Iphone x question

FastEddieB said:
Not sure why some have an apparent need to disparage the choices of others.
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Because it’s a discussion board and we’re discussing it. :)

If you don’t want to talk about it, don’t. It’s your money and your phone. Haha. Outside of a discussion board nobody even needs to know what you decided to buy.
 
By the way, comparing the iPhone X to a Garmin that was about the only thing on the market that did what it did back then, is a bit disingenuous.

Smartphones are pretty much the same now. Apple lost their edge.
 
My buddy got his yesterday, I played with it a few minutes this afternoon. Nice. The screen is outstanding. He likes a lot of the technical capabilities. He's in some kind of ATT plan that lets him trade up from his old phone. He upgraded from a 7+ that was giving him some problems with the mic cutting out during calls.
 
Matthew said:
My buddy got his yesterday, I played with it a few minutes this afternoon. Nice. The screen is outstanding. He likes a lot of the technical capabilities. He's in some kind of ATT plan that lets him trade up from his old phone. He upgraded from a 7+ that was giving him some problems with the mic cutting out during calls.
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Yup the screen is great. Samsung built their second best screen for Apple when LG couldn’t deliver in time after $3.3M dumped into them by Apple. LOL. (Samsung is using their top of the line screens in their phones and selling screens of lesser quality to Apple to save their butts for holiday season. Smart move.)

I’m curious about the “technical capabilities”. Which ones?

The AT&T thing is what all the US carriers are doing now. Monthly payments and after X number of months you can trade the device back in and take on new higher payments on the next gadget while they refurb and sell your old device for much more money than they gave you for it.

It’s essentially a car lease. Complete with need for gap/damage coverage or you’re still on the hook for the payments and have a nice shattered glass back phone.

Heh. It’s quite the racket they’ve got going. Cash freaking cow. Price the phones above what most folks can pay for cash, and lease the customers a phone forever.

Sound like anything the Bell System used to do? LOL LOL LOL. At least they aren’t rotary dial Princess phones! Well they might be “princess phones” but not Princess phones.

(If you’re too young to know of the days of leased phones from the Bell System, just forget about it... it’s an almost 50 year old pricing scheme that people still fall for and hated the Bell monopoly for. Now it’s okay because there’s “competition”. LMAO... so funny to watch history repeat...)
 
denverpilot said:
. . . It’s essentially a car lease . . . (If you’re too young to know of the days of leased phones from the Bell System, just forget about it... it’s an almost 50 year old pricing scheme that people still fall for and hated the Bell monopoly for. Now it’s okay because there’s “competition”. LMAO... so funny to watch history repeat...)
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I'm not sure if it's the case with other carriers (I'm sure it is), but with AT&T it's not a leased phone. It's an owned phone with a payment plan which can be chosen from 12 months all the way to over 2 years. You own the phone, not AT&T. Once you complete the payments, there is no further "lease" payment, just your monthly phone charges. My wife and I have had our phones paid off with AT&T for about 2 years, and the only thing that changed when they were paid off was the monthly bill dropping by the amount of the monthly payments (around $40/mo if I recall correctly). Now, I get what you're saying, and the way people needlessly upgrade every 2-3 years for the "new iPhone" essentially locks them into a continuous stream of phone payments closely mimics the Bell telephone monopoly, but there was no other choice back then. Today, people have a choice not to pay $1,200 for a damn smartphone that doesn't do anything remarkably better than the previous model of smartphone, but they are generally too stupid to realize it. They also have a choice between carriers for the service portion of the cell phone, which Bell customers didn't have, either.
 
The x is a solid piece of hardware but iOS is just so limiting. I never had an apple product but when I got an ipad mini i was shocked at what it couldn't do, or required some sort of workaround. Spent an hour trying to figure out why bluetooth file transfer wasn't working.........Literally doesn't have the option.
I get tickled whenever apple adds something that android has had for 3-4 generations.
Maybe things work better if you have Mac and apple tv but I can't invest in that whole eco system when my pc/android combo does twice as much for half the price.
 
denverpilot said:
Yup the screen is great. Samsung built their second best screen for Apple when LG couldn’t deliver in time after $3.3M dumped into them by Apple. LOL. (Samsung is using their top of the line screens in their phones and selling screens of lesser quality to Apple to save their butts for holiday season. Smart move.)

