【Tahong】

Booooooooring.

That's how almost everyone felt about the iPhone 7 before Apple even announced it. Before anyone even got to see it in person. And most importantly,Tahong before anyone even got to use it for any extended period of time.

SEE ALSO: Portrait mode on the iPhone 7 Plus will take your Instagrams to the next level

And yet, there I was, up until 3 a.m., Apple Store app all set up on my iPhone and iPad, ready to go, as soon as Apple's store went back online on pre-order day.

I placed my order for a Jet Black iPhone 7 with 256GB of storage and went back to sleep. My iPhone 7 arrived on launch day.

It's been a little over two months since I got the phone, cried over the death of the headphone jack and learned to accept #donglelife.

Without retreading most of what Lance wrote in his iPhone 7 review, here's my two-month take on the iPhone 7, now that I've actually used it for an extended period of time day in and day out.

1. Jet Black is gorgeous even if it scratches

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Knowing how "boring" the iPhone 7 would be, I nearly pooped myself when Apple announced Black (matte) and Jet Black (glossy) colorways. Which did I want? Did I want to be Batman or Darth Vader?

The answer seemed easy enough: Black, because it wouldn't scratch as easily. Jet Black would be prone to "micro-abrasions." Still, I didn't care. I wanted that liquid black goodness.

Within days of carrying my Jet Black iPhone 7 (I'm a no case kind of guy), the device, indeed, started accumulating fine scratches on the back. It bothered me for about a week until it eventually just stopped bugging me.

Jet Black feels so f*cking good.

I stopped caring because the Jet Black feels so f*cking good. Even though the finish is shiny, it feels grippier and denser than the regular ol' anodized aluminum. Plus, it hides the antenna bands at the top and bottom even better.

Sure, the back is a fingerprint magnet, but it's no less than the iPhone 4/4S's glass back. Say whatever you want, but Jet Black > Black > rose gold > silver > gold.

2. Killing the headphone jack really does suck

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Yeah, I'm living with it, and the included Lightning EarPods and headphone jack dongle in the box help with the switch, but it doesn't really make up for the loss of a perfectly fine port that didn't really need replacing.

I'm sympathetic to Apple that it removed the headphone jack as an act of courage in order to make room for things like a larger battery, larger Taptic Engine, stereo speakers and water resistance. These are all things that push the iPhone forward, but killing the headphone jack breaks compatibility with pretty much all of my other devices.

Unless you've got wireless headphones and devices, it's still a pain in the butt to carry two pairs of wired earbuds (Lightning EarPods for my iPhone 7 and regular EarPods for my Mac, Nintendo 3DS, etc.) like I do.

There's no hope for me. I lost two headphone jack dongles this week alone. Within 4 days. One of them was a lighting and 3.5mm dongle

— Raymond Wong 💾📼🍕 (@raywongy) October 16, 2016

And yes, I keep misplacing and losing all the headphone jack dongles. Anyone know where I can buy these things in bulk? I'll take a crate of them, please.

3. I miss listening to music and charging at the same time

It's one thing to lose the headphone jack, but it's another when you you really need both.

Case in point: In late September, I was flying back from Squaw Valley and wanted to transcribe the 50-minute interview I had recorded on my iPhone 7. Coincidentally, my iPhone was also low on power. I had to either charge my iPhone or listen to the audio recording; I couldn't do both since I didn't have any wireless headphones.

I ended up charging my iPhone, and as a workaround I AirDropped the audio recording to my MacBook Air. But then another problem presented itself: My Lightning EarPods didn't work with my MacBook Air and the dongle that it came with was 3.5mm-headphone-jack-to-Lightning, not the other way around.

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Uh oh. Just have my lightning EarPods today... pic.twitter.com/z3U3uAlHSi

— Raymond Wong 💾📼🍕 (@raywongy) September 21, 2016

Luckily, I had a spare pair of regularEarPods in my backpack. But if I didn't, it would have been a real inconvenience.

It wasn't a one-off situation, either. Several times my iPhone 7 was low on power during a long commute or flight and I couldn't listen and charge.

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

My only salvation has been this tiny $10 aluminum adapter called the iLDOCK I've been testing that gives you both a Lightning port for charging and a standard headphone jack for listening to music. There are alternatives like the this one and this one, but the quality seems pretty mediocre from the Amazon ratings. Belkin also sells Lightning Audio+ Charge RockStar, but it's $40 and I don't like how the cable hangs out. And sorry, Phil Schiller, but Apple's $39 dock isn't a viable mobile solution.

