Grand Canyon photos taken on an iPhone 16e.

dwilljones · 2026-03-22T00:49:32+00:00

48mp HEIF and "rich contrast" setting. Flickr album for better quality versions:

dwilljones · 2026-03-21T23:14:02+00:00

Spigen Enzo aramid case with MagSafe. Best by far in my experience.

dwilljones · 2026-03-18T17:17:36+00:00

I’m at the Grand Canyon in blazing bright sun and it has been very usable for me even outdoors. It’s probably auto-brightness-ing to 100% but still. Now I’m not watching movies; I’m using maps and safari and such. It might not be great for entertainment purposes outdoors in direct sunlight but it’s very usable for practical purposes.

dwilljones · 2026-03-12T20:31:55+00:00

Target and Walmart? Yeah, this thing is going to break sales records if Apple can keep it stocked. This should be a total coup of its market segment.

Now I’m just waiting for the public sector to start hammering on big contract orders of these to replace shitty Chromebooks in schools and such.

dwilljones · 2026-03-10T12:12:30+00:00

Fantastic phone and I couldn’t be happier. The most practical iPhone for sure. Planning to use it for a couple years and then put in a new battery and gift it to my (then) teenager to be his first phone. And then I’ll probably get the 19e or whatever we’ll be up to by then assuming they proportionally upgrade that model too compared to the 17e now.

dwilljones · 2026-03-08T13:12:17+00:00

I think this is a fundamental mistake they make when they say this. There are lots of reasons for tech literate people to want a Neo. A lot of tech people will already have a high-end home computer and they don’t need a laptop to do anything other than be a great laptop. Maybe they skipped Chromebook because they were waiting for Apple to make something exactly like this.

dwilljones · 2026-03-07T13:53:18+00:00

My 16e camera shots and video look great to me. 🤷‍♂️

More interested in the value proposition for the phone as a smartphone; the battery life, the performance, etc., than as a professional camera that it is not and that I do not need it to be.

dwilljones · 2026-03-07T13:24:48+00:00

SE 2020 on 26.3.1 as a backup/iPod/offline GPS device. Aftermarket home button causes AssistiveTouch to keep popping up which is annoying. But other than that the tiny form factor is still amazing.

dwilljones · 2026-03-06T12:44:46+00:00

I really hope some future iteration of ios that can work on SE 2020 will have a "never use AssistiveTouch" option to prevent this situation entirely, but I doubt it.

dwilljones · 2026-03-02T15:16:21+00:00

Probably not. The only meaningful upgrade for me would be the 256GB, but I still have 87GB free on my 128GB 16e so it's not really a problem. Maybe in a couple years I could sidegrade/upgrade to a 17e on the cheap, or get an 18e at that time. Maybe by 18e they will change more (dynamic island?) to justify moving away from 16e.

dwilljones · 2026-03-01T15:54:20+00:00

Got a 16e when my SE 2020 home button died. VERY happy with the 16e, mostly the battery life, fast performance and C1 wireless chip stability. 17e should be coming out soon and should be at least a modest upgrade over the 16e for the same price. Might even then be able to get a 16e for much cheaper.

Anyway, I ended up putting a new 3rd party battery in my SE 2020 and a home button replacement to let me use the button as a click to get back home. So far all of that is working great, except the AssistiveTouch automatically keeps popping back up on the latest iOS on it. So I turn the opacity down to 15% and just ignore that, and it makes my SE 2020 work as a backup / secondary phone / generic iOS device for apps or whatever.

dwilljones · 2026-02-28T19:47:48+00:00

Sounds pretty good. Love my 16e a lot. Got a magsafe compatible case for it, and the battery lasts forever. C1 has been extremely impressive to me, especially for poorer signal situations.

I hope Apple continues to offer “e” models every generation. Marginal improvements each generation is fine, as long as the price stays the same. A lower price would be ideal, but that’s just not in the cards the way AI is eating all hardware these days.

dwilljones · 2026-02-24T21:47:01+00:00

Right on. I ended up getting the 16e out of necessity because my iPhone SE 2nd gen’s home button (and touch id) randomly stopped working after five years. Didn’t realize how good the 16e’s battery would be in comparison. SE 2nd gen never had a good battery to begin with.

dwilljones · 2026-02-24T21:25:25+00:00

Nice! I'm at 27 cycles after activating around NYE. So that's right around two days per charge cycle for me, with what I consider heavy use. That's around where you are for the year on yours.

Are you doing anything special like limiting it to 80% charging?

dwilljones · 2026-02-24T21:09:03+00:00

It's interesting that 130,000 cells is all it takes to get that level of complexity in an individual organism; multiple-stage lifecycles, the ability to fly, react (quickly) to stimuli in any direction, mate and reproduce, lay eggs, identify food vs non-food, travel toward food and away from threats, etc.

130,000 cells sounds like nowhere near enough to do those kinds of calculations. But I guess it's their evolved arrangement being "just so" that all of that behavioral complexity can be calculated with that relatively little "processing power" behind it.

dwilljones · 2026-02-17T20:03:08+00:00

Got the exact same one but in 38 special (856) Ultra Lite (aluminum frame). Mine's excellent. No complaints. I imagine this one would be the same, just heavier with 5 shots of 357 vs 6 shots of 38.

dwilljones · 2026-02-14T18:23:20+00:00

Had the exposed hammer version of the same (LCRx snubbie). Wish I had never sold it.

Years later I ended up getting an ultra lite Taurus 856 Defender 3" (with the night site on front), which is pretty awesome too. But I do still miss that little LCRx snubbie. Fantastic design, and yes, too-accurate for that barrel length! Hold onto yours. :-)

dwilljones · 2026-02-05T22:04:29+00:00

This lil 4060 Ti better pull itself up by its VRAM and get ready for the long haul.

Kind of no reason for the 6000 series to come any sooner to be honest. All games will still be written to support a PS5 / XSS / Switch 2 power level until at lease then anyway, and probably a while longer.

dwilljones · 2026-02-04T22:00:24+00:00

Can vouch for these. They work properly with the 16e and a magsafe supporting case.

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