No More Dual-iPhone

Moving to my work iPhone as my main phone.

Since I wrote the post on Dumping My Personal Phone back in January, I have been contemplating making the switch. The reason for this is because my Pros and Cons list was changing quite of bit from where it started. Here is my original list from my post early in the year:

And here is what it is today:

Cons

Before I go over the new Pros in my new list I want to first discuss my changes to the Con list. First off you can see the biggest three original issues with moving to my work phone only is still their; MDM, having an older iPhone, and using a different iCloud account.

These not only still belong on the Cons list, but are a pain in the ass with this new setup. But not enough of a pain to go back, especially since these are the only three things when my Pros list has grown substantially.

A couple things moved over to Pros from the Cons list which includes saving money, having my work calendar and email, plus iOS Betas not being an issue on my work phone. When it comes to saving money, my wife and I made the jump from AT&T to Mint Mobile and since my wife’s phone is paid off, we are saving a substantial amount of money on our bill.

I plan to go into more details in a separate post about using dual-sim and Mint Mobile, but because I am using dual sim, I still have my same personal phone number that I can use on my work phone. The setup has actually been really great and was a very painless move.

Having my work calendar and email on my phone has not been as much of an issue as I thought it would. It is actually nice to be able to look at what I have to do each day at work with also my personal calendar events so I can better deal with conflicts.

The worry of being obsessed with work has not been an issue at all, and was my main concern. The best part is that it has actually added another thing to my Pros list which is using Focus Modes more usefully.

So there are Cons, but not enough for my Pros list to push me over the edge. MDM still has me concerned in terms of my privacy, but so far I have yet to have a reason not to trust my work. Especially since I work in IT, and have learned more on how the MDM is used. The biggest issue so far is having two iCloud accounts that I am actively using now.

Since I am still using my personal iCloud account on my Mac at home, I am no longer able to get iMessages on my Mac, so I have turned it off completely. Also other features like copy and paste from my iPhone to Mac, and being able to unlock my Mac with my Apple Watch.

The biggest let down is not being able to access my old iMessages and losing access to my personal iCloud Drive. It sucks, but it honestly still isn’t enough for me to revert back to two phones. So now that I have given you the bad parts of this transition, lets jump to the now huge Pros list.

Pros

I have already gone over a few, like saving substantially more money, and how having my work calendar and email are great. But the best part is that I feel like my iPhone has become so much more useful for me.

Being able to access my works Wi-Fi has substantially improved my quality of life, not having to worry about slow data as I regularly hit my monthly usage cap with AT&T.

It has also been really cool being able to use Focus Modes more legitimately. Because this is now both my personal and work phone, I have a real use to have Work Focus Mode to configure. When I get close to work now, my iPhone automatically switches to my Work Focus which changes my home screen and Apple Watch.

I have just started using this and have yet to configure it exactly how I want, but once I get it all figured out, I plan to do a separate post explaining how I setup and use focus modes. Right now I am just using a Work Focus, but may also create a Writing Focus, and maybe a Personal Focus too, we will see.

Since I only have one phone now, it has been a great plus for my minimalist side. I like the simplicity of having my work and personal information in one place — besides the whole iCloud Drive issue.

I do plan to start using services outside of Apple to remedy some of my dual-iCloud Account issues. I am actually beginning to embrace Microsoft and OneDrive a lot more — another hinted post coming soon.

Using a Shared Photo Library has been no issue at all, the syncing is seamless and I plan to setup a new Shared Library with my wife since I have been so happy with it. Though my iPhone 14 Pro had 128 GB, which I believe is probably plenty, having the extra with 256 GB has been pretty nice. When I am allowed to upgrade in the next year or two I may ask for more since I am np longer worrying about the extra costs.

Ultimately my Pros list has not changed, and if anything the things on this side have been solidified even more after living with this setup for more than two months. The biggest elephant in the room, that I have not mentioned yet, is how I felt about moving back to an iPhone 13 Pro from the iPhone 14 Pro — first world problems, am I right? — and losing the beloved Dynamic Island.

Some Additional Single iPhone Thoughts

Before I tell you how you can read my additional thoughts on moving to a single iPhone. I want to tell you why I have not included it on this post in Medium. Due to Mediums recent changes, I am branching out on where my writing lives.

I have going back and forth on starting a newsletter, but I feel Substack has proved it is more than just that. I think the design and tools that it offers for creators is similar to Medium, so that is where I will also be writing. Because of this, I am going to create an incentive for you to subscribe to my Substack:

I have made this post free on Substack which includes my additional thoughts, but would entice you to subscribe to the paid subscription to get extra posts surrounding Technology and other things. I want to do more behind the scenes posts before a post is published. Like what I am currently using or testing to be a potential post and my thoughts surrounding other technology topics.

The additional thoughts or topics that I will be sharing on the Substack version only are:

1. Going from Two Phones to One
2. Leaving The iPhone 14 Pro
3. Apple Leather MagSafe Case
4. Being Content

I appreciate everyone who follows and reads my stuff here on Medium. And this isn’t a goodbye — yet, at least. I plan to still post most of the same things on both Substack and Meduim, but I think the new and extra stuff will be on Substack since they seem to want to support their creators better. Click on the link below to take you to this post with my additional thoughts: