Colin Devroe:

Tomorrow iOS 11 is being released to the public, I thought I’d jot down a few things that I believe people should do on the day they upgrade, so that they don’t just move on with their busy lives and forget.

Good list, quick read.

Matt Birchler pulled together a fantastic review of watchOS 4. This is too big to quote out, but worth your time to step through. There’s good and bad here, no punches pulled.

Of particular interest is the new Siri watch face and the detailed discussion of the new Dock. Well done, good read.

Yesterday, we posted the Hodinkee review of the cellular Apple Watch, with some focus on the red dot placed on the edge of the Digital Crown.

To add to the discussion, this from Matthew Achariam’s Red Dot blog post:

We got an unknowing first glimpse at the latest design of the Apple Watch more than two years ago. No less, adorned on the wrist of Tim Cook was a stainless steel watch with a bright red crown cap.

This pic is a closeup from the original Reuters’ pic of Tim’s wrist from a few years ago:

Note the red dot. More from Matthew:

Leica’s brand is iconic due to their distinct red mark which it has used since 1913. It is instantly recognizable.

And:

French fashion designer, Christian Louboutin, employs a similar technique, coating the soles of the shoes he creates in a bright glossy red.

And:

In horology watchmakers use color as a tool to differentiate between editions and various releases constantly. Industrial designer and long time Ive collaborator, Marc Newson, has created several watches that Ive has drawn inspiration from for the Apple Watch. Newson’s Hemipode watch also features red caps, adorned on secondary buttons.

And:

By nature, changing anything that touches so many people always elicits a reaction. If you want an LTE enabled Apple Watch, you’re getting a red crown cap—a decidedly non-neutral color is now the only option. In the past, you had some semblance of choice in getting a non-neutral color. This small red dot breaks the modular styling of the watch. For better or worse, the watch design team decided that this marker and what it represents was of greater importance.

A small thing, perhaps, but the red dot is an important, distinguishing design element.

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.

Tom’s Guide:

The “Bionic” part in the name of Apple’s A11 Bionic chip isn’t just marketing speak. It’s the most powerful processor ever put in a mobile phone. We’ve put this chip to the test in both synthetic benchmarks and some real-world speed trials, and it obliterates every Android phone we tested.

I think the “Bionic” part is silly marketing speak but these results, while not important to the average consumer, still point to the remarkable job Apple has done with their chip designs.

RT:

A Soviet officer who prevented a nuclear crisis between the US and the USSR and possible World War III in the 1980s has quietly passed away. He was 77. In 2010 RT spoke to Stanislav Petrov, who never considered himself a hero. We look at the life of the man who saved the world.

This is a truly terrifying story and, sadly, he never got the recognition and appreciation he deserved.

If you know who Liam Gallagher is, you’ll no doubt find this both in character and, perhaps, an insightful comment on changing times. If you don’t know him, think controversial rock star (lead singer of the band Oasis).

From his Wikipedia page:

His erratic behaviour, distinctive singing style, and abrasive attitude have been the subject of commentary in the press; he remains one of the most recognisable figures in modern British music.

With that background, check out the video embedded in the tweet below [Cursing throughout].

Liam Gallagher making tea is the best thing you'll see today. As you were. pic.twitter.com/JaAB0p6Qr2

— BBC Three (@bbcthree) September 20, 2017

Benjamin Klymer, Executive Editor of Hodinkee:

One of the most amusing things about doing what I do for a living – writing about and working with mechanical watches – is the reaction that other watch guys expect me, or really any other reasonable watch person, to have about the Apple Watch. They think we should hate it. I don’t hate the Apple Watch, nor should anyone else. If anything, the build quality versus price ratio on the Apple Watch is so embarrassing for the Swiss that I genuinely think it will push mechanical watchmakers to be better.

This is a thoughtful, long, and fantastic review of the Series 3 Apple Watch. More specifically, Benjamin is writing and speaking about the ceramic Edition model, which now comes in both grey and white. Don’t miss the video at the top, and the terrific collection of pictures sprinkled throughout.

There’s no way to quote out all the chewy goodness in this post, but I did find this particular point fascinating.

On the red dot on every single Apple Watch Series 3 Edition:

All Edition watches feature cellular technology so all Edition watches will feature the red dot.

And:

If Apple did want to have some visual cue to let others know you’ve copped the new hotness with that cellular bizness inside, why make it a red dot, a logo well known and loved by a brand with which many consumers of “luxury digital products” are well acquainted – Leica? Hell, Apple designers Jony Ive and Marc Newson even collaborated on a Leica for the Red Charity Auction in 2013. Again, the red dot isn’t a huge deal, but I’d love to get the background on this. Why that and why there?

