Apple debuts the triple-camera iPhone 11 Pro

Apple’s triple-camera iPhone is real and it’s the first phone the company has dubbed “Pro.”

The iPhone 11 Pro comes in two flavors, with 5.8″ and 6.5″ varieties at $999 and $1,099, respectively.

The bizarre-looking camera is the real star of the release. There are three 12-megapixel lenses with varying fields-of-view — a telephoto, a wide and an ultra-wide lens. The variety of lenses makes for a very strange nodule on the rear of the phone, but the shots Apple detailed in its keynote highlighted the level of detail that the new combination camera can bring when you switch between the lenses.

There wasn’t much said about the front-facing camera system, but Apple did detail that Face ID will now detect your face at wider angles. The phones will continue to shoot 4K HDR footage.

Apple has shifted to a three-year redesign cycle, and in its third year, not much has changed with the iPhone 11 Pro looks-wise (beyond the camera square). In terms of looks, there’s a new “midnight green” textured matte finish, which actually looks quite nice among the more classic hues.

The new Pro devices ship with the company’s new A13 bionic chip, which has been optimized for high-intensity, low-power computing. The gains mean more usage between charges; the iPhone 11 Pro gets four more hours of usage per charge than the iPhone XS and the iPhone 11 Pro Max (what a mouthful) gets five hours more. The new phones ship with an 18-watt charger so that you can replenish your battery quickly… you’re probably going to want to dump those 5W charger blocks.

The new naming scheme doesn’t seem to denote a widening gap between the new phones Apple has released. The differences between the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 seem similar to the iPhone XR/XS relationship, the emphasis seems to be on boosting sales of the cheaper LCD iPhone while not making people feel like they’re buying the bargain iPhone.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 11 Pro go live this Friday and the phones ship on September 20.

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Apple Watch Series 5 hands-on

The new Apple Watch is even harder to distinguish from its predecessor than the new iPhone. Given the fact that Fitbit’s smartwatches appear more and more Apple-like with every new generation, however, maybe the company’s onto something here. Like the iPhone, Apple hasn’t touched the Watch’s design for a while now, leading one to wonder if there’s much to be done on that front.

The new titanium and ceramic cases are nice to look at, but they’ll cost you. There are some nice new magnetic straps, as well, and Apple’s new in-store customization options will go a little ways toward helping wearers stand out from the crowd.

On the whole, the Series 5 doesn’t feel like a huge step forward. There’s nothing on here that’s quite as radical a shift as the addition of LTE from a while back. The addition of sleep tracking, meanwhile, appears to have been put on the back burner for a bit — owing perhaps to battery constraints. The truth of the matter is that 18 hours is more than enough to get you through a day, but wearing the watch to sleep is another matter.

That said, there has been some battery improvement. The listed battery life is the same as the last model, but that time now factors in the always-on display. That’s probably the useful day to day addition for the new device. Even when you’re not actively engaging with it, the screen stays on.

Like other smartwatches, it accomplishes this with the low-energy display. But the switch is less radical than on, say, the new Fitbit Versa. Instead, the faces invert while keeping complications and other features visible. I got a demo of the feature, which was triggered when either covering the light sensor with a hand or, more naturally, swinging your arm down to the side.

I’ve been using always on with the Fitbit and find it to be kind of a mixed bag. It sucks when sleeping (you’re better off turning it off at night) and would probably be a pain in, say, a movie theater. That said, there are plenty more instances when you just want to check the time without actively engaging the watch. Among other things, Apple appears to be laying the ground work for battery improvements and, hopefully, the aforementioned sleep tracking.

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The inclusion of the compass is nice. It’s easy to see how developers can leverage it, going forward. The best demo I got was Night Sky. The familiar star gazing app is neat when you can move the watch around to get a full spherical look at the constellations.

The Series 5 starts at $399 for the standard version and $499 for LTE. Titanium is around $700. Like the iPhone, they hit stores September 20.

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iPhone 11 Pro hands-on

More than any other iPhone event in recent memory, today’s big launch was content-first. Apple began the show with several gaming demos from Arcade, before moving along to TV+ premieres. The new iPhone didn’t necessarily take a backseat, but there’s little question that this event was a key piece in shifting messaging for the company.

The big announcement also saw a shift in iPhone positioning against a backdrop of declining smartphone sales. There are a number of reasons why device sales are down across the board, of course — I along with everyone else in the industry have written about them dozens if not hundreds of times. Price creep is a big one, and the iPhone 11 finds the company readjusting accordingly.

Here’s everything Apple announced today at the iPhone 11 event

The device takes the spot of the R line — a big seller for Apple. This time the entry-level “flagship” is $699, while the Pro and Pro Max step in for the premium-tier devices, priced at $999 and $1,099, respectively. Apple set those prices with the iPhone X two years ago and hasn’t looked back.

Apple has also really settled into a style. The 11s are virtually indistinguishable from their predecessors, head on. The screens have been souped-up to “Super Retina XDR” on the Pros. Both are 458 PPI, at 5.8 and 6.5 inches, respectively.

