iPhone

There are pictures of the phone, and of another phone with a similar symptom.

From the article:

So far, the finger of blame is being pointed at the battery. Unconfirmed reports state the iPhone 8 Plus uses the same battery manufacturer, Amperex Technology Limited (ATL), as the Samsung Galaxy Note 7.

But it’s worth remembering a couple of things. Firstly, many of the details surrounding this incident are hazy and unconfirmed. Take them with a grain of salt.

Exactly. If this is a widespread issue, we’ll see confirmed reports. If it’s a few flawed phones, this will quickly die off.

The Chairman of the FCC and Apple, on the FCC’s request that Apple flip the switch on their non-existent FM chip. […]

Benjamin Mayo, 9to5Mac:

The new Xcode 9.1 beta has also been released by Apple today with support for the new operating system updates: iOS 11.1, watchOS 4.1 and tvOS 11.1. It also includes a more fully-fledged iPhone X simulator, which demonstrates the new lock screen and home screen experiences.

There are also some onboarding videos, for things like activating Siri or revealing Control Center, which will be shown to iPhone X users upon setup.

Benjamin does a great job pulling together these inside looks at the iPhone X experience. Read his article, there’s a lot to it.

Here’s just a taste, a pair of onboarding videos, two different results when you swipe up from the bottom, one with a pause and one without, courtesy of Guilherme Rambo:

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/913096147002171398

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/913096389642657798

Love this.

Lots and lots of detail. A few highlights:

Fully topped off, this 3.82 V, 1821 mAh cell will deliver up to 6.96 Wh of power.

The iPhone 7 battery is 7.45 Wh, the Galaxy S8 has 11.55 Wh. Apple says the iPhone 8 battery life is comparable to the iPhone 7, even with the smaller capacity. Not clear how it compares with the Galaxy S8.

The 8’s sensor is bigger than the 7’s, but specs the same 12 MP resolution. This means the individual pixels are larger, letting in more light, improving colors, and decreasing noise.

The sample pictures I’ve seen all show this to be true, especially easy to see in low light.

There’s lots more, with some terrific pictures. Scroll about halfway down for some nice shots of the Qi enabled (pronounced “chee”) wireless charging coil.

Love this stuff.

Austin Mann:

I’m writing to you from a small hotel room in India having just experienced a magical adventure in western India orchestrated by friends at Ker & Downey. I’ve shot thousands of images and countless portraits with the iPhone 8 Plus and I’m excited to share what I’ve learned.

While the iPhone 8 Plus looks essentially the same as the phone we’ve had since the 6 Plus, there are some new features in the 8 Plus which really impact creative pros across the board — most notably Portrait Lighting, along with a few other hidden gems.

I’m a big fan of Austin’s photography and his reviews. He knows his craft and does a great job showing off iPhone 8 Plus camera.

Farhad Manjoo:

What does one say about a new iPhone? At this point, a decade after the first one sent the earth spinning in directions both magical and ghastly, it can be difficult to summon any fresh wonder when appraising the familiar little slab of digital horror and delight.

I’ma stop you right there. Why does the New York Times do this? Why ghastly? Why digital horror?

But I digress:

The 8s look almost identical to the iPhones 7, 6S and 6, a model first introduced back when Donald Trump was still hosting a reality TV show. To make matters worse, both are overshadowed by the $1,000 all-screen iPhone X, which Apple considers the foundation for the next iteration of the iPhone. That model ships in November, and reviewers have not yet had a chance to use it.

To make matters worse? This prose is jarring, especially when compared to the “worthy refinement” in the headline. But onward, people:

Most of Apple’s improvements over the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are minor, but if you have an older model, either of the 8s will feel like a solid upgrade. And if you are considering upgrading from an Android phone, there’s one area where the new iPhones still rank head and shoulders above their competition — the processor, the engine that runs the entire device, where Apple is so far ahead that it almost feels unfair.

OK, I feel the tone shifting. What follows is a highly positive review, especially when compared to Android phones. For example:

The fastest Android phones, though, are almost painfully behind. With a Geekbench score of around 1,900, Samsung’s flagship Galaxy S8 is not just half the speed of the iPhone 8, but it’s actually slower than last year’s iPhone 7, and even slower than the iPhone 6S, released in 2015.

Helps when you custom design your own processors.

And my favorite part of the iPhone, the camera:

Most images were astounding, and given the iPhone 8’s advantages in size, convenience and usability, I predict that my camera will be spending a lot more time in the drawer. In particular, I fell hard for the 8 Plus’s “Portrait Lighting” feature, which uses data from a depth sensor to mimic the blurred-background “bokeh” effect you get when taking portrait photos with expensive cameras. That feature made its debut last year on the iPhone 7 Plus, but in the 8 Plus, it’s been further refined to let you adjust the lighting of each shot, making for breathtaking portraits that you’ll be surprised came from a mere phone.

Pretty, pretty good.

Reuters:

Sprint Corp said on Monday it will offer Apple Inc’s new iPhone 8 for free with a qualifying phone trade-in, following AT&T Inc’s buy one, get one free promotion on Friday for DirecTV and U-verse TV customers.

