"Steve, why did you stop producing full length video reviews?"

-
Something of a Frequently Asked Question around these parts!

This is mostly explained in the last full length video I did, Phones Show 436 embedded in https://stevelitchfield.com/sshow/index.html - in short, my life, and the world around me, had changed. A lot.

But I did want to amplify my reasons from a Creator standpoint. Back in 2006 (pre-YouTube) I was the only person in the world reviewing phones in video form. As YouTube started to take off and as smartphones became sexier, especially in the USA, as the iPhone rose and rose, the number of people attempting to review phones grew almost exponentially. 
  • Marques Brownlee (MKBHD) started as a school kid in 2008 but it was in 2012 that he started to cover phone tech seriously. 
  • Michael Fisher (Mr Mobile) started reviewing phones on YouTube in 2016. 
  • Lewis Hilsenteger (Unbox Therapy) started unboxing phones in 2011. 
  • Dave Lee (Dave2D) started up in 2015.
  • Arun Maini (MrWhosetheboss) started up (again as a kid!) in 2011.
You get the idea. The floodgates opened from 2012 onwards and a decade later, in 2023, there are hundreds - no, thousands - of phone-centric YouTube tech channels. 

My template was always to provide actual opinions and not just specs, and thankfully the majority of other creators followed suit - to this day I point anyone wanting balanced reviews towards the likes of Marques and Michael.

Which means that unless my opinions on a particular smartphone or feature or platform are markedly different than any of the thousands of others who review phones nowadays then there's little point in me putting in up to a dozen man hours per video to produce something that's a drop in the 2023 YouTube ocean.

Not that I don't have strong opinions sometimes. And not that I don't want to cover significant and interesting devices. Which is where YouTube Shorts come in. Take off my Phones Show identifier and I have 58 seconds maximum to get something over. Which turns out to be just right for insights and pointed opinions, shot on the phone (as always, in my case), but in this case unedited (apart from trimming) and uploaded directly. 


Each Short takes me between 30 minutes and an hour to put together, taking into account gathering up any resources, writing a basic script, setting up the tripod(!), filming, trimming and uploading, all in the YouTube app's Shorts interface.

So, in a busy family environment, with ever increasing responsibilities (seemingly), these Shorts allow me to still create and share my tech opinions without taking over a day or two of my life per upload.

It helps my justify my decision to go down this route that most others haven't followed suit - reviewing phones in particular so obviously needs a ten minute video rather than a 58 second one that no one other than me has actually tried. Yes, I'm breaking up content into bite-sized chunks and that's not as seamless for the viewer, I'll grant that. But I'm viewing it as a challenge and it's fun to think that I'm potentially innovating in this busy tech area.

Comments welcome, as always, either here or on MeWe.

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Wavelet - and better sounding speakers (and headphones) on Android...

-
Image
You may well be fairly happy with the audio output (speakers and headphones) on your existing Android phone. Or, like me, you may welcome an extra step up. Perhaps more bass/punch, clearer treble, or perhaps just a volume boost overall. Now, there have been various 'boost' utilities for Android in the past and they've been a bit patchy in how well they work. But Wavelet, discovered by Ted Salmon back in 2021, is a whole different kettle of fish, in that it works supremely well, with extra bass, clarity, and volume,   BUT has a very confusing interface. Which is why a brief tutorial is in order. The steps come from Ted in bullet point form, but expanded by me here and with screenshots, which will hopefully help. By the way, ignore the 'headphone specific' text in the app's title - it works perfectly well for speakers too. In fact, by definition, I'd say that it's really ONLY for speakers, since with headphones you've usually got plenty of natural i
Read more

Bluetooth keyboard incorrect PIN or password - SOLVED

-
Image
Just in case this helps anyone else, I had a nightmare today with my Bluetooth keyboard and my Android phone - but I used some common sense and found a geeky solution. In my case it was a ZTE Axon 7 running Lineage OS and a Microsoft Universal Folding Keyboard (UFK), but I suspect this cure will work for more general issues. The symptom was that when I tried to connect a previously paired keyboard I first of all got just the raw Bluetooth address shown and not the keyboard name. And then, when I tried connecting, I got an "incorrect PIN or password" error message. No chance to reenter a PIN and no amount of restarting keyboard or phone would fix it. The cure seemed to be to reset something in the phone's Bluetooth system, but what? The keyboard wasn't showing up as paired, so I couldn't 'forget' it. I tracked it down in the end. Settings, Apps, then 'Show system' on the '...' menu. Find and tap on 'Bluetooth extensions'.
Read more

Why the Apple iPhone 14 Pro Max is better than the 15 Pro Max

-
Image
Forgive the click bait(y) title, but there's actual evidence here, I promise. Note that I did write an article before availability, putting forward worries and concerns , but I've now had hands-on to confirm a few things and report back.  Cased (of course, read the blooming' article!) Pro Maxes - 15 and 14 (with XtremeSkin, Aged Oak , in case you're wondering!) In fact, it's the first time ever in the iPhone line-up/evolution that I seriously think the old 'Pro Max' model can be argued to be  better than the new one. (Admittedly, that I already own the old one [14 Pro Max] and didn't really want to spend over £1000 on the 15 Pro Max possibly helps my argument from a personal perspective.) (There's one big win for the new model, of course. Type C connectivity has been a long time coming - but this will take several generations to become established in iPhone/Lightning households and maybe I'll come back to this in a future article.) My observat
Read more