New Old Phone Etc
THE PHONE
We were cutting it close: CEGEP was less than a month away and Héloïse's current device had all but outlived its usefulness. It was time for the traditional rotation: buy a new iPhone, kid gets my older iPhone. But I couldn't bring myself to pull the trigger: not only did the prospect of sending Apple money not excite me—it filled me with dread. The political context, for one; a guilt associated with greasing the wheels of a machine I'm increasingly at odds with; and a lingering bad taste in my mouth, left over from so many of the company's recent decisions. Case in point:
For me, the damage is already done. More than done. So, instead of the iPhone 17e I’d stubbornly kept in my Apple "bag" for the last month or so, I bought an iPhone 15 Pro.
It's a refurbished unit, in “pristine” condition (the Titanium variant), and I made the purchase from our carrier instead of the Apple Store. It's silly, but bypassing Apple, buying an older model... it feels like an act of rebellion, freeing in ways I never anticipated. Like I just made a point— no to planned obsolescence and no to the technology treadmill. Like I landed a punch. Plus, I now have a better camera, brighter screen, the Dynamic Island, ProMotion, a telephoto lens (+ normal + wide), and an always-on display. I can also shoot RAW and ProRes if I need/want to. Not too bad for a "sidegrade".
The 15 Pro makes the cut for this year's iOS 27, along with all those Gemini-powered Apple Intelligence promises: new Siri, better than it was before, better... stronger... faster. Well, let's see how that turns out. As for the phone possibly being left out in the near future: so be it. I'll be fine. I was already fine with my iPhone 14. Besides, we used to live perfectly well with objects and devices that couldn't evolve at all, so why did we start requiring change at all costs? As if blinding ourselves, fuite en avant, reaching for some imaginary nowhere destination, falsely trusting that keeping up won't leave us behind. Guess what? We'll all get left behind. No amount of gear, wealth, or technology, will ever alter that course.
Older chip and processor? Bah.
My iPhone has a telephoto lens again: I'm happy as a clam :)
P.S I got a case for it this time. Hence the green you see in those pictures…
The etc…
1 - Music
Remember the story I wrote about finding a $1 CD player at a yard sale? Not only am I still smitten, but I recently purchased my first new CD in decades: PJ Harvey's Inside The Old Year Dying. It sounds bloody fantastic, for one, but what a thrill it was to unwrap an object I hadn't considered in such a long time. I worry more and more about our kids never owning music, and I'm happy to see a certain backlash brewing amongst younger generations. Even the standalone music player appears to be making a comeback. Whatever medium we own—records, cassettes, CDs or digital files—I think it matters a lot more than we once thought it did. My friend Robert sent me an article last week titled LAZINESS OF A PLAYLIST. It's an editorial from the Polish website High Fidelity that ties into this topic. Well, tangentially anyway. (1)
2-Cinema
I watched Richard Linklater's Nouvelle Vague over the weekend and loved it. It's a fictionalized account of the making of Godard's À bout de souffle (Breathless) and also an homage: it's filmed in black and white; in a 4:3 aspect ratio; features music from the era; even the cinematography is a love letter to the period. Oh and it’s in French too.
I was particularly touched by a certain insouciance that permeates the story, despite the strongly held desire by Godard to break everything and reinvent a new language. Which he did, completely: nothing was ever the same after Breathless. The best thing I can say about the movie is that I watched the original again, and enjoyed it more.
Take care folks.
The post is currently available on the homepage but I couldn’t find a direct link to it. Odd, but it's a fairly old site design. It’s editorial No 267, in case it disappears.
