Category: iPhone

What will the first half of 2020 bring for Apple?

Let’s collect all the little rumours falling off the Apple tree shall we?

 

*Tile-like item tracking tags potentially called “AirTags”

 

*Blue tooth supported high-end (possibly over ear) headphones

 

*A 4.7-inch, low cost (~$399) iPhone with a similar design to the iPhone 8, but with a faster A13 chip and 3GB of RAM.

 

*Refreshed iPad Pro models that have a triple-lens rear camera system that supports 3D sensing for augmented reality

 

*Small wireless charging mat. So Apple canceled its AirPower charging mat last year due to quality concerns, which may have been fixed by now. The Airpower charging mat would have been able to charge an iPhone, Apple Watch, and AirPods case simultaneously.

 

*Lastly, it’s predicted that we’ll have refreshed MacBook Pro and/or MacBook Air models.

 

What are you most excited about?

 

 

Apple Special Media Event

 

Give people wonderful tools and they’ll do wonderful things!

 

 

So begins the 2019 Special Media Event keynote. Tim Cook is, as per usual, very excited about all the very cool things he’s about to show us!! All the things that let us do all the wonderful things!! He says wow a bunch, and then we’re off and running!

 

Beginning with.. the App store, or more specifically, Apple arcade, available within the App store, which is a subscription based service that allows for unlimited game play for over 100 games, with new games added every month. We see a couple of cool game play examples, such as a new frogger ( who knew we needed a new Frogger? Not complaining).

 

Apple Arcade will be available September 19th in over 150 countries for a pretty reasonable price of $4.99 a month for the whole family. They’ll also be offering a 1 month free trial.

 

 

Next up – Apple TV +

 

We’ve seen a couple of trailers for upcoming shows, such as ‘Dickinson’, ‘The Morning Show’ starring Jen Aniston & Reese Witherspoon, and now we get to see the first trailer for the Jason Momoa show ‘See’:

 

 

 

 

Apple TV + will be available on November 1st with more shows added every month in over 100 countries at launch.

 

You can subscribe for, again, a pretty reasonable price of  $4.99/month for your whole family. AND if you’re lucky enough to buy a new iPhone, iPad or Laptop from Apple, you’ll get 1 year of Apple TV + for free.

 

 

Now we get to the new 7th Generation iPad, with a larger 10.2 inch retina display with 3.5 million pixels, A10 Fusion chip and Smart connector to connect a full size smart keyboard. It takes full advantage of the new iPadOS ( of course, would be kind of dumb if it didn’t, right?), weighs about a pound, and is made from 100% recycled aluminum.

 

You can order the new iPad today, and it will start shipping at the end of the month.

 

Prices start at $329, and for education customers you’re looking at a starting price of $299.

 

Before we get to Apple watch Series 5, they talk about 3 new health studies that they’re doing: the Apple hearing study, working with WHO and University of Michigan, the Apple women’s health study, and the Apple heart & movement study partnering with American heart association and Brigham and Womens hospital.

 

If you want to participate in the studies, Apple is launching a new Research app for Apple Watch owners that will allow you to opt in to privately contribute by sharing the data collected. It will launch later this year.

 

The new Apple Watch Model has an innovative new retina display that is ALWAYS ON. Which sounds annoying, but will actually be great. It’s dulled when not held up, so you can still see it but it’s not in everyone’s face all lit up, and now Apple Watch wearers everywhere won’t have to look like they’re bored of where they are all the time because they look at their watch right in front of there face all exaggerated.

 

And yet – we still get our all day 18 hour battery life. AND a built in compass! Win much. There’s also a new safety feature – every cellular model has international (over 150 countries) emergency calling capabilities even without your iPhone.

 

New cases are made from 100% recycled aluminum, there are new titanium models and a ceramic white model.

 

Apple Watch Series 5 starts at $399 for the aluminum GPS models,  $499 for the aluminum LTE models, $699 for the  Stainless steel models, $799 for the  titanium models, and (fewf) $899 for the ceramic models.  You can choose whichever band you like in Apple Retails’s  new “Apple Watch Studio.”

 

Also, Apple Watch Series 3 now starts at $199

 

 

 

Now for the big guns! Right? NEW IPHONES!!

 

Well, kind of.  There’s some really cool things in here, but for some reason the presentation was a little lackluster. So here’s the good bits!

 

iPhone 11 is the new iPhone model. But we knew that, didn’t we? It has an aluminum & glass design, a 6.1 inch Liquid Retina Display, with spacial audio. Equipped with a A13 Bionic Chip, it has the fastest CPU in a smartphone, with all day battery life, faster face ID, and wireless charging capabilities.

 

We have a new dual camera system with a new wide camera and ultra wide angle camera with 120 degree view, brighter flash, new monochrome portrait lighting effect, a a really awesome looking new night mode for low light settings.

