reading as my 3-year old Nexus 6. The iPhone is a bit smaller (5.5″ vs 6″) with a lower resolution (1080 x 1920 IPS vs. 1140 x 2560 AMOLED) – that’s 401 pixels per inch vs. 493.

Frankly, I never thought those kind of specs would make much of a difference outside of marketing materials, but I have a habit of bringing the phone to bed at night (to read – get your minds out of the gutter) and since I was on call and needed to have the stupid work phone near me, I figured I give it a try. The difference was immediately noticeable. The iPhone display is much “softer” – the text just looks kind of off. It’s not horrible, mind you, but I much prefer my aging Nexus 6. I did watch a little video on it, and that looks good. Sound is OK (I mean, it’s a phone, so it’s not gonna bowl you over – though my old HTC One M8 did have pretty impressive sound). I think the front-firing speakers are preferable, but it’s fine.

But then I ran into another annoyance. I have a stupid boring conference call that I’m forced to sit in on every Monday morning. I’ve got a rather nice pair of headphones that I use for this purpose, so that I can mostly sit there and zone out unless I hear something that requires me to say something. So this Monday I went to dial in and, guess what, I forgot that Apple in its infinite wisdom took away the 3.5mm headphone jack. Sure, they provide a shitty pair of whit earbuds with an adapter, but I didn’t bring that shit with me (and, from what I’ve read since, that adapter doesn’t work with third-party inline microphones so if you’re on a call, you’re stuck using their crappy ones because, you know, Apple).

Fortunately I always carry my trusty Nexus 6 with me (unlike Hillary, I can deal with carrying two phones – which I guess means I could get elected President. I mean, I’m not as smart as she is, but clearly being smart is no longer a requirement) and I was able to carry on using that.

The one advantage the iPhone has, though (aside from the fingerprint reader, which I do like and which wasn’t available on the Nexus 6 way back in 2014), is that it’s IP 67 water resistant. If past experience has taught me anything, it’s taught me the importance of water resistance.