I’m curious about the “technical capabilities”. Which ones?

The AT&T thing is what all the US carriers are doing now. Monthly payments and after X number of months you can trade the device back in and take on new higher payments on the next gadget while they refurb and sell your old device for much more money than they gave you for it.

It’s essentially a car lease. Complete with need for gap/damage coverage or you’re still on the hook for the payments and have a nice shattered glass back phone.

Heh. It’s quite the racket they’ve got going. Cash freaking cow. Price the phones above what most folks can pay for cash, and lease the customers a phone forever.

Sound like anything the Bell System used to do? LOL LOL LOL. At least they aren’t rotary dial Princess phones! Well they might be “princess phones” but not Princess phones.

(If you’re too young to know of the days of leased phones from the Bell System, just forget about it... it’s an almost 50 year old pricing scheme that people still fall for and hated the Bell monopoly for. Now it’s okay because there’s “competition”. LMAO... so funny to watch history repeat...)
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The tech parts he says he likes - the screen, the camera quality, the wireless charging, the graphics processing capability (it's his PC now). He uses the Apple Pay feature where he can, and he thinks the facial recognition is pretty cool.

The upgrade ("leasing") plan - with ATT, as Sooner Aviator said, the plan is such that you pay off the phone over time (0% interest, I think). At the end of that time, you can upgrade with a trade-in and start your payments all over again, or drop the phone payments and stay on the data plan. In my buddy's case, since his current phone was starting to give him trouble, he went ahead and upgraded. If it hadn't been giving him trouble, he would have waited until the XII.

And yes, I am old enough to remember that ATT would only lease telephones.
 
Matthew said:
The upgrade ("leasing") plan - with ATT, as Sooner Aviator said, the plan is such that you pay off the phone over time (0% interest, I think).
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Correct, 0% interest. They make their money on the phone price/margin.
 
Matthew said:
The tech parts he says he likes - the screen, the camera quality, the wireless charging, the graphics processing capability (it's his PC now). He uses the Apple Pay feature where he can, and he thinks the facial recognition is pretty cool.
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See, that list cracks me up, because Apple was late to the market with all of those except the camera, and they’re equal or even behind on that one thing now.

Other devices, better screens, better cameras, Apple is YEARS behind on wireless charging, graphics processing I assume is some app, and likely available on any platform, and facial recognition is well behind the competitors retina scan, which works flawlessly in the dark and is faster and more secure.

I’d think someone really looking for those features would have bought the best versions of those available for less money.

As far as ApplePay and NFC battling, goes... having two standards pretty much made that technology stupid... the plastic card works everywhere, but neither ApplePay nor NFC now do. That’s one area that competition didn’t make things better at all. Oh well.
 
denverpilot said:
Other devices, better screens, better cameras, Apple is YEARS behind on wireless charging, graphics processing I assume is some app, and likely available on any platform, and facial recognition is well behind the competitors retina scan, which works flawlessly in the dark and is faster and more secure.
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Which non-Apple phone has all that in one package? I'm in the market, my decade old flip-phone is ready for retirement (but I'm not in the market for a $1k phone, either). Yeah, Apple can charge a premium for that cool logo, but it's also stamped onto a pretty cool product.
 
Matthew said:
Which non-Apple phone has all that in one package? I'm in the market, my decade old flip-phone is ready for retirement (but I'm not in the market for a $1k phone, either). Yeah, Apple can charge a premium for that cool logo, but it's also stamped onto a pretty cool product.
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I think consumer cellular still has a flip-phone available ifn ya wanna stay in the last century.
 
Clark1961 said:
I think consumer cellular still has a flip-phone available ifn ya wanna stay in the last century.
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Nah, I can stick with my Samsung Convoy until the battery finally stops holding a charge. Then I can get a new battery. By the time that phone finally dies, smartphone implant technology will have progressed to the point where we will be arguing over why Apple waited so long to add the telepathic Netflix algorithm when all the Android users had the ability to mind-control their Hulu streaming for years.
 
