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 iPhone 11 & 11 Pro - Review

2019-11-06 · Tech review, setup or bag tour · Ali · recording, 19:19 · watch on YouTube

Topic: Tools, apps and tech (also: Money and investing) · mode: Review and recommendation · tags: Sponsor segment present, Family

Ali calls the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro great phones that few people need: he weighs an upgrade by novel versus incremental purchases, the three Cs (consume, create, connect) and the two Fs (the pleasure of the flesh and of the flex), and finds the iPhone 11 more worth it than the 11 Pro.

What is said

The parts of the video and what is said in each (★ — how much it matters to the video).

00:00:00 — Upfront conclusion: great phones, but do we ever need a new one?

  • ★★★ Ali calls the iPhone 11 and the iPhone 11 Pro great phones in every way: anyone who needs a new phone and is happy to spend 700 pounds will be very happy with them. — 00:00:00
  • ★★★ Ali argues that unless your current phone is so slow that it literally causes you pain, you probably do not need a new phone, you just want one. — 00:00:29 · iPhone

00:00:55 — Novel versus incremental upgrades

  • ★★ Ali puts the question as whether the iPhone 11 is a good use of 700 pounds or $700, or $1,000 for the iPhone 11 Pro. — 00:00:55
  • ★★ Ali's theory is that money spent intentionally should ideally serve wider life goals; for him these are some combination of happiness, meaning and value added to the rest of the world. — 00:00:55
  • ★★★ Ali divides upgrades into two types: novel purchases, which take you from zero to one in a domain (a first phone, Kindle or laptop), and incremental ones, such as a slightly better phone. — 00:01:25 · the three Cs of tech, Kindle
  • ★★ Looking back, Ali says all the purchases that added significant value to his life were novel ones, such as his first phone, laptop and Kindle; none of his later phones, laptops or Kindles added such a gulf of value. — 00:01:54 · Kindle
  • ★ Ali notes that 700 pounds might be better spent on an experience than an item, or donated to a charity such as the Against Malaria Foundation to save a life. (hedged) — 00:02:24
  • ★★★ Before upgrading an iPhone 8 to an iPhone 11, Ali suggests asking whether a novel purchase, such as a Kindle or a camera like the Sony A6000, would add more value: he thinks such purchases add disproportionately more. — 00:02:53 · Kindle, Sony A6000

00:03:25 — The three Cs: consume, create, connect

  • ★★★ Ali sees tech as a means to an end, as Immanuel Kant would have said, and judges a device by the three Cs: how it helps him create, consume and connect. — 00:03:25 · the three Cs of tech
  • ★★ Since his iPhone 6S Ali has not noticed his phone being painfully slow, so he would not upgrade to the iPhone 11 just for consuming content; the 11 Pro's screen is only very slightly nicer side by side. — 00:04:14
  • ★★★ On creating, Ali says the new iPhones have objectively nicer cameras, but it is genuinely hard to tell a photo taken with an iPhone 8 from one taken with the iPhone 11 Pro. — 00:05:41
  • ★ Ali says the iPhone 11 has the standard and ultra wide lenses, and the iPhone 11 Pro has the standard, ultra wide and telephoto lenses. — 00:05:41
  • ★★ Ali is not a huge fan of the iPhone 11 Pro's telephoto lens: he thinks it has very few real uses and is a bit too expensive. — 00:05:41
  • ★★ Ali finds the ultra wide lens on both models genuinely nice, and says someone really into photography, without a proper camera, who wants the phone as their main camera might upgrade to the iPhone 11 for it. — 00:06:11
  • ★★ On connecting, Ali sees nothing really new in the iPhone 11 and 11 Pro: their processors are faster, but phones are no longer slow at things like sending WhatsApp messages. — 00:06:40 · WhatsApp
  • ★★ Ali concludes that upgrading from an iPhone 6, 7 or 8 gives very little tangible improvement in the three Cs of consuming, creating and connecting. — 00:07:09 · the three Cs of tech

00:07:35 — The pleasure of the flesh: measure and hedonic adaptation

  • ★★ Ali's first of two less tangible reasons to upgrade, the two Fs, is the pleasure of the flesh: the delight of using a nicely designed luxury product like an iPhone. — 00:07:37
  • ★★ Ali says he and his brother Taimur came up with the concept of measure on their weekly podcast, and that it was kind of his brother's idea. — 00:08:07 · Taimur Abdaal, Not Overthinking

  • ★★★ Ali explains measure: when judging experiences we overweight their magnitude, such as an eight-out-of-ten meal, and focus less on their frequency, which his brother calls the measure. — 00:08:07 · Taimur Abdaal

    “the frequency of the experience or as my brother likes to call it the measure”

  • ★★ Ali and his brother use measure to justify spending a lot on a kitchen bin, used several times a day: making each use even five or ten per cent better adds a lot of value over the product's life. — 00:09:01 · Taimur Abdaal