The notch remains, even as companies like Samsung push into a subtler cut-out model (not to mention all of those companies currently experimenting with pop-up cameras). Ditto, unfortunately, for the Lightning port. Apple’s ditched it for USB-C on the iPad Pro and, honestly, I can’t wait for it to follow suit on the iPhone. I go through what feels like a Lightning cable a month, due to wear and tear on the connection.

That will have to wait until 2020 (fingers crossed). So, too, will 5G, though the company did allude to “faster cellular” in a quick rundown of all the features it didn’t have time to announce onstage. Ditto for the rumored improved FaceTime camera. That should work faster and from more angles, so you’ll (theoretically) be able to check messages while the phone is laying flush on a table. Huge, if true.

Speaker of cameras, that’s the biggie here, of course. It continues to be the last vestige for smartphone innovation. Again, hardware is just kind of good on smartphones. There doesn’t appear to be a ton of room for innovation, but for the camera. The iPhone 11 ditches telephoto, for wide and ultra-wide-angle lenses. The Pros, meanwhile, add telephoto it back in.

The three cameras on the Pros are as follows:

12MP wide angle camera (26mm f/1.8), a 12MP ultra wide (13mm f/2.4), plus a 12MP telephoto camera (52mm f/2.0). All are capable of shooting 4K video at 60FPS.

They’re in an odd square array (versus, say, the three down vertical on Samsung’s latest). In fact, all versions of the iPhone 11 have a camera box bump on the rear, for the sake, one imagines, of aesthetic uniformity. As we’ve noted before, most of the innovation in smartphone cameras is happening on the software side, and that appears to be the case here. The big feature is Deep Fusion.

It works similarly to HDR photos, creating a massive composite. Here it uses nine photos, with the optimal pixels chosen by on-board machine learning for super-fancy photos that should greatly reduce image noise.

The devices are the first to sport Apple’s new A13 chip, which promises much faster processing — the “fastest ever on a smartphone,” according to the company. That, naturally, means more and better gaming, bringing us right back around to the content play we were discussing at the top of this story.

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Understandably, what you can do with the phone has become a much larger selling point for Apple than the phone itself. You’ll be able to get your hands on the device starting September 20. 

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America’s largest companies push for federal online privacy laws to circumvent state regulatory efforts

As California moves ahead with what would be the most restrictive online privacy laws in the nation, the chief executives of some of the nation’s largest companies are taking their case to the nation’s capitol to plead for federal regulation.

Chief executives at Amazon, AT&T, Dell, Ford, IBM, Qualcomm, Walmart, and other leading financial services, manufacturing, and technology companies have issued an open letter to Congressional leadership pleading with them to take action on online privacy, through the pro-industry organization, The Business Roundtable.

“Now is the time for Congress to act and ensure that consumers are not faced with confusion about their rights and protections based on a patchwork of inconsistent state laws. Further, as the regulatory landscape becomes increasingly fragmented and more complex, U.S. innovation and global competitiveness in the digital economy are threatened,” the letter says.

The subtext to this call to action is the California privacy regulations that are set to take effect by the end of this year.

California passes landmark data privacy bill

As we noted when the bill was passed last year there are a few key components of the California legislation including the following requirements:

• Businesses must disclose what information they collect, what business purpose they do so for and any third parties they share that data with.

• Businesses would be required to comply with official consumer requests to delete that data.

• Consumers can opt out of their data being sold, and businesses can’t retaliate by changing the price or level of service.

• Businesses can, however, offer “financial incentives” for being allowed to collect data.

• California authorities are empowered to fine companies for violations.

There’s a reason why companies would push for federal regulation to supersede any initiatives from the states. It is more of a challenge for companies to adhere to a patchwork of different regulatory regimes at the state level. But it’s also true that companies, following the lead of automakers in California, could just adhere to the most stringent requirements which would clarify any confusion.

Indeed many of these companies are already complying with strict privacy regulations thanks to the passage of the GDPR in Europe.

WTF is GDPR?

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Apple will now let you pick your own band color with launch of ‘Apple Watch Studio’

Apple is doubling down on personalization to help better sell its latest products. In addition to an expanded array of iPhone colors — hello mint green, lilac, etc. — the company today announced the launch of Apple Watch Studio, which will allow consumers to create the Apple Watch case and band pairing that they want, instead of having to choose one designed by Apple.

Before today, Apple would pair its Apple Watch cases with select bands. If you didn’t like the band that came with your Watch, however, you’d have to buy another at your own expense either from Apple or a third-party seller.

Apple Watch Studio will change that by allowing you to pick the case and band style you prefer, when shopping.

“Apple has always been the best place to help you customize and personalize your products. And now we’re going to take it even further with Apple Watch,” said Deirdre O’Brien, Apple’s senior vice president of Retail + People, speaking at the Apple press event in Cupertino this morning.