Why do people buy a Cirrus, a Mercedes, a gigantic house, or even a loaf of bread? A sack of flour is cheap.
 
Matthew said:
Which non-Apple phone has all that in one package? I'm in the market, my decade old flip-phone is ready for retirement (but I'm not in the market for a $1k phone, either). Yeah, Apple can charge a premium for that cool logo, but it's also stamped onto a pretty cool product.
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The current “flagships” from Samsung, LG, and perhaps a couple of others have all of it. You really have to stick to Samsung to get the best possible screens, since they make them. Cameras are a competitive point on Android, and different vendors are doing different things, so if the camera is highest priority you have to shop those a bit. Wireless charging is nearly ubiquitous on Android and has been for a long time, if not wireless, fast charging via USB-C has been on nearly everything else.

If you want some entertainment, look up a dude named Flossy Carter on YT and watch his phone reviews. He’s both hilarious and also knows his stuff. Way better than watching a tech geek mumble for an hour about phones. He keeps up on the latest and greatest of almost every brand and uses all of them too, so he has insights into what works and what doesn’t. He’s got Apple reviews also, so he does both.

After looking over specs and thinking about what I truly want from a phone, I would be fine with a Moto G5S Plus, but our azzhat US carriers act like they’re allergic to BYOD and unlocked phones still, like it’s 1995. All but T-Mobile cripple the wifi calling on BYOD stuff outside the Apple world still, which is incredibly annoying. They want to rent you an overpriced MSRP phone they sold you on payments and sell you a service plan to cover the gap.

So it’ll probably be Samsung S8 or Moto Z2 Force for me, but things constantly change. The Samsung has the features, the Moto has the ruggedness I prefer and the Mods are nifty. Plus Moto leaves stock Android the most alone of the two. But Samsung’s software additions are pretty nifty.

I’d be a fan of the Note 8, but it’s just a bit too big. Played with it and I really don’t think I’m a stylus guy, and it’s too tall. Way better screen than the Apple side by side, though. Also knocks on that Apple price tag, which is ludicrous.

Kinda waiting to see what they all do next. I have a new airplane panel to pay for in late December, so phones are not high on the toy list.

But it’s a chuckle to watch folks who think their new iPhone was “first” to have this stuff. They’ve been behind for at least a year now and they’re still behind on specs even with the X. The 8 was really a 7S and wasn’t even close to matching what others already had on the market.
 
denverpilot said:
But it’s a chuckle to watch folks who think their new iPhone was “first” to have this stuff. They’ve been behind for at least a year now and they’re still behind on specs even with the X. The 8 was really a 7S and wasn’t even close to matching what others already had on the market.
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I think the iPhone has been behind since about the iPhone 5 (2012/2013). The Samsung Galaxy S2 was on par with with iPhone 5, and every successive generation of Samsung was arguably ahead of any subsequent iPhone variant.
 
My 6+ is still a very capable phone. Who needs to have the newest tech constantly? And nobody can justify the cost of doing so.

I'm fine with letting the good new features mature and bad new features die before I get them. Bleeding edge isnt all it's cracked up to.

In fact, I rather hate some of the new "features". Face recognition, wireless headphones (no headphone jack).... I can live without nonsense like that.
 
denverpilot said:
The current “flagships” from Samsung, LG, and perhaps a couple of others have all of it. You really have to stick to Samsung to get the best possible screens, since they make them. Cameras are a competitive point on Android, and different vendors are doing different things, so if the camera is highest priority you have to shop those a bit. Wireless charging is nearly ubiquitous on Android and has been for a long time, if not wireless, fast charging via USB-C has been on nearly everything else.

If you want some entertainment, look up a dude named Flossy Carter on YT and watch his phone reviews. He’s both hilarious and also knows his stuff. Way better than watching a tech geek mumble for an hour about phones. He keeps up on the latest and greatest of almost every brand and uses all of them too, so he has insights into what works and what doesn’t. He’s got Apple reviews also, so he does both.