 

You can switch between the Ultra Wide camera to the Wide camera really easily mid video by tapping the screen. You can also take a video whilst taking a photo by tapping and holding the shutter button. The camera system looks really neat, and is, according to Apple, the highest quality video in a smartphone.

 

They’ve also given us an updated 12MP true depth front camera and added 4k video & slow motion. They’re trying to get #Slofies to be a thing, but we’re resistant. Only on animals, guys, please.

 

The iPhone 11 comes in 6 new colors – Purple, Black, White, Yellow, Green, and Product Red.

 

 

You can order the iPhone 11 today, and it will be available in store September 20th starting at $699

 

 

 

The iPhone 11 Pro is a step up, made from surgical grade surgical steel, and the back is made from a single piece of glass. It comes in new colors as well, with Midnight green, Space Grey, Silver, and Gold matte finishes. It comes in 2 sizes – 6.5 ( The iPhone Pro Max) and 5.8 inches and has what they’re calling a ‘ Super Retina XDR’ Display, a OLED panel with a 2 million to 1 contrast ratio,HDR 10 Dolby Vision, and 458 pixels per inch. It also has the toughest glass ever in a smartphone.

 

It’s 15 % more energy efficient with spacial audio sound, also has the , A13 Bionic Chip, and has 4 more hours battery per day than the iPhone XS – the iPhone 11 Pro Max has up to 5 hours more per day.

 

Now let’s talk cameras. The Pro has a new wide camera – f/1.8, a new telephoto camera, and a new ultrawide camera f/2.4 with something they call ‘Deep Fusion technology’ to create the best photo. All three cameras shoot 4k 60 fps video.

  

iPhone 11 starts at $699

iPhone 11 Pro starts at $999

iPhone 11 Pro Max starts at $1099

Pre order 5am PDT Friday

They’ll start shipping September 20

 

iPhone 10R now starts at $599

iPhone 8 now starts at $449

 

 

 

We also get a new line of cases! Yay!

 

So that’s the highlights, folks. What did you think? If you wanted to see it in video form, because, why not? It’s Tuesday. And Apple are really good at videos:

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

iPhone Photo Awards!

The winners of the 12th annual iPhone Photography Awards were just unveiled!

 

There were thousands of entries from over 140 countries around the world – were you one of them?

 

 

 

The grand prize winner is “Big Sister” shot on an iPhone X by Gabriella Cigliano of Italy.

 

The photo itself was taken in Zanzibar, Africa.

 

 

From the photographer:

 

“Last year I spent a month in Wasa, Tanzania, teaching a class of young, curious and amazing guys. Before heading back to Italy we stopped in Zanzibar, where this photo was taken. I still wonder how could I capture that exact moment in all its beauty. I was just observing, a few meters from them, but they were probably more curious about me than I was about them, and that’s probably why the girl was looking at me. We couldn’t talk much, except for a few words in Swahili I had learned in the previous weeks, but those kids could definitely talk with their eyes. It was one of the most beautiful things I’ve seen in my life, and I’ll keep it in my memories forever. The best part was showing them and their mums the photos, for some it was the first time they were seeing their faces, and their excitement was unexplainable, unfortunately my iPhone was in their hands and I couldn’t capture that!”

 

The rest of the winning entrants are from categories like Abstract, Animals, Architecture, Children, Floral, Landscape, Lifestyle, Nature,  News-Events, Panorama, People,  Portrait,  Series, Still Life, Sunset,  Travel,  and Trees.

 

You can see the rest of the winning photos here. And if this inspires you, you can already enter into next year’s competition here. The deadline is 03/31/2020.

 

 

New MacBooks!

The rumors swirling around the Valley today focus on new MacBooks.

 

Apparently, Apple will release a new 16-inch MacBook Pro (possibly with an all new design), as well as a refresh of the 13-inch MacBook Pro and the MacBook Air in October.

 

Analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said that a new MacBook Air with a scissor keyboard would launch in the second half of 2019, and a new MacBook Pro with a scissor keyboard in 2020.

 

This would be roughly a month after the new iPhones are launched, so seems like we’ve only got exciting things to come from Apple!

 

 

 

 

Apple registers new iPhone models!

Ooooooh! It’s been discovered that Apple has registered ELEVEN unreleased iPhone models in the Eurasian Economic Commission database this week, including models A2111, A2160, A2161, A2215, A2216, A2217, A2218, A2219, A2220, A2221, and A2223.

 

Likely, these are the models that will be in the new iPhone line up expected to be announced, as per usual, in September 2019.

 

We’re probably not looking at anything uber fantastic in this refresh, but a slightly more advanced versions of the phone we saw released last year. (Which, I mean, still pretty advanced?) We should expect a 5.8 and a 6.5-inch OLED iPhone, and a 6.1-inch LCD iPhone.

