IPhone

The iPhone is a smartphone designed by Apple Computer Company. The iPhone line runs Apple's iOS mobile operating system. The first generation iPhone was released on June 29, 2007. The user interface is built around the device's multi-touch screen, including a virtual keyboard. The iPhone has Wi-Fi and can connect to cellular networks.

The iPhone Upgrade Program is a 24-month program designed for consumers to be able to get the latest iPhone every year, without paying the whole price up-front. The program consists of "low monthly payments", where consumers will gradually pay for the iPhone they have over a 24-month period, with an opportunity to switch (upgrade) to the new iPhone after 12 months of payment have passed. Once 12 months have passed, consumers can trade their current iPhone with a new one, and the payments are transferred from the old device to the new device, and the program "restarts" with a new 24-month period.

Pitfalls and Complaints

no physical audio jack

With its two latest iPhones, the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, Apple has removed the 3.5mm audio jack that lets you connect a pair of standard headphones.

camera app picture orientation

Since iOS 5 the iPhone sometimes takes pictures upside down, see below in the support area on this page.

small low res screen

Apple is behind in screen resolution by about two years. Apple didn't release a HD screen until 2014 which is two years after Android already had 1080p resolution.

battery replacement

The iPhone battery is sealed inside the phone and not consumer replaceable. It is a major technical process to make a battery change if the battery goes bad, and they do go bad. Battery life is not very good on the iPhone as another minus. The battery is not even 2000 mAh. Also, you need a special Apple charger to recharge the phone.

silent mode

The silent mode is a poorly designed physical toggle switch located on the side of the phone. It is easily toggled so that the phone is unintentionally in silent mode. A healthcare worker posted on the Apple community, "As a healthcare professional I rely on my iphone 12 pro for emergency calls. At least once a week the phone silent mode switch is knocked into silent mode - even with a good quality phone case."

Some users have resorted to applying a very small drop of glue to the switch so that it can not be set to silent mode. The silent mode result can be achieved if necessary though volume control.

Support

Photos Are Upside Down

Since iOS5 you notice that iPhone photos and videos are upside down when you save them to your computer. They are upside down when you email them to other people.

To reproduce: when you hold your camera with the volume buttons pointing up, your photos will be upside down when viewed with a Microsoft Windows computer.

Culprit: Apple's improper use of EXIF tags. Apple used a shortcut and skipped writing the correct orientation to EXIF so that their camera app would be quicker.

Resolution: Take your iPhone photos and videos with the volume buttons pointing down. You can also use a smarter app that is made to write the correct orientation to EXIF within the image file. It is reported that an app called Camera+ for the iPhone will take care of this for you.

Other info: It is said that Windows image views often don't recognize the image metadata. What Apple calls Metadata is the EXIF info within the image. The image can be upside down and have EXIF data that says "this image is upside down so flip it to view it" and then modern image viewing software is supposed to read this EXIF metadata and know to flip the image when displaying it. Well, that is kind of like putting all the photographs upside down in the family photo album, then on the cover post a note to hold the album upside down when viewing the photographs! How dumb is that? Why not just save the damn image in the correct orientation and skip the meta data bs? Well newer Windows image views including those bundled with Windows 8 and above will read the EXIF meta data and flip images that are upside down. Still, what a bunch of extra nonsense for a problem that could be solved by Apple just saving the image correctly.

Privacy Risk

Camera Pictures Automatically Upload to iCloud

If you've just discovered all your pictures and videos are being uploaded to iCloud, you need to delete them from the cloud BEFORE you disable iCloud Photos.

• reference: I can't delete photos in iCloud.com > Photos after I disabled iCloud Photo Library

If you discover you have 1000s (or a lot) of photos and/or videos and you try to delete them all at once on iCloud.com, you will find there is a limit on the number that can be selected and deleted at one time.

• reference: How to select all photos in iCloud and the error: icloud.com: delete too many items selected
• deleting files from iCloud.com also removes them from your device.
• Apple gives iCloud storage PRIORITY over your device storage

It is confirmed that at least 500 photos can be selected and deleted at once using iCloud.com web interface. This is not a hard limit as more may be possible, however 1000+ is not possible.

Once you've reclaimed your privacy by removing everything you wish to have deleted from iCloud.com storage, you can disable iCloud Storage for photos on your iPhone device.

• How to turn off iCloud Photos

This was tested on the iPhone 6 OS version 12

1. Go to Settings, scroll to the top and tap where you see your name with the description: "Name, Apple ID, iCloud, iTunes & App Store" and tap in this location.
2. Tap in the second area of boxes on "iCloud" which should be just above "iTunes & App Store"
3. Near the top tap on the toggle to toggle off "iCloud Photos"
4. You will be promoted to "Remove from iPhone" which is asanine, however, Apple gives the cloud priority, therefore you will have to tap "Remove from iPhone" or the storage will remain active.

After doing this you will probably find that your photos from the past remain on the phone storage even though the verbiage of the disable process makes it sound as though they will be removed.