To see this red dot similarity for yourself, just hop over to the Leica camera web site. That red dot is all over the place. Interesting.

[Via DF]

This is a great read, a great way to quickly get a sense of all that’s new with iOS 11. Worth a scan, pass it along.

John Gruber, commenting on the fact that the WiFi and Bluetooth buttons in Control Center no longer act as on/off switches:

This is an interesting feature, but I think it’s going to confuse and anger a lot of people. Until iOS 11, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth toggles in Control Center worked the way it looked like they worked: they were on/off switches. Now, in iOS 11, they still look like on/off switches, but they act as disconnect switches.

Off the top of my head, I would suggest making them three-way switches: on and connected, on but disconnected, and off.

Completely agree. This setup is confusing. As John points out, when you tap the WiFi button, WiFi is left on, but you are disconnected from your current session. Tap it again, you are reconnected. The icon goes from a blue background to a grey background, and back to blue when you reconnect.

To complete the picture, there is a third icon state. Take a look at what happens when you turn on airplane mode:

The grey background with the line through it shows that Bluetooth and WiFi are now disconnected. In Airplane mode, a tap on the WiFi icon goes from disabled to connected (assuming there’s WiFi to be had), from grey with a line through it to the blue background.

Confusing. But once you get the sense of it, it’s pretty clear what’s happening.

Good walkthrough by Christian Zibreg, iDownloadBlog, on using Notes to scan and save documents.

I love this feature. And I find it interesting to think about edge detection at work here. Watch how the scanner detects the edges of a piece of paper laying on a table, automatically adjusts the scanning frame so you end up with a relatively rectangular result.

This object and edge detection is a hallmark of ARKit. Not certain that’s how this was done, but would not surprise me if it was.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Over the last day or two, several Mac users appear to have been locked out of their machines after hackers signed into their iCloud accounts and initiated a remote lock using Find My iPhone.

With access to an iCloud user’s username and password, Find My iPhone on iCloud.com can be used to “lock” a Mac with a passcode even with two-factor authentication turned on, and that’s what’s going on here.

This does appear to be a genuine hole in Apple’s security scheme, though iCloud itself was not hacked.

Seems like this is fixable. From the comments:

When you go to remote lock a device you enter a lock passcode and the device’s password or passcode. When that is sent to the Mac, iPhone, whatever, if the device password doesn’t match, it won’t lock the device. That way, even if a hacker guesses your Apple ID and password using hacked credentials, they still can’t lock the device without the Mac’s login.

Not sure if this is doable, since your Mac’s password is not stored in the cloud, but maybe the entered password could be encrypted, sent to the Mac, and the Mac could decrypt and compare.

Ars Technica:

The Qi wireless charging standard from the Wireless Power Consortium (WPC) is having a relatively good year. Now is a good time for a bird’s-eye view of the technology—how it works, what it’s for, and what its prospects are. This is also a good time because millions of Apple ecosystem users are about to get their first sampling of Qi when the iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus launch this Friday.

Qi has appeared in phones of various stripes for more than five years, and many people are already using it. The basic tech has been used for consumer products like razors and toothbrushes for a while, plus a variety of non-consumer tools.

If wireless charging has been around for years, why has it struggled to become normal? We’ll get into that shortly. But first, for those who are just getting introduced to Qi, we’ll go into the basics of how it works.

This is another example of a technology that will take off now that Apple is supporting it.

CNET:

The camera in your pocket is about to get better. Again. Apple has always packed serious photography power inside the iPhone, and the iPhone 8 Plus is no exception. With a new 12-megapixel sensor that captures color and texture in stunning detail and dual wide-angle and telephoto lenses, the iPhone 8 Plus delivers a serious camera.

I set out on an adventure in and around San Francisco, CNET’s hometown, to capture the city’s eclectic mix of architecture, landmarks and natural beauty — testing a range of lighting conditions, photography modes and filters.

As a (supposed) professional photographer, I’m really interested in the improvements and features of the new iPhones’ cameras and the advancements Apple is making in photography. They are helping “average users” to create beautiful, compelling images.

Serenity Caldwell does a great job of explaining what’s going on with the Apple Watch connectivity problems. It also reaffirms why I didn’t experience any of these issues in my Apple Watch review—I don’t connect to these types of networks.

While writing my review of the Apple Watch Series 3 with LTE capabilities, I experienced notable connectivity issues. The new Watch appeared to try to connect to unknown WiFi networks instead of connecting to cellular, when I was out and about without my phone.

Within the first couple days of experiencing this, Apple replaced my first review unit with a second one, but that one proved to be problematic, too.

