Sunday, 22 September 2019

iPhone 11 Pro teardown reveals smaller logic board, larger battery

iFixit has disassembled Apple’s new iPhone models, which tells us more about the differences with last year’s phones. iFixit shot a live-stream video of the iPhone 11 Pro teardown and wrote a guide for the iPhone 11 Pro Max.

The first major difference is that the batteries in the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are much larger than the batteries in the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max.

On the iPhone 11 Pro Max, the device is .4 mm thicker and the screen is .25 mm thinner. As John Gruber expected, dropping 3D Touch from the iPhone lineup makes the screen slightly slimmer. 3D Touch required an additional layer under the display to register pressure on the screen.

That might feel like a tiny difference, but it frees up some space for the battery. The iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone XS have the same single-cell L-shaped design. But the Max version has been updated to use the came single-cell design instead of two cells.

The result is that the iPhone 11 Pro Max now has a 3,969 mAh battery compared to a 3,179 mAh battery in the iPhone XS Max. It represents a nearly 25% year-over-year improvement for the Max battery.

Those hardware refinements combined with a more efficient A13 system-on-a-chip create some significant battery life improvements for the user. Apple claims that the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max last up to 4 hours and 5 hours longer respectively compared to the previous generation.

iphone 11 livestream featured 1350x900

(Photo credit: iFixit)

In other news, the camera module is much bigger in this year’s new device (as expected). Apple managed to put a third camera by reducing the size of the logic board.

The logic board has the same dual-layer design that was first introduced with the iPhone X. It’s like a club sandwich of chips. Even though Apple and Qualcomm has settled its multi-billion-dollar lawsuits, the modem in the iPhones 11 Pro is still manufactured by Intel.

When it comes to things that we don’t know yet, iFixit couldn’t figure out how much RAM there is — Steve Troughton-Smith believes there might be 2GB of RAM dedicated to the camera that you wouldn’t notice on benchmarks.

Similarly, there are now two battery connectors instead of one. It’s hard to say for sure that the second connector has been added for bilateral wireless charging — it could be there for many different reasons. Rumor has it that Apple wanted to add reverse wireless charging but canned the feature at the last minute.

Overall, iFixit gives a repairability score of 6 out 10. The iPhone XS models also got a 6 out of 10 rating.



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Friday, 20 September 2019

Beats headphones will get iOS 13 audio sharing next week

Audio sharing is among the more delightful features arriving as part of Apple’s iOS 13 update. With it, users will be able to share songs across nearby device — a sort of 2019 version of buying a headphone splitter or handing someone your earbud.

Beats pinged TechCrunch this morning to let us know that the new addition will be arriving on a number of its new headphones, in addition to AirPods. No surprise, really, given that the company was swallowed up by Apple some years ago, but a nice little bonus for those who H1 and W1-powered models, including Powerbeats Pro (my headphone of choice, of late), Studio3 Wireless, BeatsX, Powerbeats3 Wireless and Solo3 Wireless.

The feature works in one of two ways. Users can either put two iOS devices in close proximity and play music one one from a number of different sources. From there, a Share Audio dialogue box pops up, similar to the one you’ll see during the initial pairing process. Tapping Share Audio will do just that.

The other method involves pairing two pairs of headphones to a single device. It’s the better of the two options if you don’t have access to two devices, but even with Apple’s tech, it can still be a bit of a pain switching between products. Either way, it’s a fun option for sharing playlists on a long commute.

The feature arrives on September 23.



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Thursday, 19 September 2019

The Mate 30 is a moment of truth for Huawei

We’ve known this day would come for a long time now. Over the past several months, however, it feels like it has arrived in slow motion. Seemingly legitimate concerns over security and sanction violations have been muddled by chest-puffing and braggadocio and large-headed leaders promising to do deals. Executives were arrested in Canada and the company was added to a trade blacklist, only to be given a temporary reprieve.

This morning, in spite of it all, Huawei unveiled its latest flagship. The Mate 30 Pro is a beast of a smartphone, as we’ve come to expect from the Chinese electronics powerhouse. It has a quartet of cameras aligned in a ring up top. On the flip side, a 6.53-inch flexible OLED hugs the corners of the handset, boasting an always-on functionality — the long-awaited new feature that served as the central selling point for Apple’s latest wearable.

From a 100-foot view, however, it seems inevitable that no one will remember the handset for its screen or cameras or beefy 4,500mAh. It’s what’s missing that’s the most notable. The Mate 30 and Mate 30 Pro don’t use full Android, but rather an open-source version of the operating system based on it. More importantly, they are missing Google’s fundamental apps like Gmail, Maps and Chrome, a central part of the Android experience. Worse yet, there’s no Google Play Store to download them.

