I also preferred last year's colors to this year's. Apple has tweaked the black and white, but not so much as I can really notice the difference. The new PRODUCT RED seems, I don't know, a little rosier if anything. It's fine. The yellow is paler, and while I don't like the shade as much, I like that the bands match way better than they did last year.
The purple and the green… I'm just not a fan. Again, personal opinion, but I've waited a long, long time for a purple iPhone and what I got was more like lavender creme than grape explosion. Likewise the green, which is more mild mint than zesty lime. They're just… Miami Vice, but, you know, not even the Archer version.
If pastels are the trend and one of these will once again be Pantone color of the year, like coral was last, so be it. I'll be out back yelling at the swatch clouds. But, to me, they just lack a little punch, a little spice. Things Samsung and Huawei have been doing really, really well lately.
And, at the bottom, is the good old, increasingly old at this point, Lightning port. I'll talk about USB-C in the iPhone 11 Pro review but, for the very much mainstream iPhone 11, I think the very much mainstream Lightning port is still fine. Maybe not ideal, as more and more USB-C becomes available. But fine, same as it is on the mainstream iPads.
There are just so many people with so many existing cables and accessories that even Apple, famous for ditching floppies and jacks, before anyone is really comfortable with the idea, is wisely waiting just a little bit longer. Who knows, maybe even for something just a lot better?
Water resistance is blessedly better. The rating, which really only mean what the manufacturers attest they mean, have gone from the XR's IP67 to the 11's new IP68, and from 30 minutes at up to one meter to 30 minutes at up to two meters. That's the same as last year's iPhone XS if not quite as good as this years' iPhone 11 Pro.
In other words, getting your iPhone 11 wet from either sudden rain or spilled coffee, or, sure, the occasional base dive into the toilet bowl is even less of a problem now than it was before. But, water resistance can and will degrade, so it's still no replacement for a proper underwater case if you want to take your iPhone 11 swimming, diving, or bowl hopping on a regular basis.
The camera bump, which is milled out of the rear glass but matted up to contrast with the shiny finish of the phone, now encompasses not just both cameras like every iPhone has since the 7 Plus did, but the flash and rear mic as well. And it's… hidee-aciously ugly. Weirdly uglier to my eyes than the triple camera version on the back of the iPhone 11 Pro.
Real world cameras, especially real world multi camera systems are just as ugly, they've just always looked that way. The iPhone has it and I'm not used to it at all. I keep thinking it's the owl Animoji, staring at me, head all twisted to the side, just staring...
And yes, I know Apple gets knocked all the time for being too much form over function but the truth is, whenever Apple does function over form, they get KTFO'd way harder for it.
The two stage bump does better hide how far the cameras actually project out from the back, but I just liked the X-style better. At least for the double camera system. Your bump mileage might vary.
Both the contrast and the size do make it look like Apple is intent on owning the look. Leaning into it even. And hard. But, they kinda have to. Apple still wants good optics and good optics still want good z-index.
At least until computational finally kicks the crap out of physics.