After looking over specs and thinking about what I truly want from a phone, I would be fine with a Moto G5S Plus, but our azzhat US carriers act like they’re allergic to BYOD and unlocked phones still, like it’s 1995. All but T-Mobile cripple the wifi calling on BYOD stuff outside the Apple world still, which is incredibly annoying. They want to rent you an overpriced MSRP phone they sold you on payments and sell you a service plan to cover the gap.

So it’ll probably be Samsung S8 or Moto Z2 Force for me, but things constantly change. The Samsung has the features, the Moto has the ruggedness I prefer and the Mods are nifty. Plus Moto leaves stock Android the most alone of the two. But Samsung’s software additions are pretty nifty.

I’d be a fan of the Note 8, but it’s just a bit too big. Played with it and I really don’t think I’m a stylus guy, and it’s too tall. Way better screen than the Apple side by side, though. Also knocks on that Apple price tag, which is ludicrous.

Kinda waiting to see what they all do next. I have a new airplane panel to pay for in late December, so phones are not high on the toy list.

But it’s a chuckle to watch folks who think their new iPhone was “first” to have this stuff. They’ve been behind for at least a year now and they’re still behind on specs even with the X. The 8 was really a 7S and wasn’t even close to matching what others already had on the market.
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I have been looking into reviews and the Samsung Galaxies. But you can end up with a phone that costs nearly what the X does. Form factor matters to me, too. Too big and I don't want it, too small and I don't want it. So finding the right screen size means heading out and sampling a bunch, side by side. Then I'd think to myself, "Self, you area bout to spend more on a cell phone than you did on your first car. Maybe you ought to be putting it inside an Otter Box." So now even a slim phone isn't so slim anymore. A whole lot goes into personal preference, and that may mean that one guy's solution doesn't make sense to another guy. My neighbor kid works at Verizon (our current carrier), I need to get hold of him and bend his ear for an hour or two about plan options and hold the phones in my hand for feel.

I use my phone as a phone, but I keep my 'droid tablet turned on almost all day and use that for pretty much everything most of you guys use your phone apps for. The downside is that it's wifi only, so once I'm away from one of my networks it's useless and we rely on my wife's iPhone when necessary.
 
Matthew said:
I have been looking into reviews and the Samsung Galaxies. But you can end up with a phone that costs nearly what the X does. Form factor matters to me, too. Too big and I don't want it, too small and I don't want it. So finding the right screen size means heading out and sampling a bunch, side by side. Then I'd think to myself, "Self, you area bout to spend more on a cell phone than you did on your first car. Maybe you ought to be putting it inside an Otter Box." So now even a slim phone isn't so slim anymore. A whole lot goes into personal preference, and that may mean that one guy's solution doesn't make sense to another guy. My neighbor kid works at Verizon (our current carrier), I need to get hold of him and bend his ear for an hour or two about plan options and hold the phones in my hand for feel.

I use my phone as a phone, but I keep my 'droid tablet turned on almost all day and use that for pretty much everything most of you guys use your phone apps for. The downside is that it's wifi only, so once I'm away from one of my networks it's useless and we rely on my wife's iPhone when necessary.
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Yep. Preference is big. I’m leaning toward the Moto stuff because the whole phone is NOT made out of glass.

It’d be nice if the manufacturers started competing again on actually building something that can take some standard abuse instead of keeping OtterBox in business. Nice guys and local and all, but silly that phones need cases.

I’m pretty sure I’ve thrown old corded phones across the room when I was mad and they worked just fine afterward. Heck, even our Avaya desk phones at work could handle that.

Fragile cell phones are stupid and have been for quite a while now.

