eXtensions - Monday 10 November 2025
By Graham K. Rogers
I ordered an iPhone 17 Pro last week and it was delivered less than 24 hours later: good for Thailand. There were some problems in setting up certain apps; and the Apple Watch refused to pair. That was fixed with a new Watch: planned but brought forward. Staff in stores and banks I dealt with were all helpful. The iPhone camera has changed and I am not 100% happy with certain aspects, although output is good. Apple is of course doomed again.
I ordered the latest iPhone on Monday and messages from Apple told me it would be arriving Tuesday. That tells me that there are supplies of the devices in the country and we do not have to wait for shipment from China, Singapore or anywhere else. This is a marked improvement over a few years ago when ordering Apple products online took, at best, a few days or more. On Tuesday morning, Apple released updates to its operating systems, and if my iPhone was on the way, in its box, the setup process would be paused while I installed the new version and I might have to start over.
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I had a fright with the iPad Pro a couple of months ago when the Software Update gearwheel turned and turned. I had I had to wait for the 26.0.1 update before I could examine iPadOS 26. The iOS 26.1 update to the iPhone 15 went smoothly enough, and (mercifully) when I started setting up the iPhone 17 Pro, the pause to update to iOS 26.1 went smoothly. That has not been the case for the rest of the change.
The pairing of the Apple Watch failed. When I tried to fix that, I ended up with no data being transferred to either phone. A couple of the banking apps failed to authorize, which meant a trip to the banks to make them work. The credit card app just will not work. I am unable to log in as the account on the old iPhone has my name written in Thai - I swear I did not type that in - so I will have to make further enquiries there. Fortunately those apps are still available on the iPhone 15, so if I needed to do any banking they could still be used. The same applies to the credit card app. This is not convenient, of course.
A couple of other apps have misbehaved and I am fixing them one by one. This is a tedious process and users should not have to go through this nowadays. To add to this, the Bang & Olufsen app has been updated so when I looked at it during the weekend, the settings needed to be completely re-entered, and I lost all of the specific sound features I had entered: motorcycle races, movies, music; each needs a different output, and now I will have to set those up again.
Of the banking apps, I was able to update one properly on the new iPhone and that has been fine. I went into the Siam Paragon branch of Siam Commercial Bank (SCB) and as soon as I mentioned the app and the new phone, the young lady told me in her excellent English that this is a new requirement (I had just learned in another bank that several regulations had been revised). Using one of the thousands of iPads Apple had sold SCB (eXtensions 4 Aug), she swiftly checked my account, made sure all details were up to date and scanned my face with the iPad camera. Once that was done and accepted, she turned to the app and ran through the settings. Within a few minutes it was done and access to the app on the iPhone 17 was available.
With this in mind, when I went to the Krung Thai Bank in Central World the next day, I knew what to expect and was met with similar efficiency, albeit in Thai. The young lady there checked my settings on the bank's system. She was using a tablet computer, but I am not 100% sure if this was also an iPad. It was all done politely and quickly, after which the app was usable on the new iPhone. I now have just two recalcitrant apps: a 3rd party health-related app (I am in touch with the developer); and the credit card app, which will probably need a more measured approach with the telephone system that I will have to use. For now, if I need account information, that app still works on the iPhone 15.
During the initial transfer of data the new iPhone failed to pair with my Apple Watch and I managed to break the pairing on the iPhone 15 Pro too. For a couple of days my health data was not updated. As we age, that information becomes more significant. I bought the Apple Watch 9 a couple of years ago, so I was expecting to replace it soon. I decided to bring that forward and bought a replacement Apple Watch 11. There was no difficulty pairing that with the new iPhone.
While I was in the Siam Paragon iStudio, I asked about the older Watch and iPhone. With little difficulty, the staff there soon unpaired the older Watch from the iPhone 15 Pro and that was wiped clean. I shall give it to a student or a member of the staff at work. It took a while to set up the new Watch to my satisfaction, and of course in the middle of things, the watchOS 26.1 update was offered. I made some minor changes to the settings in the next few hours, and now it runs pretty much like the last one.
