Re: I am grieving over the loss of... a thing
I use maybe 5% or less of the features on my iPhone 11... but I will freely admit that it does come in handy, as a vehicle for controlling devices. For example, when SWMBO calls down from upstairs because she thinks it's too cold, I can access my Nest thermostat without getting up from my seat, and turn up the heating system. When I cook a wide variety of things in the oven, my Meater cooking thermometer shows me the progress of the cooking time, estimates when the food will be done, and lets me know when it's time to take it out of the oven... all on my phone. I can kill the outside lights (controlled by Wemo switches) with the phone, if I want.
Similarly, nearly all of my calls to/from my grandchildren are with FaceTime, so I see their faces... delightful, and far better than just an ordinary phone call.
I also appreciate being free of 'cable hell'.... at night, the iPhone goes on a special nightstand, with inductive charging built in. I never have to plug in a cable, to recharge it. The same goes for my Apple Watch... which is the primary way I pay for stuff at supermarkets or the gas station: I simply press a button, and can charge my purchases by waving the watch next to the terminal.
For my wife, who would have trouble remembering to take her Parkinson's medication, she uses Siri to set a timer to remind her when it's time for the next dose. She has a lot of trouble using her fingers to do stuff on the phone (a consequence of her Parkinson's), so having Siri to help is a good thing.
I used to be the technologist of the family... but as is probably the case for many people, my daughter.. and even my granddaughters... know more about how to use the iPhone than I do.
Yeah, I have no particular love for Apple, who have done a number of anti-consumer things in the past... but I cannot deny that their products are useful and reliable.
"Reason and facts are sacrificed to opinion and myth. Demonstrable falsehoods are circulated and recycled as fact. Narrow minded opinion refuses to be subjected to thought and analysis. Too many now subject events to a prefabricated set of interpretations, usually provided by a biased media source. The myth is more comfortable than the often difficult search for truth."