And:

Both new and existing customers who enroll in the Sprint Flex leasing program will get a free 64GB iPhone 8 if they trade in newer iPhone and Samsung models, Sprint said on Monday.

AT&T’s video customers could buy a new iPhone 8 or 8 Plus, add a line and receive a $699 credit for a second device beginning with pre-orders on Friday.

Carrier wars. Competition that is good for consumers.

Wall Street Journal:

Thorstein Veblen was a cranky economist of Norwegian descent who coined the phrase “conspicuous consumption” and theorized that certain products could defy the economic laws of gravity by stoking more demand with superhigh prices.

And:

Typically, raising the price of a good lowers demand for it. If beef becomes too expensive, people will buy more chicken.

Mr. Veblen’s theory posits that some consumers want a product even more when the price rises because the expense broadcasts status, taste and wealth.

And:

By unveiling the new iPhone X last week with a price of $1,000, Apple Inc. is pushing the envelope even further than Samsung Electronics Co., which unveiled the $950 Note 8 phone this year. Rather than trying to attract consumers with cheaper prices, the companies are fighting for customers with expensive price tags.

And:

The biggest spikes came for iPhones that were the most visibly distinct, such as 2014’s iPhone 6, the model in which Apple changed the shape, enlarged the device and raised prices by $100.

Big lesson learned for Apple with the iPhone 6. I hear a ton of discussion of the pros and cons of the iPhone X, with many opinions on the notch and its distinctive look. Can’t help but think of this as a bit of a badge for Apple, another play towards uniqueness that will mark the iPhone X as the new must-have shiny.

Last Thursday, we ran a piece about the new generation of iPhone hardware not supporting T-Mobile’s emerging 600 MHz network, known as Band 71.

There was a lot of discussion about this, both on whether the new network will be out soon enough to even matter, and whether support for this future network should impact someone’s choice of T-Mobile as a network.

Peter Cohen sheds light on the coverage issue here, well worth reading if you are a T-Mobile customer or considering a carrier switch.

Keith Krimbel sent an email to Craig Federighi, asking three questions: […]

Chris Mills, BGR:

Apple announced the iPhone X, iPhone 8, and iPhone 8 Plus today. They’re all great phones in many ways, but they have one fatal flaw for T-Mobile and its customers: No support for T-Mobile’s new LTE network.

Right now, T-Mobile is in the early stages of rolling out a brand-new 600MHz network nationwide. The first sites are already online, and T-Mobile is expecting to cover a million square miles by the end of 2017. But the 600MHz network uses a brand-new LTE channel, Band 71, and very few devices support it yet. Sadly for T-Mobile, you can’t add the iPhone 8 or iPhone X to that list.

And:

The specs page for the iPhone X confirms that it supports all the usual North American LTE bands, but not Band 71. However you frame this, it’s a blow for T-Mobile. The iPhone X is widely expected to spark an upgrade “super-cycle” that will see people on the iPhone 6 and 6S spring for the upgrade, since they’re buying a phone that they expect to last for years. That phone — expected to last for at least two years — won’t be compatible with the LTE band that T-Mobile is expecting to be the backbone of its network going forwards.

Here’s the iPhone X specs page, look for yourself. Scroll down to the Cellular and Wireless section. No Band 71 mention.

Wondering if this support is something that can be rolled out in the future via an upgrade, or if it has to be baked in. If I was going to order an iPhone X and used T-Mobile, I would definitely want to know about this before I pressed the Buy button.

Any experts disagree with Chris’s take? Please do let me know.

Russell Brandom, The Verge:

Because phone’s all-glass front leaves no room for a home button, Apple is ditching Touch ID in favor of a facial recognition system powered by a new camera array and a specially modified A11 chip.

Not quite sure “leaves no room for a home button” quite captures the motivation for the change. But no matter, the article goes on to ask 5 questions, with thoughts for each.

Here are the questions:

• Will Face ID make it easier for police to unlock my phone?

• Could my face leak or get stolen?

• Will Face ID have a racial bias problem?

• Can you spoof Face ID with a picture of someone else’s face?

• Will Apple ever use Face ID for anything other than unlocking phones?

Tempting to just dismiss these questions (the first four with a no, the last with Animoji), but they are interesting topics. Lots of food for thought here.

One particular point:

Soon, millions of people will be enrolled into Face ID, giving Apple control over a powerful facial recognition tool. In the current system, that data stays on phones, but that could always change. The hashing would make it difficult for anyone other than Apple to use the data, but there’s no real limit on what they use it for, particularly if they start to store information outside of specific phones. On Twitter, privacy advocates worried about Face ID data being used for retail surveillance or attention tracking in ads. You could also imagine it as next year’s delightful product breakthrough, integrated into Apple Stores or Apple Cars as a way of carrying over logins no matter who walks in.

Some good thoughts, there. One I’d add: Apple is going to gather a tremendous amount of machine learning data, with incredible value (especially in the phone arms race), if they find a way to bring that data back to their central servers. This is a mighty new frontier.

During yesterday’s iPhone X demo, Craig Federighi walked across the stage and picked up an iPhone X, with the goal of demonstrating Face ID.

