Is The iPhone 13 An Unfinished Product?

The iPhone 13 was recently released, and, though there is no doubt that the hardware is certainly a considerable step up from the previous generation, many users are complaining that the newly-released smartphone has numerous bugs and is less user-friendly than the device it is replacing, making people question if the upgrade is really worth it.

Many users reported several bugs within hours of unboxing their devices.

One common complaint speaks of a feature that allows users to unlock their smartphones via their Apple Watch while wearing a mask, which often fails to work.

Some users analyzed the problem, tried to fix it somehow, and discovered that the feature was disabled, which was odd.

When trying to re-activate that feature, the users would be prompted with a pop-up message claiming that their iPhone was “Unable to Communicate with Apple Watch,” though the devices were set up prior to that.

Some users even tried hard resetting their iPhones, unpairing, and repairing the devices, but that did not solve the problem, unfortunately.

It appears that the problem is that the iPhone fails to communicate with the watch.

Curiously enough, there have been no communication issues reported between an iPhone and an Apple watch so far, though millions of users updated their smartphones to iOS 15.

CarPlay, UI, And Camera Problems

A plethora of users also reported issues with CarPlay, which keeps crashing.

Some users jokingly said that they’d paid Apple full price to beta-test the new iPhone, almost as if nobody at the company did that.

The problem in itself isn’t necessarily frustrating. The more frustrating detail is that older devices work just fine.

Other people reported that they’d experienced numerous user interface bugs, alongside juddering and oddities.

To top it all, the Camera app behaves really poorly when changing between lenses and at times when the operating system becomes laggy.

There is another problem where the camera’s field of view judders when the focus changes.

The phenomenon occurs in both photo and video mode, but it’s less obvious in photo mode due to software blurring the image.

Twitter user Adrian Kingsley-Hughes reported and documented the embarrassing problem:

This is very irritating for all users who’ve paid big cash for the new device.

The Real Problem

Let’s face the music – Apple knows how to make devices. What is the problem then? The hardware is sound, then the problem must be software, alongside the lack of intense field testing, right?

We believe that it might be the case, plus the fact that Apple has it easy with reviewers and customers, who somehow got used to the company’s culture of shipping unfinished products that can be fixed later via software updates.

If you’ve bought a new Apple smartphone, we can only say that we’re sorry for you (at least for the time being). We are positive that Apple will fix the problems, but that doesn’t mean that we just have to tolerate it like that.

The solution is simple – avoid unfinished products. Make the smart choice and wait for a while after a new smartphone is released to see if there are any problems or if it truly is worth your hard-earned cash.

Tonia Nissen
Based out of Detroit, Tonia Nissen has been writing for Optic Flux since 2017 and is presently our Managing Editor. An experienced freelance health writer, Tonia obtained an English BA from the University of Detroit, then spent over 7 years working in various markets as a television reporter, producer and news videographer. Tonia is particularly interested in scientific innovation, climate technology, and the marine environment.