The experience will be available starting with the launch of Apple Watch Series 5 at Apple retail stores and online.

O’Brien said the new experience will offer “over 1,000” different ways for customers to customize their Watch, thanks to the many variations of case and band styles now available.

The Series 5, also announced at today’s event, will offer aluminum models that come in silver, gold and space gray. Its stainless steel models will come in gold, silver, and space black and a ceramic model will come in white, plus an all-new titanium model. Apple has also now launched a range of new band styles, some which complement the new colors of the iPhone 11 line.

Effectively, it debuted a fall collection of bands, with bands featuring deeper jewel tones like pine green, midnight blue, and aubergine (purple), alongside a few brighter colors like lemons and oranges and of course some classic blacks and browns, among others.

While Apple will still sell Apple Watch case/band pairings on its site, if you scroll down the page you can try out the new Apple Watch Studio starting today. The site displays an image of an Apple Watch that you customize it by selecting the size, case, and band. These options appear in a horizontal scroll bar, so you can easily tweak the design by clicking over to the next option on the right or left.

When finished, you just click “I’m Done” and complete the checkout process.

It’s a small change but one that could see more customers sporting bands made by Apple instead of knockoffs, as they’ll get one they actually like at purchase.

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Apple is releasing macOS Catalina in October

After a summer of beta test, Apple is about to release the next major version of macOS, macOS Catalina. But not so fast, the new version will arrive in October, according to Apple’s updated website.

As always, this update will be available as a free download in the Mac App Store.

This version completely rethinks the way you interact with media. Instead of using iTunes for everything, there are a handful of new apps specifically designed for each task — Music, Podcasts and TV.

Mac users will also notice a huge update to Photos. It borrows many of the new features that you can see in iOS 13, such as the ability to view photos by days, months or years with a curated selection of shots. The company tries to identify the best photos using artificial intelligence.

If you’ve been using Duet Display or Luna Display, macOS Catalina lets you use your iPad as a second Mac display. It’s as easy as opening the AirPlay menu and selecting your iPad to extend your desktop. The feature is called Sidecar.

Apple is also adding new accessibility features. For instance, you can open apps, click on dropdown menus and navigate apps much more easily with your voice.

More interestingly, this new version of macOS opens up the ability to port iPad apps to the desktop using Project Catalyst. Some developers already said that they plan on taking advantage of that feature, such as Twitter, Gameloft and Atlassian.

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Why does the new iPhone 11 Pro have 3 cameras?

On the back of the iPhone 11 Pro can be found three cameras. Why? Because the more light you collect, the better your picture can be. And we pretty much reached the limit of what one camera can do a little while back. Two, three, even a dozen cameras can be put to work creating a single photo — the only limitation is the code that makes them work.

Earlier in today’s announcements, Apple showed the base-level iPhone 11 with two cameras, but it ditched the telephoto for an ultrawide lens. But the iPhone Pro has the original wide, plus ultrawide and telephoto, its optical options covering an approximate 35mm equivalents of 13mm to 52mm, and 26mm.

“With these three cameras you have incredible creative control,” said Apple’s Phil Schiller during the stage presentation. “It is so pro, you’re going to love using it.”

Previously the telephoto lens worked with the wide-angle camera to produce portrait mode effects or take over when the user zooms in a lot. By combining the info from both those cameras, which have a slightly different perspective, the device can determine depth data, allowing it to blur the background past a certain point, among other things.

The future of photography is code

The ultra-wide lens provides even more information, which should improve the accuracy of portrait mode and other features. One nice thing about a wide angle on a dedicated sensor and camera system is the creators can build in lots of corrections so you don’t get crazy distortion at the corners or center. Fundamentally you’ll still want to back off a bit, because using an ultrawide lens on a face gives it a weird look.

While we’re all used to the pinch-to-zoom-in gesture, what you’re usually doing when you do that is a digital zoom, just looking closer at the pixels you already have. With an optical zoom, however, you’re switching between different pieces of glass and, in this case, different sensors, getting you closer to the action without degrading the image.

One nice thing about these three lenses is that they’ve been carefully chosen to work together well. You may have noticed that the ultra-wide is 13mm, the wide is twice that at 26mm, and the telephoto is twice that at 52mm.

The simple 2x factor makes it easy for users to understand, sure, but it also makes the image-processing math of switching between these lenses easier. And as Schiller mentioned on stage, “we actually pair the three cameras right at the factory calibrating for focus and color.”

Not only that, but when you’re shooting with the wide camera, it’s sharing information with the other two cameras, so when you switch to them, they’re already focused on the same point, shooting at the same speed and exposure, white balance, and so on. That makes switching between them mostly seamless even while shooting video (just be aware that you will shake the device when you tap it).

Apple’s improvements to the iPhone camera system this year are nowhere near as crazy as the switch from one to two cameras made by much of the industry a couple years back. But a wide, tele, and ultra-wide setup is a common one for photographers and no doubt will prove a useful one for everyone who buys into this rather expensive single-device solution.

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