The solutions for now are mostly stop-gap. There’s a Huawei-branded browser that lets you download apps through a Huawei-branded channel. There are 45,000 or so. Not bad, but nowhere near the 2.7 million you’ll find via Google Play. There will be better solutions to these, but they take a lot of time and money. Huawei’s got plenty of the latter, though the former has been the cause for some debate amongst those following the company.



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Inside Apple’s reimagined Fifth Ave. store

After two years of work, the wrapper comes off the giant glass cube this week, as Apple’s Fifth Avenue flagship opens to the public this Friday. The big reveal coincides with the company’s latest releases, including new iPhones and an Apple Watch — an appropriately grandiose homecoming for new gear.

This morning, the company offered a sneak preview to select media, ourselves included. Apple pulled back the curtain as a handful of curious onlookers stood by on the sidewalk. The cube itself appears largely unchanged, aside from a new shine. The colorful concealer wrap was, sadly, just temporary.

DSCF7877

But then, why mess with what’s become a New York City landmark in its decade and a half of existence? The store is positioned in one of the most highly trafficked corners of the city, at the southeast corner of Central Park, directly across from the Plaza (and perhaps less attractively to some, two blocks north of a certain presidential tower). Until a few years back, it fittingly shared the square with the iconic FAO Schwarz.

DSCF7881

Now, however, Apple’s completely taken over the space. The plaza surrounding the cube has changed a good deal to accommodate a new lighting system that leverages a combination of sunlight and the power of 500,000 LEDs. More on that here.

Underground, the store occupies the full area of the plaza, as well. That extra space allows for a larger Genius Bar that stretches the length of the store and a special HomePod listening area sealed behind glass that brings to mind the once-popular world of hi-fi stereo stores.

DSCF7901

Most surprising, the signature spiral staircase is no longer purely glass. The steps now have a stainless steel covering — for safety purposes, one assumes. One attendee this morning confided to me that he nearly bit it walking down the steps the first time he visited the store. As cool as the glass looked, it always felt like a disaster waiting to happen whenever it rained.

As promised, the lighting system was employed to great effect. It’s a cool combination, the sunlight streaming through the fogged portholes along with the lighting rings around them. Check the reflection below:

DSCF7856

The sunlight, in turn, is used by eight full-sized trees divided in two rows on the east and west sides of the store, along with a long, live green wall to the east (near the AirPods, FWIW). It’s also apparently the coolest during sunrise and sunset when it takes on a glowing effect. 

The new store opens to public this Friday at 8AM.

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iOS 13 pushes the envelope across the board

Apple released iOS 13, the new major version of iOS. This isn’t a groundbreaking release that is going to change the way you use your phone. But Apple has done some tremendous work across the board to improve some low-level features as well as most Apple apps.

In many ways, iOS 13 feels like a quality-of-life update. In developer lingo, quality-of-life updates are all about refining things that already work. It helps you save a second here, do something more easily there.

I’m going to talk about many of those small refinements, but I want to focus on two things that are going to matter more than the rest — Dark Mode and Apple’s focus on privacy.

Dark Mode is here

At some point, smartphone manufacturers started making bigger phones. And if you don’t want to become blind at night, Dark Mode is a must. It took a while, but it is finally here and it looks great.

Dark Mode on iOS 13 is a system-wide trigger. You can activate it from the Settings app or by opening up the Control Center panel and long-pressing on the brightness indicator. And it completely transforms the look and feel of your iPhone.

While some third-party apps have been updated, many developers still have to release updates to make their apps work with this new setting. I hope in six months, you’ll be able to turn on Dark Mode and jump from one app to another without any white interface.

I would recommend turning on the automated mode in the settings. iOS uses your current location to time the change with sunset and sunrise — your iPhone goes dark at night and it lights up in the morning.

Dark Mode doesn’t just affect apps. Widgets, notifications and other buttons in the user interface become dark. Apple uses pure black, which looks great on OLED displays. And you can optionally dim your custom wallpapers at night.

The privacy hammer

Many geeks have tried iOS 13 over the summer. But it’s going to be a completely different story when tens of millions of people download it this fall. iOS 13 brings some much-needed changes on the privacy front, and it’s going to be nasty for some companies.

Apple is adding more ways to control your personal information. If an app needs your location for something, you can now grant access to your location just once. The app will have to ask for your permission the next time.

Similarly, iOS 13 can tell you when an app has been silently tracking your location in the background with a map of those data points.

Apple is shaming app developers directly by saying “This app has used 40 locations in the background in the past 2 days” and showing you a map. You can turn off location tracking directly in the popup. Facebook is already freaking out and wrote a blog post last week to tell you that it cares about your privacy.

iOS 13 also blocks Bluetooth scanning by default in all apps. Many apps scan for nearby Bluetooth accessories and compare that with a database of Bluetooth devices around the world. In other words, it’s a way to get your location even if you’re not sharing your location with this app.

