IPhone 6s has been a nightmare. I had thought that I had been unfortunate with my handset but from talking to others, I have heard many people have had the same issues with call failing and battery life. I have seriously considered moving to a different brand, but after receiving the Apple Watch as a gift from my wife last Christmas, and owning other apple products this is not my preferred option.
I had a conversation with a friend on Friday who has already started using IPhone 7 and the first thing he mentioned was the improved battery life. This was a relief. It’s early days but he also said he had not experience any issues in making or receiving calls.
There has been much written about the removal of the headphone socket and the problems and solutions to this change. I don’t normally read tech blogs but have read these articles as I looked for insight into the likely quality of the battery and quality of the phone application. It is strange to write ‘phone application’ when discussing something which is still marketed as a ‘phone’. How well the phone works is barely mentioned in most blogs, this is a sign of changing times.
In reality, smart phones are so much more than phones, we have all known this for some time. Perhaps they should be rebranded as pocket computers. The pros of the smartphone heavily outweigh the cons. The issue for me, working as a sales professional, is that a reliable phone is the most important tool I own. Being able to hold stable calls without cut outs and battery failure can be the difference between success and failure. The issues with 6s became so bad that I actually purchased a ‘Dumb Phone’ a Nokia 105 for £15 from Amazon that gives 30 days standby and 12.5 hours of talk time, I always have it with me and it has saved me more than once in the 10 weeks since I purchased it.
I have read a lot about Apple and Steve Jobs. Simplicity and User friendly technology are at the core of what makes Apple one of the worlds favourite brands. They are famed for innovation but also for reliability and universal appeal. I am sure that Steve Jobs would not have been content with a phone that couldn’t last a working day with average use.
So, are the majority of people communicating less by phone and do I represent a shrinking demographic of people who use the device to make calls? The share of device owners saying they make at least one voice call a week has dropped down from 96% to 75% over the past three years, according to research carried out by Ipsos Mori for Deloitte. Perhaps Apple prioritised the most common uses of the smartphone over the devices original primary function? It appears that they have. Fortunately, the improvements noted by my friend suggest that phone functionality was considered in the design of iPhone 7.
I am always looking to learn from other businesses, even if their scale is incomparable as is the case with Apple and Ronin. The lesson that I take from the above is that it is important to innovate, but not at the expense of reliable delivery. Ronin’s ethos is to offer quality candidates and job opportunities at pace. We have embraced new technology and are able to offer a service unlike our competitors. It is however important that this is never at the cost of hiring managers and job applicants base expectations such as our Consultants’ listening, matching and feeding back throughout the process. We will strive to be the best at the basics whilst pushing boundaries and challenging how recruitment processes can be refined and improved.
Before setting up shop with Ronin in 2007, Mark spent seven years working for large, corporate recruitment agencies. And it was this that inspired him to create a new prototype for his industry, free to adapt to the changing world. “The industry was already changing at a rate of knots before Ronin came into being.”