Hey, just think, you should be able to tether your tablet to your phone when you upgrade. :)
 
BrianNC said:
Apple is definitely behind in the technology now. And when they do finally add something Android has had for years they always say they've now 'made it worthy' of the iPhone. It's really annoying.
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It's not untrue though. I just switched from 3 generations of Samsungs to an iPhone 8. The iPhone features are definitely more refined by the time they come out. Sure there's less of them, but they do tend to work better. (Well, at least when Apple isn't trying to invent their own stuff).
 
denverpilot said:
Hey, just think, you should be able to tether your tablet to your phone when you upgrade. :)
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I'd like to tether my watch to my phone. I have a Garmin watch for swimming, and will upgrade soon. Tracking miles on my calendar means syncing the phone with my PC, and I always forget, so I will have weeks of data to upload when I remember. The phone apps with the next step up watch/trackers can do it automatically.
 
denverpilot said:
Yup the screen is great. Samsung built their second best screen for Apple when LG couldn’t deliver in time after $3.3M dumped into them by Apple. LOL.
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Another thing about the screens. That X screen is a little over 600 nits, while the Samsung 8 and Note are twice that. I am wondering how noticeable that is in real life application.

I have my X on order solely because I use Foreflight on iPad and can put it on the phone. It may be I still don't like it and go back to a Samsung (the latest Note version whenever that might be). Then I'll have to decide whether to use another aviation software on the Android or just switch to Garmin Pilot so I can have it on both the X and iPad.
 
So I've had the X since November 6, allow me to give my experience so far. Pardon the long post but I wanted to provide with what I wish I knew before, and know now.

If you have a 7plus, or really are a fan of the huge screen on the plus phones DO NOT upgrade to the X. I used to have a 7plus, and i will say i am extremely disappointed in the screen size of the X. Infact it is so noticeable and bothered to the point I waited the very max amount of time before having to do the trade in because I wasn't entirely sure I wanted to hold onto the X and give up the large screen of the plus. Sure it's "larger" 5.8 inches vs the 5.5 inches of the plus phones, but what I failed to realize, and I believe most did is that it is a different aspect ratio, the screen is much narrower than the plus, and much taller, so you must think about how this translates. Much less screen viewable space for videos/movies/tv shows, Because the aspect ratio of the iPhone x is not the correct ratio, so when watching something you wind up with just a tad more screen real estate than the standard 6/7/8, it comes no where near to viewable area of the 6/7/8plus phones. The only time you have more useable screen is really when reading stuff, which I tend to scroll so as to keep what I am reading in the center anyway so I notice it day to day and can tell it has been a screen downgrade for me size wise, so don't be fooled by the screen size number. Simply go into a store and look at both side by side you'll see it right away.

The screen image quality is outstanding however, noticeably better than the 7plus I had previously.

Battery life is longer than my 7plus in the way I use the device day to day.

face ID, works amazing, much better then the finger print sensor, which I personally was never fond of, with this phone by the time you look at it its unlocked. However it uses a dot projector which throws a bunch of infrared out, and to be honest I don't quite know how i feel about that going into my eyes eyes every time i go to look at my phone or enter a password, I don't know what side effects such a thing could have or the safety of that, so I have face ID completely turned off. I did a ton of searching on the matter and couldn't find answers one way or another. Face ID also provides for animoji, which I don't use so useless there. I never used to have a password on my phone anyway so not having face ID turned and in use is no big deal, but again a new feature which i don't see the benefit of since I don't use it. However if you will, know it is much easier and convenient than the fingerprint scanner.

the camera. BLOWS any previous iPhone camera out of the water, the quality of the night photos especially is amazing, no comparison here they did a really good job this time around with the camera

the finger swiping gestures. I personally find it more intuitive and easy to use than the previous phone with the home button.

the overall size of the phone, much sweeter spot than the plus which was a tad wieldy

edge to edge screen looks good, and makes interacting with the device a little more natural

wireless charging, don't have any devices in my home that use it, however i recently stayed in a hotel where the night stand had a wireless charging thing, and had a rental car where the center console was wireless charging, that was pretty neat, toss the phone down and bam its charging

So why did I keep this and send the plus back? To be honest I don't know. This was something exciting and new, it runs smoother and faster, and feels like the way of the future. Really my only complaint is the screen size, I'd love to see an Xplus that is still smaller than the previous plus phones but with a screen that is actually larger in useable space than those phones were. I'll see over time how the smaller screen is in my day to day use, I typically use my iPad more while traveling for movies than my phone, which used to not be the case so it may not be an issue. I take a lot of photos on my phone so this upgraded camera is important to me and has so far been great. While I am annoyed with the screen size change, everything else is much better and at this point i can't picture going back to the plus for the screen, but over the next year time will tell. I can say if i had known all this before I upgraded i may not have upgraded.

