nazhamid-com-oi7zls.txt (6978B)
1 [1] Naz Hamid 2 3 • [2]Journal 4 • [3]Links 5 • [4]Photos 6 • [5]About 7 • 8 9 [8]Million-Mile Tech 10 11 Durability is the ultimate feature. 12 13 I [9]wrote in October last year that I wouldn’t upgrade my iPhone 14 Pro. 14 That’s also not quite true. 15 16 I did upgrade my phone — with a [10]new battery and leather case. This isn’t 17 what people typically think of when they say they upgraded their phone. They 18 think of an entirely new phone. 19 20 New model. Newer, bigger, better, faster. This cycle drives sales across cars, 21 furniture, cameras, clothes, and almost everything. A new reason to replace 22 what already works. 23 24 Objectively looking at my 14 Pro reveals that it’s a modern marvel, still, 25 after 3 years. Which in technology can feel like an eon, supposedly. 26 27 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 28 29 Last week, [11]Jen and I were driving south on N. State Route 89A. This is a 30 picturesque 23-mile route that descends from 7,000 feet in Flagstaff, Arizona 31 to 4,300 feet in Sedona through switchbacks and hairpin turns. As we passed 32 Slide Rock State Park, we felt a throbbing below our feet in the car. 33 34 We own an 18-year-old vehicle. We bought it used 4 years ago with 175,000 miles 35 on the clock. It is a Lexus 4×4, or rather, a Toyota under the hood. The 36 venerable [12]2UZ-FE engine is known as a “million-mile engine” if you take 37 care of it. I bought it knowing that Toyota built a vehicle to last. I bought 38 it knowing that if we took care of this vehicle, it would take care of us. 39 40 This vehicle has fueled many of [13]our adventures and explorations in the 41 American West. I know it deeply. When it sounds or feels off, I know something 42 is awry. 43 44 The shuddering vibration beneath our feet continued as we descended. We rolled 45 down the windows and heard what sounded like rattling aluminum cans. Ugh, no. 46 Jen eased onto a gravel pullout and I did a visual and hand-feel inspection. I 47 pushed on pieces I’ve bolted on and worked on. Everything seemed tight. But I 48 knew someone could fix this. Toyota makes their cars to be serviceable. They 49 make their cars to be durable. 50 51 We found a park and I rolled out a makeshift mechanic tarp, got under the rig, 52 and started torquing bolts. No shuddering beneath our feet but the rattling 53 cans are still there. We found a highly-rated auto shop and we left the vehicle 54 with them. The passenger-side wheel bearing had failed (a nicer term than 55 exploded). They'll replace the bearing along with the other side — standard 56 practice. I approved the work. 57 58 The next day the work was finished and we’re back to it. This car has rolled 59 over 200,000 miles, and I hope to take it to 300,000. 60 61 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 62 63 My iPhone 14 Pro is still the best smartphone I could need. I got it with 512GB 64 of storage to anticipate this future: where maintenance comes down to battery 65 or screen. I can get those replaced. The battery was $99. A small price to pay 66 for a $1,299 device that has been paid off for over a year. The original Apple 67 leather case had lived a long and worthy life, protecting my phone from drops, 68 dented corners, and a spider-webbed display. When the bottom edge finally broke 69 off, I replaced it with a [14]Mujjo leather case. It’s lovely. I expect to get 70 another 3 years with it. 71 72 A deeper appreciation and intimacy grows as you hold onto something longer and 73 longer. There’s a point at which it evolves from the shiny new thing into a 74 tool you love. You’ve cultivated a lopsided fondness for a material possession 75 that’s now a well-worn friend. May all of the things we care for outlive us. 76 77 Oct 20 2025 ⋅ [15]technology 78 79 Related 80 81 • [16] A Simple Sophistication 82 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 83 Mar 22 2004 Reductionism. 84 • [17] The New Design 85 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 86 May 20 2013 What those new to the field should know, and how we can help. 87 • [18] I Don't Have Facebook 88 ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 89 Jan 14 2015 Yep. 90 91 [19]Prev 92 The Hunt [20]Next 93 The Weeks 94 95 I write an occasional newsletter called Weightshifting. It was originally 96 comprised of design, culture, and travel notes, morphed into [21]two seasons of 97 overland travel, and has now returned to its original ideal of observations in 98 the field. You can subscribe below. 99 100 Email address [22][ ] [23][Subscribe] 101 [logotype] 102 103 © 2000 - 2025 Naz Hamid. 104 105 Get some RSS feeds: [24]Journal, [25]Links or [26]Photos. You can email me at 106 my [27]first name at this domain. I’m primarily on [28]Mastodon, occasionally 107 feel forced to pop into [29]LinkedIn because professional reasons (!?), and am 108 increasingly not logging movies on [30]Letterboxd. This site is [31] 109 climate-friendly, and last built at Nov 12, 2025, 7:06 AM PST. 110 111 [32]Back to top 112 113 114 References: 115 116 [1] https://nazhamid.com/ 117 [2] https://nazhamid.com/journal 118 [3] https://nazhamid.com/links 119 [4] https://nazhamid.com/photos 120 [5] https://nazhamid.com/about 121 [8] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/ 122 [9] https://nazhamid.com/journal/technologically-content/ 123 [10] https://support.apple.com/iphone/repair/battery-replacement 124 [11] https://jenschuetz.com/ 125 [12] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Toyota_UZ_engine#2UZ-FE 126 [13] https://nazhamid.com/weightshifting-overland/ 127 [14] https://www.mujjo.com/ 128 [15] https://nazhamid.com/topic/technology/ 129 [16] https://nazhamid.com/journal/a-simple-sophistication/ 130 [17] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-new-design/ 131 [18] https://nazhamid.com/journal/i-dont-have-facebook/ 132 [19] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-hunt/ 133 [20] https://nazhamid.com/journal/the-weeks/ 134 [21] https://nazhamid.com/weightshifting-overland 135 [24] https://nazhamid.com/feed.xml 136 [25] https://nazhamid.com/links.xml 137 [26] https://nazhamid.com/photos.xml 138 [27] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/# 139 [28] https://mastodon.social/@nazhamid 140 [29] https://www.linkedin.com/in/nazhamid/ 141 [30] https://letterboxd.com/weightshift/ 142 [31] https://www.websitecarbon.com/website/nazhamid-com/ 143 [32] https://nazhamid.com/journal/million-mile-tech/#top