Love them or hate them, one thing is for certain: we can't live without them.
Ever since Steve Jobs launched the first modern smartphone in 2007, our whole life was changed forever.
Now, we depend so much on our smartphone, it's become an extension of who we are.
With tonnes of apps and loads of helpful features, it's no wonder we can't ever put our iPhones down.
This Merdeka Day, we spoke to several local celebrities -- singer Atilia Haron, actress Aishah Sinclair and fitness coach Kit Mah -- to find out more about their iPhone habits, and boy, do they have a lot.
Switching was a no-brainer
For as long as we can remember, the smartphone-phere has always been a fight between the Android and Apple (or iOS) devices.Each operating system has their very own set of pros and cons, but all three of our celebrities above are now big fans of what their iPhones can do.
For them, switching to the 'dark side' was a no-brainer.
"I have always been a Mac user for my music and other work, so not using an iOS device forced me to switch my brain and that slows everything down. Getting bugs, viruses and getting low battery really took a toll on my work speed," Atilia told us.
In fact, it got so bad that Atilia had to chuck whatever smartphone she was using at the moment and rely on the tried-and-tested pen and paper.
"I used to love writing songs on my phone but I remember chuckling my old phone away and resorted to a real notepad because everything was so slow.
"Now, I NOT only write my songs on my iPhone notes but also record my voice notes; I actually record my loops and program my songs on Garage Band through my phone," she said.
For Aishah, it was all about simplicity and how user-friendly the iPhone is.
"I have always known iPhones to be user friendly, so the switch was not that hard. I used an iPhone once before; I think it was iPhone 4S, mainly because of Instagram. But until today, I still appreciate all the apps and features made for the inner artist in you," she said.
The iPhone, to Aishah at least, is a massive playground to exercise her creativity.
"With the help of a lot of the apps available to iPhone, I have been creating my videos, editing pictures and creative visual designs with great ease, and the whole process of rediscovering my creativity has been fun too."
As for Kit, he was sold the moment he saw the quality of the photos and videos that came out of an iPhone.
"Nothing can beat iPhone when it comes to the vivid and crisp pictures and videos it takes. I always wanted to post video contents and when I first switch to it, I love the vividness of the video especially filming my work out videos," he said.
Day-to-day activitives
When we asked our celebrities how they use their iPhones to help them out with their day-to-day activities, Aishah laughed and said that it has, in a way, improved her productivity."To tell you the truth, I have always been a bit of a disorganised person even before the whole WFH situation, so I am still striving to use my iPhone to increase productivity, but it has definitely helped with my day-to-day.
"Obviously, I try and avoid going out to run errands as much as possible, so I rely a lot on delivery and grocery apps," she said.
And being a content creator, the Apple ecosystem has indeed come in handy for Aishah.
"A challenge I have working from home is having to do my own shoots for my content creation on social media. Before the pandemic, I would ask my brother or my cousin to come over and help shoot my videos.
"Pairing my Apple Watch with my iPhone is one way I overcome the challenge of having to set up the shot and record by myself. I am able to access and control my iPhone camera remotely using the Apple Watch, and this help save me so much time and effort!"
For both Atilia and Kit, their iPhones are now their handy little assistants.
"I don’t think I can go through my day without my iPhone. I now use iPhone 12 Pro Max, iPhone 11 pro and iPhone SE. All three have different jobs for me and we work seamlessly as one family.
"They are my yoga studio basically," she laughed, adding that she uses her iPhone 12 Pro Max as her classroom, the iPhone 11 Pro as her cameraman and the iPhone SE as her secretary.
"I run all my classes with my iPhones and my MacBook Pro is just for my music production," she said.
"My iPhone is like my personal assistant for work productivity, health and wellness," Kit said.
"At night when it’s approaching bedtime, it will tell me to get ready to bed and thanks to that, I regularly do sleep on time consistently. With widgets display on my home screen, it syncs with my Apple Watch showing me the indicator of number of calories I move, exercise and also stand up.
"I think small reminders and indicators like those helps to ensure one remain active and build good habits during work from home life and lockdowns."
There's an app for that
Currently, there are more than 2.26 million apps available for download from the Apple App Store, according to Statista.That's a lot of apps, so which apps would our celebs recommend?
If you love working out, Kit has a few recommendations for you.
"My favourite app would be all related to health, such as Dexcom, which is a continuous glucose monitor that I got from overseas. Somehow, it works seamlessly.
"Also, the Oura app for my Oura ring, which is a ring that I wear to sleep for very detailed sleep insights; Audible to listen to my audio books while I’m travelling (so I can kill two birds with one stone – learning something new while travelling) and Rocketbook, as it integrates into my notebook where I can write out all my notes and convert them to PDF conveniently," he said.
Aishah, meanwhile, has her own list of go-to lifestyle and entertainment apps.
"So far, my favourite apps are still Instagram (of course), iMovie (awesome and quick way to edit my videos on the go), VSCO (my go to photo editor), Duolingo (I am learning Japanese so I can watch the kids and my favourite animes) and Balance (a meditation app that helps me destress especially on those busy days)," she shared.
FaceTime is the best time
As we've been locked up at home for more than a year now, it is hard to have some face-to-face conversation with your loved ones, especially when each and every one of them are living hundreds of kilometers apart.Thankfully, they found a saviour in FaceTime.
"I LOVE FaceTime," Aishah exclaimed. "Most of my cousins use iPhones, so it's been fun catching up whenever we miss each other. We're all very close and used to hang out a lot together growing up.
"Now we want our children to be able to create the same kind of memories we shared, but it's a lot more challenging because of the pandemic. So, we make do with as many FaceTime calls as we can," she said.
Adding to that, Aishah shared that there's also another communication app she recently stumbled upon.
"Another app I only just discovered is Messenger Kids. It’s a wonderful app that allows my kids a safe space to communicate and play with their friends while I monitor from afar," she said.
Atilia, too, is a big fan of FaceTime.
"FaceTime and Messages are a blessing for me. I get to see my friends and family during festivities and we would have long group talks.
"Last night I was partying with my girls on FaceTime. Fun!," she said.
Cutting down screentime
With so many apps available for download and tonnes of features to play with on the iPhone, cutting down on screen time is a real challenge.In fact, recent studies have shown that too much screen time can affect one's mental health, as well as lead to obesity, sleep problems, chronic neck and back problems, depression and anxiety.
So, how do Atilia, Aishah and Kit cut down on their screen time? Well, the answer is Screen Time.
Atilia confessed that she's terrible at cutting down screen time, hence a feature like Screen Time is a life saver.
"My phones go everywhere I go and it's not really good for my eyes, so the Screen Time feature on iPhone is a great reminder for me so I will know how long I have spent on my phone and I should paint or write a song on paper or something," she said.
Kit, too, swears by the Screen Time feature.
"What we can measure, we can improve. Which is why I am a big fan of Screen Time. I am aware that most of us can be in mindless scrolling and that can be very time consuming and addictive, however not very productivite, especially when we have plenty of deliverables to meet.
"That is why, I have set one of my goals is to ensure the total time spend for my IG browsing is less than 30 minutes a day," he said, proudly.
As for Aishah, she makes sure that she gets at least an hour of 'me time' to keep herself sane.
"I make it a point to also have some downtime from screen and work, so I take an hour a day to just chill with my iPhone in 'Do Not Disturb' mode, so all calls go straight to voicemail and I can just check my other notifications later."