 

The high end models might have an additional rear camera lens, there may be a complete removal of 3D touch, with an expansion of haptic touch instead, frosted glass back casing, larger batteries, larger RAM, and possibly the additional of new colors for the 6.1 model. Like hypercolor.

 

(Not really, the new colors are rumored to be Lavender and Green,  but wouldn’t that be rad? Or are we just showing our age?!)

 

We can look forward to seeing all the new software features that will be run on the new phones come June 3rd during the annual WWDC keynote – which features a unicorn on it’s media invite, btw – and the iPhones themselves are still obviously unnamed, although iPhone X1 and iPhone X11 are being thrown around the Apple Rumor tree.

 

Are you excited to see the new models? ( Hypercolor for the win)

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Shot on iPhone winners announced

Looks like these people used the ‘How to shoot on iPhone’ tutorial series Apple ran, huh?

 

Robert Glaser (Germany), iPhone 7

 

Apple just announced the 10 winners of its ‘Shot on iPhone’ photography challenge. The competition ran from January 22 to February 7.

 

The winners are Alex Jiang, Blake Marvin, Elizabeth Scarrott, Andrew Griswold, Bernard Antolin, and LieAdi Darmawan from the U.S., Darren Soh from Singapore, Nikita Yarosh from Belarus, Dina Alfasi from Israel, and Robert Glaser from Germany.

 

Each of the winners used different iPhones varying from the iPhone 7 through iPhone XS Max, and their winning creations will be featured on Apple Billboards, on the Apple website and socials, and in Apple retail stores.

 

The judges included marketing chief Phil Schiller, a group of Apple employees as well as well-known photographers Pete Souza, Austin Mann, Annet de Graaf, Luísa Dörr, Chen Man, Kaiann Drance, Brooks Kraft, Sebastien Marineau-Mes, Jon McCormack, and Arem Duplessis.

 

 

 

View all of the photos at the Apple Newsroom.

Apple to donate 1000 Apple Watches

Apple is donating 1,000 Apple Watches to a study conducted by The University of North Carolina’s medical school which aims to track biological changes in people with eating disorders.

 

The new study is called BEGIN (AKA Binge Eating Genetics Initiative), and the goal is to better understand overeating disorders. The study will engage 1,000 participants of ages 18 or older who have experience with either binge eating disorder or bulimia nervosa.

 

Each participant will get a free Apple Watch which will collect data that the researchers will use to monitor their heart rate to see if there are any spikes prior to binge eating episodes.

 

Participants will receive tests to analyze their genetics and bodily bacteria and also have access to a mobile app called Recovery Record, which they can use to log their thoughts and feelings, which would be shared with a healthcare professional.

 

From the Sauce, Cynthia Bulik, founding director of the Center of Excellence for Eating Disorders and author of Binge Control: A Compact Recovery Guide:

 

“We need to collect data from a whole lot of people to see what it looks like,” said . “We want to know if it has a biological and behavioral signature.”

 

Researchers hope the collected data will help them to predict binge eating episodes before they happen. If this was to happen, a follow up study could be put in place whereby participants received some kind of alert when they were at risk of binge eating.

 

Apple discontinues Lightening to 30-pin adaptor

Apple has discontinued its Lightning to 30-pin Adapter and has removed it from its website. The adaptor, previously listed for $29, was first released in 2012 after Apple debuted the lightening connector for all future iPads and iPhones.

 

There was some controversy that came with the lightening connectors, with people understandably concerned that they had to pay for another new Apple product for no good reason – but, as folk who work with charging new and old iPhones and iPads every day – that reason was a really good one. The Lightning connectors are significantly thinner and more compact than 30-pin, and way easier to use, and additionally the switch let Apple save space for other components in their mobile devices.

 

Apple’s iPhone 5, fourth-generation iPad, and first-generation iPad mini were some of the first devices to use the new Lightning connector, which has been present in all mobile devices since 2012.

 

Group FaceTime around the corner?

After pulling the feature from earlier iOS 12 Beta releases, Apple today seeded the first beta of the iOS 12.1 update  – featuring none other than Group FaceTime – to its public beta testing group, which means it will likely be included in the upcoming public release of iOS 12.1.

 

Group FaceTime has long been both anticipated by those who want it, and slightly derided by those who have yet to understand the wonder and the possibility of group FaceTime.

 

We, if you couldn’t tell, are solidly in the latter camp. The feature will let you FaceTime (audio or video) with up to 32 people at the same time on an iPhone, iPad, or Mac. Calls can also be answered – audio only – on a HomePod or Apple Watch.

 

Party with multiple friends and family who live all over the world? Yes please!

