iPhone 17 Pro Max — The Computer That Lives in My Pocket
Camera, navigator, editing suite, flight companion, ride computer and—occasionally—a telephone.
There was a time when a phone was something you used to make a call. Mine seems to have missed that memo. My iPhone 17 Pro Max has quietly become one of the most important bits of technology I own—camera, navigator, editing suite, flight companion, music player, communications centre, ride computer and occasionally, believe it or not, a telephone. And I bloody love it.
The camera that’s always there
The old photographer’s saying still holds true: the best camera is the one you’ve got with you. And this one is always with me.
Whether I’m out with the drones, riding Torque through Cannock Chase, travelling in Vanilla, wandering around somewhere new or simply spot something that looks brilliant in the right light, the 17 Pro Max means I’m ready. No camera bag. No lenses to swap. No wondering whether I brought the right kit. Just pull it out of my pocket and shoot.
Increasingly, the results don’t look like something that came from ‘just a phone’. They look like photographs.
Part of the NIX toolkit
The 17 Pro Max isn’t replacing my drones or proper camera equipment. It joins them. DJI drones give me the view from above. My cameras give me the deliberate shot. Action cameras capture the movement. The iPhone fills in absolutely everything in between.
It is the device that connects the whole thing together. I can capture something, edit it, check a route, look at weather, review a ride, manage photographs, work on NIX DRONES, message someone and upload the result—sometimes before I’ve even left the location. That’s slightly ridiculous when you think about it.
Calling it a phone now feels rather like calling Vanilla ‘a van’. Technically correct. But spectacularly missing the point.
The screen is glorious
Then there’s that enormous Pro Max display. Photos look superb. Maps are genuinely useful rather than being a tiny postage stamp. Video looks fantastic. Editing on it doesn’t feel like a compromise.
For travelling especially, that big screen earns its keep. When you’re navigating somewhere unfamiliar, checking a campsite, looking over a Strava route or reviewing photographs at the end of the day, bigger really is better.
Yes, putting it into some trouser pockets is roughly equivalent to loading a paving slab. I’ll live with it.
Perfect for the road
In Vanilla, the iPhone becomes part of the dashboard of the adventure: navigation, weather, music, photography, campsites, messages, drone information, maps, video and research.
Twenty years ago I’d have needed a sat-nav, road atlas, laptop, digital camera, MP3 player, telephone and probably half a branch of Currys to achieve the same thing. Now it’s one slab of glass in my pocket. Technology really is bonkers.
And perfect for the trail
It is equally useful when I’m out on Torque. Routes, Strava, Bosch information, photographs, location, weather and emergency communication are all sitting there.
That’s something I particularly like about modern technology. The bicycle is still fundamentally a bicycle. The trail is still the trail. The mud certainly hasn’t become digital. But technology can quietly sit behind the experience and make it better. That’s how it should be.
The thing Apple gets right
There are phones with extraordinary specifications. There are phones that do individual things better. But what keeps me with the iPhone is the way everything fits together: iPhone, Apple Watch, MacBook, AirDrop, iCloud, Photos and Health.
Take a photograph here. See it there. Start something on one device. Finish it on another. You stop thinking about transferring files and start thinking about what you’re actually trying to create.
That’s probably the biggest compliment I can give technology: it gets out of the way.
A phone? Not really
For me, this thing has become a digital Swiss Army knife for NIX life. From the road, to the trail, to the sky—SKY · ROAD · TRAIL—it is usually there somewhere, recording the adventure and quite often helping create the next one.
Adventure doesn’t always begin with a destination. Sometimes it begins by pulling a camera out of your pocket.