Eventually, the company issued an official statement, acknowledging the issue. “We have discovered that when Apple Watch Series 3 joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity, it may at times prevent the watch from using cellular,” an Apple spokesperson said in an emailed statement. “We are investigating a fix for a future software release.”

I’m not sure what’s going on here, but I never had this issue with my Apple Watch. Every time I tried to do something, it worked just fine.

Perhaps Gruber explained it:

I suspect one reason I haven’t run into this is that I generally avoid using unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks. They’re a security risk, and at least in my experience they generally offer slower, less reliable connectivity than LTE.

I don’t do that either, so that could be it. Whatever the reason, Apple needs to get it fixed and they will.

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.

Jason Snell, Macworld:

Control Center in iOS 11 is different. Really different. And when you upgrade from iOS 10, it will take some getting used to. But as someone who has been using it for a few months now, let me declare: It’s better. The new Control Center is simultaneously simpler and more powerful. And best of all, you can customize it to do what you want —— and hide most of what you don’t care about.

I agree with Jason. I think the new Control Center does take getting used to. But Jason solves that problem. His walkthrough makes things pretty clear.

Visual Codes is a bit hard to describe. It basically makes it easy to turn a chunk of data (like a URL) into a QR code, and makes it easy to store and retrieve those codes. You can even use Siri to display your codes on your iPhone screen.

Here’s an example that might explain the value here:

You can use Visual Codes to create a QR code that connects to your home WiFi. You could print that QR code (Visual Codes knows how to print, too) and put it on the wall in your house. When someone comes to visit, they point their camera to the QR code poster (iOS knows how to interpret QR codes, knows this particular one is to connect to WiFi) and they are connected.

If you prefer a more private, controlled setting, you could ask Siri to bring up your home WiFi QR code, then have your guest point their camera to the QR code on your iPhone screen. Same result. No password changing hands, and they are in.

This is just one use case. Of many. And the app is FREE. Printing requires an in-app purchase of $1.99 that unlocks all additional features, but the free version is usable. No reason not to grab it. I think you’ll be glad you did.

Details on the Visual Codes web site.

This is a fascinating read. There’s the story of how Gabriel Weinberg got started. And the story of how he figured out his core mission, that of privacy.

One particular highlight that struck me:

It was 2011 when Gabriel Weinberg started to experiment off-line advertising with a billboard, which said “Google tracks you. We don’t.”

According to Wired, that campaign cost was $7,000 for four weeks, and it started “in tech-heavy SOMA district, along the highway dumping cars off the Bay Bridge into San Francisco.”

This is not literature, but there’s lots of detail, and a terrific underdog story.

Droid Life:

When Google takes the stage on October 4 at a phone-related event in San Francisco, most of us expect there to be non-phone related product announcements too. We’ve heard rumors about a Google Home “mini” possibly being on the way and today we can confirm that it exists, how much it costs, and the colors it’ll be available in.

The home assistant market is evolving, and all before Apple’s HomePod has an official release date. Amazon’s Echo Dot is priced at $49.99 and now it looks like Google is playing in the same space at the same price.

Begs the question: Will Apple roll out a HomePod Mini to compete with the Dot and Home Mini?

The Dot has a speaker, but is not designed to play music. A HomePod Mini could offer remote, always on Siri queries, and fire up music on the HomePod.

That said, is there a need for a HomePod Mini in a home that likely already has iPhones, iPads, and Apple Watches? Gonna be interesting to watch this market unfold.

This is a little hard to explain, so take a moment to jump to the AtF Spark web site. Their examples make the concept quite clear.

In a nutshell, you download a font that lets you use a simple markup to embed cool little charts in your text. Terrific idea.

Juli Clover, MacRumors:

Demand for Apple’s high-end flagship iPhone X is “very likely” to cannibalize iPhone 8 pre-orders, predicts KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo in a note sent out to investors this morning.

iPhone pre-orders traditionally sell out in September due to high demand, but this year, many models of the iPhone 8 and the iPhone 8 Plus were available for launch day delivery through the weekend, and continue to remain readily available for launch day pickup in Apple retail stores.

And:

As for the Apple Watch Series 3, Kuo says demand for the LTE version of the device was “significantly stronger” than expected, perhaps due to the “low premium of $70” over the non-LTE version of the watch.

Both are believable. The iPhone X is compelling, no matter how you feel about the notch.

And the low premium over non-LTE Apple Watch models is a small price to pay for the future-proofing it offers. Pay an extra $70, you’ll be able to turn LTE on if you decide you have the need. If I had the chance to pay $70 and get a WiFi+cellular iPad instead of WiFi-only, I’d make that choice every time.