Bottom line if you are coming from a plus you are going to notice the smaller screen, and may even be annoying at first, or in general. But if you are coming from anything else the screen will feel massive and the phone is in a sweet spot when it comes to overall size of the device.

ps sorry for writing a college length essay, its 2:26am by me, and I'm bored. Also please excuse the poor grammar and whatever typos wound up in there
 
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I should have answered the OP's question in my rant, but yes you can tap the screen to make it turn on, might be easier than finding the button in the dark actually since you can tap anywhere, also the flashlight can now be directly turned on from the lock screen with force touch, which makes it much easier and faster to access the flashlight, a function I use all the time
 
Here's a neat photo I took after I dug out my old iPhones, from Right to left that’s the original iPhone, IPhone 4, IPhone 5, IPhone 6, IPhone 7plus, and IPhone X

Of course the day after I sent my 7plus back in I found my old iPhone 3g which would have completed the generation changes, but alas too late for that photo nowCD88A8E9-1A5E-4F10-97B0-28757586419F.jpeg
 
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JustinD,

Thanks for that report - it sounds exactly like what I expect my impressions will be when I get mine.

If they do come out with a “10+“ next year, I may be able to convince Karen to take my 10 as a hand-me-down once her 7 is paid for, and get the 10+ for myself. I might come to prefer the smaller form factor of the 10, but especially in the cockpit, or in the car as a navigator, every mm of screen real estate is appreciated without jumping to iPad-sized.

Worth noting: your comparison photo gives the impression that the 6+ is full screen, glossing over the wide top and bottom bezels. As my case photo shows, the screen sizes should not be that different - as your report made clear.
 
With the new Foreflight release that is supposed to be more Iphone friendly I wonder if the X will work as good as an Ipad Mini. I always take my ipad and stratus when I go fly. When I first started flying I had them both on the entire time. Now I barely use them. They just stay in my backpack till/if I wanna use them. But my iphone 7 plus will fit on the little "table" on the Cirrus. It'd be nice if the X will fit there and I could just use that for Foreflight when/if needed.

I have noticed the battery life in my 7+ is starting to suck - really bad. I am trying to make it one more year without upgrading... we'll see.
 
Here’s a comparing of 8 vs X vs 8+

iPhone-8-Size-Comparison-iDrop-News-8-800x571.jpg
 
My 6 is doing fine. No way Im paying 1amu for a phone
 
FastEddie - is the 8Plus bigger than the X (screen wise?)
 
EminiTrader said:
FastEddie - is the 8Plus bigger than the X (screen wise?)
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I saw an X. It is about the same size as my 6s, but since there is no wasted real estate on the top or bottom, you get a bigger screen. The 8s have a larger overall dimension, but I don't the screen is any larger, or even as large as the x.

But Apple has Foreflight. Therefore, they have me. Everything else is just penis stretching bling.
 
@EminiTrader foreflight is not yet optimized for the X, therefore it shows up the same exact size as it does on the 6/7/8 so currently a 6/7/8plus would have much larger useable space for foreflight simply because it has not been optimized yet I’ll try and get a photo of that to post shortly

@FastEddieB my photo does not portray that screen size comparison well! Yours does though! I have a picture of both unlocked too but my background photo may not be the most appropriate to post on here so I didn’t!
 
Here is a photo of the latest version of foreflight running on the X, note the wasted bottom and top space since it is not yet optimized for the X. It displays as if it were a 6/7/8. I too used to use my plus while flying for foreflight etc and had my iPad handy Incase I needed it or the bigger screen, at this moment in Time the X is not a viable replacement for the Plus when it comes to foreflight, but I suspect it will get optimized for the X screen soon and when it does it will be great CA9BEC63-3730-452A-8D76-814F5F7DD703.jpeg
 
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