 

Anyone who has signed up for Apple’s beta testing program can receive the update over-the-air after installing the proper certificate on an iOS device.

 

Want to be one of these guys? Sign up on Apple’s beta testing website, which will give you access to iOS, macOS, and tvOS betas.

 

 

 

 

 

Quick rundown of what happened at the Apple Special Media Event

The Apple Special Media event happened this morning, and even though it was pretty much what we expected, there was still some pretty cool announcements and reveals.

 

First up, we have the Apple Watch: Series 4. This new model is slimmer than previously, but still has a 30% bigger, edge-to-edge screen, whilst retaining the same 18 hour battery life. Outdoor workout time is increased to 6 hours, there is more information presented on the interface, and it has a pretty impressive 50% louder speaker.

 

The biggest announcement to do with it? The additional health features. These have long been rumored of course, but now that they’re here? We’re impressed. They’re really, really cool.

 

The Apple Watch now has fall detection functionality, which can, just as it says, detect when the user falls, can then deliver an alert notification to emergency contacts, and initiate an emergency call with GPS location of the User if the user remains inert for more than one minute after the fall.

 

The Watch also has 3 new FDA approved heart features, it can tell when your heart rate falls below normal levels ( as the current model does with high heart rate levels), it can also detect irregular heart rhythm’s, or Atrial fibrillation, and, it can actually take an electrocardiogram, otherwise known as an ECG. All of this data is also stored so you can track it and show it to health professionals when necessary.

 

The watches come in two sizes, 3 aluminum finishes; silver, gold and space grey, as well as gold stainless steel with matching Milanese band, joining the silver and space black stainless steel models.

 

Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS) starts at $399  and Apple Watch Series 4 (GPS + Cellular) starts at $499. It’s available for order this Friday, and will come out the following Friday, Sept. 21st.

 

Series 3 is available right now at the new starting price of $279.

 

 

Next! 

 

We were introduced, as expected, to a line up of 3 new models of iPhone; The iPhone Xs, The iPhone Xs Max, and the iPhone XR.

 

The first two models have a 5.8 inch and 6.5 inch respectively, edge to edge super Retina display, and are made of surgical grade stainless steel and glass that is, according to Apple, the most durable yet. They come in 3 finishes of Gold, Silver and Space Grey, and feature the A12 Bionic chip, making them faster than ever.

 

FaceID is more secure, and the camera is a new dual camera system featuring both the 12 mega pixel wide angle camera and the 12mega pixel telephoto camera, as well as improved true tone flash and a new Smart HDR feature, AND a new depth editor function.

 

It looks pretty nice.

 

The phones also feature new Siri shortcuts, which make it so you can automatically bunch a group of tasks together with one command.

 

 

In The iPhone Xs, battery life last 30 minutes longer than iPhone x, and in the iPhone Xs Max, battery life is 1.5 hours longer than the iPhone x.

 

One of the best, most long awaited features? Dual Sim, making it so you can have two phone numbers in one phone, whether that be work/home or when you’re traveling internationally.

 

The iPhone XR  is the less expensive new model in the lineup, and is slightly (slightly unfortunately?) reminiscent of the iPhone 5C, coming in a variety of colors including white, black, blue, coral, yellow, and red. It is a lot better than the 5C though, with a huge 6.1-inch LCD ( the best LCD screen ever, apparently) edge-to-edge screen, and a lot of the same features as the more expensive models, such as FaceID, the A12 bionic chip, and the true depth camera system.

 

The battery life will also be an hour and half more than the iPhone 8 Plus.

 

 

 

 

The iPhone Xs will come with storage configuration of 64GB, 256GB, and  512GB and will start at $999

 

The iPhone Xs Max will come with storage configuration of 64GB, 256GB, and 512GB and will start at $1099

 

You can preorder both phones on Sept 14th and they will ship on the 21st of Sept.

 

The iPhone XR -will come in storage configuration of 64GB, 128GB, and  256GB, and will start at $749. You can order it on October 19th and it will start to ship on October 26.

 

Additionally, The iPhone 7 drops to $449 and the iPhone 8 drops to $599.

 

There was no ‘One more thing,’  unfortunately, but there was a couple of extra things announced at the end of the Keynote:

 

You can upgrade to iOS 12 on Monday September 17th.

 

HomePod got some new updates, whereby if you add more HomePods they’ll work together, and you can now search, make and receive phone calls, and ping your devices. Siri shortcuts will also work.

 

 

tvOS is getting an update,  and MacOS Mojave is coming at you on September 24.

 

 

 

So that’s what we have for you! Or rather, what Apple worked really, really hard to bring you. We’re pretty excited by the new health features and the slimmer size of the Apple Watch Series 4, and the new iPhones, (although kind of annoyingly named?) seem like they feature some pretty distinct and nice new features and functionality.