That is not the case for the iPhone. With the update to the new model, Apple has made improvements (sic). I often wonder if anyone who actually uses the features is involved in the decision-making. As I take a lot of photographs (iPhone, DSLR and film) I am fairly clear in how I want my cameras (including the iPhone) to work. I had the iPhone 15 Pro set up with the square aspect ratio, which can be easily edited if necessary. I also used the Noir filter, because I prefer to view a scene in black and white. The Filters are no longer available for the camera. However, when I checked with the Apple staff on Saturday afternoon (see below), we found that I could use a monochrome "Scene" if the camera was set for HEIC output. As I prefer RAW, that was no longer available to me.
Apple might argue that if black and white output is needed, the filters are still provided in Photos, when editing. I would argue strongly that this is not the same as viewing a scene in monochrome when setting up a photograph. While that is one aspect that irks me, it does not prevent me taking photographs with the new iPhone of course. I am impressed with the output, particularly when using the x8 lens, which the Information panel (metadata) shows as a 200mm lens.
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After lunch on Saturday, I headed for the Apple Store outside Central World with a friend who was collecting an iPhone 17 Pro. As he currently has 240GB of data (mainly videos and selfies) on the 256GB iPhone 15 Pro, it was prudent to upgrade to the 512GB iPhone 17 Pro. He had been unable to update and was still running iOS 18. Once again, the staff in the Apple Store were helpful and in good humor. The setup was done fairly quickly and then data was transferred, initially using a Thunderbolt 5 cable.
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Even so, with the amount of data (and the number of files) it took a while, but with the power running low in the iPhone 15 the staff connected a power source and continued the transfer with Bluetooth (they said). The progress bar hovered on "about an hour" for a long time, then I noticed that it was beginning to move (the screen protector on the older phone was cracked making an easy reference point) and it was soon down to 54 minutes. It dropped quickly after that and soon the data had been copied over. After a few checks and minor changes, we were done. There was a slight problem with the eSim but a visit to AIS later in the day fixed that, and he also visited the bank for details to be updated, like me, so he could use the app. While I was in the Apple Store, after checking with the staff, I took some photographs with the iPhone and a film camera.
Apple is doomed again we hear. I wish I had a dollar for every time I have read that. My favorite is still the scare piece by Trip Chowdry who claimed that if Apple did not produce an iWatch (sic) within 6 weeks, it was doomed (Harry McCraken). Michael Dell comes a close second (Steve Kovach, Business Insider). I just bought an Apple Watch 11 this week, but can anyone find Chowdry these days? Bloomberg, and particularly some of the rumors it publishes on Apple (or some it misses), are usually worth considering with a pinch of salt. William Gallagher and Mike Wuerthele (AppleInsider) report on a Bloomberg claim that unless it copies Spotify, then Apple is doomed again. This was an enjoyable early Saturday morning read.
The writers tone seems to be one that exudes a certain amount of anger or frustration during the article in which they (rightly) pull Bloomberg's claim to pieces, as much for what the allegation leaves out as what it includes.
I mentioned last time about the release of a new version of Affinity, which Jaron Schneider compared with the free approach with Da Vinci Resolve taken by Black magic Camera. Jaron Schneider (PetaPixel) again reports on this software noting that this has had over 1 million downloads since its release.
Graham K. Rogers teaches at the Faculty of Engineering, Mahidol University in Thailand. He wrote in the Bangkok Post, Database supplement on IT subjects. For the last seven years of Database he wrote a column on Apple and Macs. After 3 years writing a column in the Life supplement, he is now no longer associated with the Bangkok Post. He can be followed on X (@extensions_th). The RSS feed for the articles is http://www.extensions.in.th/ext_link.xml - copy and paste into your feed reader. No AI was used in writing this item.
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