# Happy iPhone day! 📱
200 days
Today I’ve reached 200 consecutive days of posting.
Some days have seen a lot while others might have had something very brief but I’m not forcing myself to adhere to any rules.
I don't think I even achieved a streak like this during Write365 as I missed 5 days throughout the year due to illness.
I've certainly never gotten anywhere close on my own blog and probably not even when I was using Twitter quite a lot.
Mixing things up with both long and short form posts, likes and replies, makes it much easier to post on a regular basis - and, dare I say, more natural.
I'm free to write whatever I want without the restrictions of topic or format whether imposed by platform or self. That’s a radically different outlook to how the blog used to be.
I like it!
Comments
iPhone X first impressions
I’ve had a couple of hours with the new phone (mainly setting it up as I started from scratch rather than a backup) and I think we’re going to be firm friends.
Feel
The phone feels lovely. It is so smooth and the glass back looks gorgeous (I’ve got the silver model) but I’ve stuck a case on (ultra thin so as not to add any extra bulk) straight away to keep it scratch free.
It is significantly smaller in the hand - and in the pocket - than a Plus but I don’t really notice because of the larger screen. The weight balance is also much better.
Notch
Let’s get it out of the way: the notch. I knew it wasn’t going to bother me and it doesn’t. It really doesn’t. I just don’t notice it as I’m not normally focusing on the very top of the screen.
Even when I do focus on the notch, because of where it is and how crisp the lines are, it almost looks like it’s a software feature rather than hardware. It’s strange.
Screen
The screen is great and I love True Tone. I used to like it when Nightshift kicked in on the 6S Plus as I much preferred the screen warmth but True Tone takes it to the next level.
The only downside is that the off-angle blue tint to the OLED screen is made more apparent by having True Tone turned on but, even then, it just looks like the normal blue/white of an LCD without any warmth correction.
Navigation
Although I made a point of learning about gestures and navigation on the X in advance I’m surprised at how quickly I’ve gotten used to not having a home button. I’ve not once accidentally gone to tap on the “home indicator” bar.
The only thing I have to think about is the control center now being triggered by a swipe down from the top right.
Cameras
The rear cameras are so much nicer than the one on the 6S Plus, and how I’ve been waiting for a dual camera setup having missed the 7 Plus last year.
Portrait lighting looks like it could be fun but I was first mucking about with it in reasonably poor light so couldn’t get the best results.
Face ID has worked very reliably so far but seems quite over zealous and quick to drop back to passcode when someone else is looking at the phone. I shall have to experiment further.
In summary
The X is a lovely device that, at first glance, hits that sweet spot between size and comfort.
As I spend more time with it I’ll be able to refine my opinion but, for now, colour me impressed.
Comments
# Om Malik has written that Face ID on the iPhone X struggles "when the room is completely dark" but, in my testing, it has worked perfectly.
The thing to remember is that it only works in portrait orientation. That's not to say that the phone has to be upright and perpendicular to the ground but that it lines up with your face, even if you're lying down.
@colinwalker congratulations! I’m still not in the habit to post daily but I’m getting there. I also still struggle what I write on my own blog and what I write here in my M.B. But what is visible, I rarely post directly to Twitter these days.
Well done, Colin. My posting streak on Microblog ended at 133 days. It was easy & I enjoyed it, but when we moved 2,200 miles to the east, I had to drive the car for five consecutive days, with nights in the motels devoted to locating people to unload the truck on the other end. And then sleeping, as soon and as long as possible. The motels all had wifi, so I could have posted, but it would have been just to maintain the streak and that didn't seem like a worthwhile purpose, in comparison to making the move happen. I didn't want my life ruled by the streak. We got Internet at the new house a few days ago & we still have a lot of work to get everything organized, so concentrating on that. Keep up the good work!
@colinwalker Well done. I tried posting a comment on your site, but got five warnings. Looks like it went through anyway. KUTGW
@Ron Five warnings? Eek! What were they? Not come across that before. ?
@colinwalker Congrats on the milestone. It’s both impressive and motivating.
@colinwalker we like it too. A delight to follow you.
@colinwalker good effort Colin, sounds like fa become natural for you without even trying.
@renem That’s the advantage with being self-hosted and having everything run through the blog - you don’t have to choose what goes where.
It’s all a question of priorities Ron and yours are in the right place ?
@colinwalker That's why we added full blog features (long posts, titles, pages) to the Micro.blog-hosted blogs, so you don't have to self-host to get everything in one place. @renem actually has things nicely integrated on his site, though... More like 2 sections rather than 2 separate blogs.
@manton Thanks! I get heavily inspired by the #indieweb movement and read most things on this wiki. What I find usefull gets integrated. Only downside for my Hugo static blog, I can't quick-post a photo to it. Therefore I'll use M.B. and also for short status updates. But this could change tomorrow ;-)
@manton Absolutely, I just meant from my own perspective I didn’t need to make any choices but can still get full benefit from m.b
@johnjohnston Thanks John. Likewise. ?
@philbowell Just giving myself permission to write about anything in any format without sticking to word counts or topics makes all the difference.
@colinwalker yeh I can see how that makes a huge difference. I’m trying to give myself that kind of permission as well. Not quite there yet.
@colinwalker Ohhh, so sorry, I didn't keep them. I mistakenly thought you would be able to see them. AFAIR they were pretty repetitive, so maybe not five different things.
@colinwalker It turns out a tab on my Chromebook still had them. Warning: DOMDocument::loadHTMLFile(): Empty string supplied as input in /home/colinwalker/public_html/wp-content/themes/minmod/functions.php on line 407
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@Ron Thanks Ron. That relates to the way I pull info from the commenters site but I see you didn’t enter a URL. I’ll have to catch that in the code.
@Ron A quick check has been added that should prevent this from happening again. Thanks for letting me know about it. ?
@colinwalker URL of the page of warnings wascolinwalker.blog/wp-commen...
@colinwalker All Greek to me, but glad you found it useful.
@renem you could set up a micropub endpoint for your Hugo blog, and set up a media endpoint for uploading photos. I’ve done it on mine (ascraeus.org) and it works quite well
@Ron haha ? well, when someone posts a comment I check their URL for an RSS feed to help power the directory but if they don’t enter a URL in the comment form obviously I can’t. You only put in an email address so it broke.
At the beginning of the month I celebrated 200 consecutive days of posts and I continued the streak - until yesterday. It just wasn't a particularly "bloggy" kind of day. I headed to bed around 11pm and could have easily thrown something together, maybe something meta about turning up every day and the obligation that comes with it. But I chose not to. Posting every day is great, is something you can be proud of, but I think that once it stops happening naturally, organically, once it becomes an obligation rather than a joy, it's time to step back and not force it. That's not how I want to blog.