iPhone, hero is thy name.

Magic phone machine, sound system, camera, video system, social media manager, and… bodyguard?

 

We’re talking the iPhone here, folks. And yeah, this time, it was a literal lifesaver… not the delicious mint, but an ACTUAL HUMAN LIFESAVER.

 

Woah.

 

A dude in Britain nobly went to confront a group of less noble dudes who had shut off the water to a block of apartments. During that confrontation, one of the teenagers, a young 19 year old in fact, shot the noble dude!! Wot!

 

According to ITV news

 

“Fortunately, the victim’s mobile phone took the brunt of the shot, and, as a result of this, he survived,” Gary McIntyre from the Cheshire Police told the news site, which has pictures of the damaged phone. “This is remarkable — had that phone not been in his pocket at that time he would undoubtedly have died.”

 

Woah. Here’s the damage the iPhone took to the back in order to save the dude’s life:

 

gun iphone

Photo Credit: Cheshire Police

 

 

The shooter has since been found guilty of attempted murder as well as possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life and is due to be sentenced on 10 July.

 

The iPhone, meanwhile, was mortally wounded but will be forever remembered as the hero that all little iPhones dream of.

 

 

 

Google’s Project Tango

project-tango-logo_2x

 

 

Google’s Project Tango is now for sale. Aimed at developers and invite only, the device sells for $512 and, in Google’s words, “combines 3D motion tracking with depth sensing to give your mobile device the ability to know where it is and how it moves through space.”

 

Nifty. Check out these youtube videos if you, like us, are still a little lost.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Got it? Yeah… us too…

 

 

 

 

 

 

New Emoji rejoice

emoji

 

It’s that time again – the Unicode Consortium Emoji present giving time!! Well, kind of. It’s that time when they tell us what we’re getting as a present in June next year. 

 

But the present is pretty cool, so we’ll be chill with that for now.

 

Wanna know what kinds of fascinating and emotive new Emoji’s you’ll be conversing with next year? There’s 38 of them, and some of them are pretty rad, just sayin’. ALSO please note – your chosen operating system does have the choice to implement them or not!

 

Here’s what’s coming at your face:

 

 

Face with cowboy hat
Clown face
Nauseated face
Rolling on the floor laughing
Drooling face
Lying face
“Call me” hand
Selfie
Raised back of hand
Left-facing fist
Right-facing fist
Handshake
Hand with first and index finger crossed
Pregnant woman
Face palm
Shrug
Man dancing
Prince
Man in tuxedo
Mother Christmas
Wilted flower
Scooter
Motor scooter
Octagonal sign
Clinking glasses
Black heart
Croissant
Avocado (Yay!)
Cucumber
Bacon
Potato ( Yay!)
Carrot
Fox face
Eagle
Duck
Bat
Shark
Owl

 

The text that shuts down your iDevices! What is it and how to fix it!

message

 

Texters beware! There is now a weird iMessage virus that, if sent to your iPhone, will restart your beloved little box of magic tech and then repeatedly crash iMessage. It can also screw with your iPad and Apple Watch too!

 

Bahm BAHM BIIIIIAHIIIUUUM!

 

The text includes a specific series of non-roman characters and although Apple is aware of the problem, a fix won’t be available until the next software update.

 

 

All is not totally lost – the message doesn’t actually do any damage to your phone, apart from making it hard to use your iMessage app, and even that can be rectified by another  text being sent to your phone – although it has to be from the person who sent you the evil text in the first place.

 

The brain trust over at Reddit have come up with a theory that the message works, perhaps, by confusing the phone so much as it tries to figure out how to display the text as a notification banner, that it just gives up and reboots. Apparently sending the message through other message apps that have display notifications leads to the phone rebooting as well.

 

 

If you think you have some frenemies or mortal enemies out there that might be planning on sending you the message, maybe take a preventative measure and switch your notifications off for iMessage and other message apps. Not proven to help, but can’t hurt.

 

Some other fixes making the rounds are:
Send yourself a message via Siri, the share sheet, or from your Mac, or send a photo via the Photos app which can allow you to access your message history and delete the conversation.

 

Let’s hope you and your mortal enemy can agree that your magic tech box iPhones are off limits!!

 

 

 

 

Pebble in trouble?

exclamation mark

 

The original smart-watch, the one that started it all by being a super publicized Kickstarter campaign, might be in trouble.

 

As reported by the good guys over at TechCrunch, Pebble has reportedly reached out to a bank in Silicon Valley for a $5 million loan as well as a $5 million line of credit after, it’s rumored, being turned down by a number of other banks.

 

Uh oh, spaghettios.

 

This comes only a couple of weeks after another kickstarted campaign for their new device Pebble Time reached it’s $500,000 goal in under 20 minutes (!!) and got a final pledge of $20,338,986, and, of course, only a short while after the release of what some view as their biggest competitor, the Apple Watch.

 

Pebble reportedly received about $18 million of the pledged amount and have actually gained momentum for their devices off the back of the highly publicized (yet more expensive) Apple Watch.

 

The company seems to be taking loans and seeking venture capital in order to stay afloat during a period of immense and necessary growth, but take into account that this is occurring at the same time as both the wearable boom and the entry of such a big competitor into the market like Apple, Pebble is one wearable company to keep an eye on.

 

 

 

 

 

 

Waaay better camera on next iPhone?

iphon 6c

 

According to the ever increasing next-iPhone rumor mill, the next iPhone update, likely due in September of this year, will include three new updates – 4.7 inch iPhone 6S, 5.5 inch iPhone 6S+, and a cheaper, 4 inch iPhone 6C.