4. The haptic home button feels amazing

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Apple replaced the clickable home button/Touch ID sensor with one that's not clickable. Instead, the Taptic Engine creates a vibration to simulate the feeling of a button press when you apply force to it.

The design is two-fold: 1) to reduce the number of mechanical parts and 2) further seal the iPhone 7 from water.

Some people said the new "fake" home button didn't feel right because the entire bottom half of the phone was vibrating. I, however, love it and thinks it feels amazing — better than the previous button. In fact, when I felt my friend's old Home button on her iPhone 6, the button felt weird and squishy. Funny how the brain adjusts itself to a new "normal."

5. Super smooth video

Goodbye summer!

A video posted by raymond wong (@sourlemons) on Sep 21, 2016 at 6:34pm PDT

The iPhone 7 camera is still my favorite camera. The Google Pixel takes excellent photos — better than the iPhone in most situations — but it lags behind in color accuracy. I like the iPhone 7's realistic colors more — it's just my preference.

For video, I also prefer the iPhone 7's 4K video recording. The above video posted to Instagram following the iPhone 7's launch was taken handheld on an express train. I've taken video of this exact shot many, many times.

With my iPhone 6, I'd have pressed it on the train's glass window and held it really steady, cramping my arms in the process, to get a smooth and steady video.

With my iPhone 7, the optical image stabilization smoothed out most of the shakiness from my hands without me needing to filth up my phone by pressing it against the window.

It's not perfect, but I've got more clean footage where it looks like I had used an expensive steadicam, and compared to iPhones without OIS, it's night and day.

6. Stereo sound is loud and clear

Truthfully, I didn't listen to a lot of music on my iPhone out loud prior to owning the iPhone 7. The mono speaker on my iPhone 6 wasn't terrible, but it wasn't really booming loud.

The stereo speaker setup (one front-facing speaker in the earpiece and one on the bottom), however, are very blast-worthy.

Audio is louder and clearer and I find myself turning up the volume to catch up on YouTube videos at home instead of pulling out my iPad or turning on my MacBook Pro. Fast-paced games like the shoot 'em up game Bullet Hell Monday make my hands sweat even more with the sound turned all the way up.

I'm still respectful of not turning the volume up in public, of course (I'm not a #techdouchebag), but color me impressed on the real, noticeable sound improvements. It's truly a gift for your ears.

7. 3D Touch is more than just a "right-click" ... if you commit

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

Introduced on the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, 3D Touch didn't amount to much more than a "Meh, so it's a right-click?"

That's what I thought, until I forcedmyself to start using it. For the first month of owning my iPhone 7, I completely forgot about 3D Touch. It didn't seem all that useful; if it was, I'd have intuitively used it.

It wasn't until someone asked me how I liked 3D Touch and I gave the usual "Ehh... I don't really use it" reply that I gave it a second, more committed chance. The first two weeks were tough. No matter how much I tried to force my brain to hard adjust, I didn't feel like 3D Touch was really useful.

Then a funny thing happened around the third week of my learning curve: 3D Touch just became a part of my usage pattern. I can't pinpoint when it happened, but when I stopped thinkingabout using 3D Touch and how hard I needed to press into the screen, it was natural.

The learning curve was longer than I expected — and I almost gave up on 3D Touch halfway through — but now I get it. It also helps that most of the apps I use on a daily basis support 3D Touch now.

8. It's rain-proof

Original image has been replaced. Credit: Mashable

I've never dropped my iPhone in the toilet so I can't speak for how life-changing it would be to fish one out if I did. But I do know one thing: The iPhone 7's water resistance is game-changing.

I've used my iPhone 7 in the rain several times and never once worried about it breaking. Could my texts and Snapchats wait until I'm indoors? Yes, but I don't have to anymore.

I know other phones have had water-resistance for ages, but it's a first on the iPhone and, man, is it great. Heck, take it in the shower, if you want.

Boring, but still excellent

When I look at all the Mac fans getting all upset about the new MacBook Pros, it makes me realize that boring is fine when it's applied to a polished product. Because what they want — the old design with all their ports, the latest Intel processors and 32GB of RAM and lower prices, not thinner and lighter or a Touch Bar — is basically boring.

The iPhone turns 10 next year. It's a mature device. Maybe the bezels shrink and maybe the home button gets integrated into the screen. Who knows? One thing I do know: The iPhone's not morphing into a triangle and it's not getting thicker. That's not Apple's approach to progress.

So yeah, the iPhone 7 is boring, and you know what? Unless next year's iPhone has a big redesign, it'll be boring too, and it'll still be the best iPhone and one of the best — if not the best phone — out there.

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Topics Apple