  • ★★ By the idea of measure, Ali says, an iPhone used hundreds of times a day is a very high-measure item, so even a one per cent improvement might be worth upgrading for. (hedged) — 00:09:30 · iPhone
  • ★★ Against measure Ali sets hedonic adaptation: we adapt to any new item until it becomes the new baseline, so a nicer phone soon becomes normal and its delights go unnoticed. — 00:09:30
  • ★★★ Since his iPhone 6 Ali has noticed no increase in delight with each new iPhone: phones have been so good over the last decade that he finds no improvement in user experience. — 00:10:38 · iPhone

00:10:53 — The pleasure of the flex: status, external and internal

  • ★★ The second F, the pleasure of the flex: Ali says humans are essentially status-seeking monkeys, wired to seek their peers' approval, and phones are often seen as a status symbol. — 00:11:03
  • ★★ Ali says Apple does a fantastic job of showcasing the triple camera in its iPhone 11 ads, making it the obvious status symbol to look out for. — 00:11:03 · Apple
  • ★★ Ali thinks Android marketing is objectively less good than Apple's; among Android users the specs serve as status symbols. — 00:11:32 · Apple
  • ★★ Ali suggests William Irvine's thought experiment from a book he calls really good: ask whether you would still want the item if you were the last person on earth; if not, status plays a part. — 00:12:01
  • ★★ Ali says buying for status need not be about others: buying a new iPhone can also confer status on yourself, as part of your own sense of identity. — 00:13:00 · iPhone
  • ★★ At 12 Ali saved his Eid and birthday money to buy a Dell Axim (as heard) PDA, to signal to himself that he was a techie, entrepreneurial, geeky sort of guy. — 00:13:00
  • ★★ Ali says everyone plays status games, from phone cameras to cars, job titles and TikTok followers, and using an iPhone as a status symbol is a pretty harmless desire for status. — 00:13:58 · iPhone

  • ★★★ Ali does not call wanting the iPhone 11 or 11 Pro for status necessarily bad, but says that if status is the real reason to upgrade, it is worth being honest with yourself about it. — 00:14:28

    “if that is the real reason why we wanna upgrade our phones, then it's worth being honest with ourselves”

00:14:57 — Intentionality and the CuriosityStream sponsor read

  • ★★ Ali says his analysis of buying an iPhone 11 is really about intentionality: being more intentional about how we live our lives. — 00:14:57
  • ★★ Ali says a CuriosityStream documentary on the science of meditation made him appreciate its power as never before, and he is now trying to apply it, being more mindful about how he rests rather than being switched on and productive at all times. — 00:15:26 · CuriosityStream
  • ★★ Ali keeps his iPhone across the room at night, with only his Kindle on the bedside table, and says his sleep has improved hugely since he stopped using his phone just before bed. — 00:15:55 · Kindle, iPhone

00:16:43 — Overall conclusion: the iPhone 11 over the 11 Pro, and how to decide

  • ★★★ Ali calls the iPhone 11 definitely more worth it than the iPhone 11 Pro, which costs 300 pounds more for a very slightly nicer screen, a slightly better battery and a telephoto lens he almost never uses. — 00:16:43
  • ★★ Ali kind of regrets getting the iPhone 11 Pro and wishes he had got the iPhone 11. — 00:16:43
  • ★★★ If your current phone is terrible, Ali says, upgrade to the iPhone 11 if you can afford 700 pounds; if not, many much cheaper phones give basically the same experience. — 00:16:43
  • ★★★ Ali's order for deciding an incremental phone upgrade: first look for a better, novel purchase such as a camera or a Kindle; then ask whether it improves creating, consuming or connecting; failing that, ask whether the reason is delight or status. — 00:17:17 · the three Cs of tech, Kindle, iPhone
  • ★★★ Ali says that if he were not a tech YouTuber with a vested interest in having the latest iPhone every year, he probably would not have upgraded from his iPhone 7. (hedged) — 00:18:15
  • ★★ Using his old iPhone 7 Plus, now his mum's, Ali found it still really good, noticed no extra delight in his iPhone 11 Pro Max, and appreciated the physical home button over Face ID. — 00:18:15 · Ali Abdaal's mother

Threads in this video

Where the stories that moved here went next

Mentioned

Central: iPhone 11 · iPhone 11 Pro · measure · the three Cs of tech · the two Fs

Also: People: Ali Abdaal's mother · Immanuel Kant · Taimur Abdaal · William Irvine

Projects: Not Overthinking

Works: A Guide to the Good Life

Organizations: Against Malaria Foundation · Apple · CuriosityStream

Concepts: hedonic adaptation

Products: Android · Dell Axim · Face ID · iPhone · iPhone 11 Pro Max · iPhone 6 · iPhone 6S · iPhone 7 · iPhone 7 Plus · iPhone 8 · Kindle · Sony A6000 · WhatsApp

Also centred on iPhone 11: iPhone 11 vs iPhone 7/8/X/XR/XS - Real world camera comparison

Also centred on iPhone 11 Pro: iPhone 11 vs iPhone 7/8/X/XR/XS - Real world camera comparison

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