Things did not go as planned. […]

Jan Dawson, Tech.pinions:

There’s been a lot of talk about Apple releasing a $1,000 iPhone next week, and a lot of pushback from financial analysts in particular on the idea that people would actually buy such a thing.

And:

In the US, the vast majority of premium smartphones are sold through the major wireless carriers, with the largest four being AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, and Verizon Wireless. Each of those companies has been through a transition over the past few years away from the traditional subsidy model, under which customers paid a portion of the price of a phone up front, to a combination of installment and leasing models, where the cost of the phone is broken up into monthly payments.

And:

Compare that to current monthly prices for the base model iPhone 7 Plus, a phone that costs roughly $200 less to buy outright, which run from $25 to $36, and you’ll see that the real difference in price between a $770 phone and a $1000 phone isn’t $230 for most customers but a monthly price difference of anything from zero to $15.

Most interesting to me:

On top of that, bear in mind that the new iPhones are likely to be the biggest carrier switching event the US market has seen since 2014, so we’re going to see a lot of discounts, offers, and other promotions which lower the effective price even further.

A massive carrier switching event. Subtle point, big business. Keep that in mind as you explore your iPhone options next week.

Mike Rundle, Medium:

Much has been said about the huge updates in iOS 11 (huge for iPad, less so for iPhone) but few articles have really dug into what face unlocking would mean, beyond the obvious that you’ll be able to verify your identity and unlock your phone with your face.

I think this will be the flagship feature of the new iPhone, and will let Apple leapfrog competitors with futuristic face-scanning sensors that will have a gigantic impact on the future of augmented reality.

Mike digs into face scanning and AR, interesting stuff, but my favorite part of his post occurs when he digs into the evolution of the selfie.

Over the last 2 years, the consumer tech world has gone crazy over selfie lenses that superimpose objects and effects over your picture, or distort it directly like a funhouse mirror.

And:

When the new top-end iPhone comes out, it’s rumored that both the front and rear cameras will support the recording of 4K resolution video at 60FPS, which is an incredible leap beyond today’s FaceTime HD camera that records at half the resolution and half the framerate.

And:

Because this new high resolution camera will sit right next to an incredible infrared face-scanning sensor, developers won’t have to sift through mountains of image data to figure out where someone’s face is, they’ll just use the data coming off the 3D sensor to know unequivocally where someone’s most minute facial details are in 3D space, which will blow the doors off what is possible with augmented reality today.

The point here is that selfie AR is about to undergo an evolutionary quantum leap. Imagine putting hyper-accurate scary clown makeup on your face that looks painted on, even as you turn your face. Think realism, vs the look of standing behind a cardboard cutout, moving and squinting until the overlay looks kinda in place.

There are some terrific images that go along with this story, so go read it as Mike laid it out. Great observations.

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/903788364054368257

The concept of the iPhone lock button as the new home button has been floated around for quite some time. But Guilherme is not just guessing here. He is reacting to this particular string he encountered:

https://twitter.com/_inside/status/903093716814102529

In a nutshell, that code at the top of that second tweet refers to a gesture to launch Siri from the lock button. Interesting.

Mark Gurman, Bloomberg:

Apple Inc. plans to transform the way people use its next high-end iPhone by eliminating the concept of a home button and making other adjustments to a flagship device that’s becoming almost all screen, according to images of the new device viewed by Bloomberg News and people familiar with the gadget.

And:

Apple is preparing three new iPhones for debut next month. One of the models, a new high-end device, packs in enough changes to make it one of the biggest iPhone updates in the product’s decade-long history. With a crisper screen that takes up nearly the entire front, Apple has tested the complete removal of the home button—even a digital one—in favor of new gesture controls for tasks like going to the main app grid and opening multitasking, according to the people and the images.

Are we about to enter the buttonless era?

With cameras capable of scanning sophisticated enough to verify your face, there’s a world of possibilities for hands free gestures. Imagine unlocking your phone, starting a podcast, scrubbing forward a few minutes, and adjusting the volume, all without touching your screen.

Fascinating article, lots of design details said to be in the about to be released iPhones.

Brian X. Chen, New York Times:

The iPhone is now in a precarious position. Gone is the thrill of downloading yet another app. It isn’t as exciting anymore if the screens of the gadget get bigger or the device becomes thinner. And the middle age of the iPhone is reflected in its sales, which dipped for the first time last year. It doesn’t help that Apple also faces fierce competition, especially in markets like China and India where people are flocking to cheaper smartphones that are increasingly capable and attractive.

Doomed! Why does the New York Times lead their Apple coverage in such a negative way?

But I digress.

Chief among the changes for the new iPhones: refreshed versions, including a premium model priced at around $999, according to people briefed on the product, who asked to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to speak publicly.

John Gruber’s take:

If true, I would wager that means starting at $999, with a higher storage capacity model at $1099 and maybe another at $1199.

Makes sense.

An aside, the price mention is just part of a larger article, quite positive in tone, calling out the elements that keep people buying iPhones, year after year. Weird that it starts with such a negative slant.