 

Each of these is expected to have camera improvements, and some in the industry are pretty certain that this means that at least the larger iPhone updates will include a 12- megapixel rear facing camera with smaller pixels.

 

This would make sense in a timeline kind of way, as Apple hasn’t updated the 8- megapixel camera currently in all iPhones since the iPhone 4S which was waaaay back in 2011. That’s eons in the tech world.

 

They are also expecting software updates to improve the camera, however what these may be remain unclear at this stage.

 

The new 2015 generation of iPhones will likely be powered by a A9 chip, feature Force Touch, and iOS 9 with improved Siri and Apple Maps. Gesture Control has also been mentioned, as has the possibility of an extra microphone.

 

 

 

 

 

Apple staff promotions

 

iPhone Antidote favorite Jony Ive has been promoted to a newly created title at Apple, becoming the Chief Design officer, whilst the day to day management of the design teams was given to Richard Howarth and Alan Dye, promoting them to Vice President positions.

 

This gives Jony the time and space to delegate and focus on the broader idea of design for Apple across hardware and software, all the way through to packaging, retail store aesthetic and new whole product ideas without needing to deal with the administrative and managerial work associated with it.

 

Congratulations Jony! Congratulations Richard and Alan.

 

Here’s the Apple- wide email CEO Tim Cook sent regarding the promotions.

 
Team,

 

I have exciting news to share with you today. I am happy to announce that Jony Ive is being promoted to the newly created position of Chief Design Officer at Apple.

 

Jony is one of the most talented and accomplished designers of his generation, with an astonishing 5000 design and utility patents to his name. His new role is a reflection of the scope of work he has been doing at Apple for some time. Jony’s design responsibilities have expanded from hardware and, more recently, software UI to the look and feel of Apple retail stores, our new campus in Cupertino, product packaging and many other parts of our company.

 

Design is one of the most important ways we communicate with our customers, and our reputation for world-class design differentiates Apple from every other company in the world. As Chief Design Officer, Jony will remain responsible for all of our design, focusing entirely on current design projects, new ideas and future initiatives. On July 1, he will hand off his day-to-day managerial responsibilities of ID and UI to Richard Howarth, our new vice president of Industrial Design, and Alan Dye, our new vice president of User Interface Design.

 

Richard, Alan and Jony have been working together as colleagues and friends for many years. Richard has been a member of the Design team for two decades, and in that time he has been a key contributor to the design of each generation of iPhone, Mac, and practically every other Apple product. Alan started at Apple nine years ago on the Marcom team, and helped Jony build the UI team which collaborated with ID, Software Engineering and countless other groups on groundbreaking projects like iOS 7, iOS 8 and Apple Watch.

 

Please join me in congratulating these three exceptionally talented designers on their new roles at Apple.

 

Tim

 

 

 

 

How many Apple Watches are being ordered daily?

watchres

 

 

 

Since orders for the Apple Watch began on April 10th this year, around 2.5 MILLION Apple watch’s have been ordered in the US alone. That’s a lot of wrists.

 

More than half the orders came on that day, with an estimated average of  30,000 orders being processed every day since then. Thirty thousand. Jeebus. The order numbers saw a rise around April 24th, when a lot of people started receiving their Apple Watches and splashing their shiny devices around town, and in recent days have seen a small decline in orders.

 

What does this mean?

 

These early sales are out pacing early sales of Apple’s most well known previous devices, the iPod, iPad and iPhone, making it a surefire early success in history’s (and investor’s) books. Whether or not that success will continue remains to be seen, however come June when the Apple Watch is said to be sold in physical retail stores, Apple should see a noticeable rise in sales, if only momentarily.

 

 

 

Apple might have leaked a photo of the iPhone 6C!

Photoshop fail? Or accidental leak? You be the judge! There are currently photos on the Apple online store that seemingly show an iPhone that is yet to be released – an updated version of the iPhone 5C with a Touch ID (see below left).

 

iphon 6c

 

Apple is expected to announce a new line of updated iPhones, likely at WWDC which starts in San Francisco on June 8th. Within that line up it’s rumored that there will be an updated iPhone 6 (iPhone 6S), iPhone 6 + (iPhone 6S+), and a lower cost 4-inch iPhone, such as an updated iPhone 5C (iPhone 6C).

 

So is this proof of the existence of the iPhone 6C? Apple are yet to comment, and are not expected to, because, well, their Apple. Looks like we’ll have to wait a moment to find out!

 

If you’re wondering, that moment will take exactly 17 days, 14 hours, 7 minutes and 3 seconds from….now.

 

 

 

You’ll be able to buy an Apple Watch in-store in June!

IMG_6725

 

 

Good news Apple Watch watchers! Tim Cook recently confirmed with employees at Apple China headquarters that beginning in June, customers will be able to purchase – and take home- their own shiny new Apple Watch from Apple retail stores in multiple countries around the world (including China).

 

Apple’s original online only purchasing system, was the first of it’s kind in the company’s history and was designed to smooth out the launch of the new device, however it was only ever going to last through May and is not indicative of how Apple will handle product launches in the future.

 

 

From the sauce, Angela Ahrendts, Senior Vice President of Retail and Online Sales: “We love our launches we do in stores, have absolutely no fear, this is a unique situation.”

 

There have been a couple of boutique stores around the world that have had the ability to sell the Apple Watch in their stores from the beginning, such as Maxfield in Los Angeles, California, which is the only retail location in the United States.

 

Come June, expect to see Apple retail stores roll out the Apple Watch to buy in-store, most likely beginning with the model with the least supply wait currently – the sport.