You now get a standard permission popup for apps that actually need to scan for Bluetooth devices. Some apps actually need Bluetooth to communicated with connected devices, initiate peer-to-peer payments with nearby users, etc.

But the vast majority of them have been abusing Bluetooth scanning. To be clear, you can disable Bluetooth scanning and still use Bluetooth headphones. Audio will still be routed to your headphones just fine.

I hope many app developers will review the third-party SDKs that they use. Many ad-supported apps embed code from adtech companies. But they don’t always that those SDKs are hostile to your privacy.

Finally, Apple is adding “Sign In with Apple”. It is an alternative to “Sign In with Google” or “Sign In with Facebook”. Customers can choose whether or not to share their email address and developers get little personal data. It’s going to be interesting to see if it takes off.

Low-level improvements

There are a few changes at the operating system level. First, in addition to optimizations, animations have been slightly sped up. Swiping, opening and closing apps feels faster.

Second, the keyboard now supports swipe-to-type. If you’ve used Android phones or third-party keyboards in the past, you already know how it works. You can move your finger across the display from one letter to another without lifting it. It feels like magic.

Third, the share sheet has been updated. It is now separated in three areas: a top row with suggested contacts to send photos, links and more depending on your most important contacts.

Under that row of contacts, you get the usual row of app icons to open something in another app. If you scroll down, you access a long list of actions that vary from one app to another.

When it comes to automation, the Shortcuts is installed by default with iOS 13. Many people are going to discover Shortcuts for the first time by opening the app. Voice-activated Siri Shortcuts are now also available in the Shortcuts app.

More interestingly, you can now create automated triggers to launch a shortcut. For instance, you can create scenarios related to CarPlay, a location or even a cheap NFC tag. Here are some examples:

  • Launch a music playlist when I connect my phone to CarPlay or to my car using Bluetooth.
  • Dim my screen and turn on low power mode when I activate airplane mode.
  • Turn off my Philips Hue lights when I put my phone on an NFC sticker on my nightstand.

New app features

I’m going to go through some of the major changes in Apple’s apps.

Apple Arcade is here. You have to download iOS 13 to access it. I’ll let you read our first impressions in our separate article.

iOS 13 5

Photos has received some of the biggest improvements. The main tab has been completely redesigned. You now get four sub-tabs that lets you see a curated photo library.

In addition to ‘All Photos’, you can tap on ‘Years’ to jump straight to a specific year, ‘Months’ to see some smart albums based on dates and locations. You can then open those events. It’ll jump to the ‘Days’ tab and show you the best photos.

I’m not sure I like the wording of those sub-tabs, but it’s definitely a lot more efficient if you’re looking for an old photo from a few years.

Photo editing is also much better on iOS 13. It feels like you can do pretty much all the basic editing you’d do with a third-party app.

Maps is an interesting app. While Apple has been working on improved mapping data, it’s going to be hard to notice if you don’t live in California. But Look Around, a feature that works pretty much like Google Street View, is quite impressive. This isn’t just 360 photo shots — those are 3D representations of streets with foregrounds and backgrounds. I’d recommend finding a street in San Francisco and opening Look Around.

Messages now works a bit more like WhatsApp. By that, I mean that you can pick a profile name and picture and share those with your friends and family. Apple also tells you to use Memoji, but you can pick any photo. Search in Messages is also much better.

Health has been slightly redesigned. But the big addition is that you can track your menstrual cycles in the Health app. You don’t need to install any third-party app.

Reminders has gained some new features. There’s a quick toolbar to add times, dates, locations and more. You can indent items, create smart lists and more. To-do apps are highly personal, but I’m sure some people will like it.

Find My is the new name for Find My Phone and Find My Friends. Maybe you’ll be able to find your objects soon when Apple launches Tile-like trackers?

Mail, Notes and Safari received small improvements, such as rich-text editing in Mail, a gallery view in Notes, a new site settings popup in Safari to request the desktop site, disable a content blocker or enable reader view.

Files works with Samba file servers and you can zip/unzip files directly in the app — no shortcut needed. You can also install custom fonts.

As you can see, there are a lot of big and tiny improvements across the board with iOS 13. Sure, this version feels buggy at times. It’s an ambitious update with Apple telling everyone that they’re not ready to slow down the pace of iOS releases. And Apple is making some welcome progress on the privacy front.



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iOS 13 is now available to download

Apple has just released the final version of iOS 13. This update brings many much needed quality-of-life improvements — and there are also a bunch of new features. The update is currently rolling out and is available both over-the-air in the Settings app, and by plugging your device into iTunes for a wired update.

Many people try to download these major updates at the same time. Apple usually implements a queue system to ensure speedy downloads once you’re at the front of the queue.

iOS 13 is compatible with the iPhone 6s or later, the iPhone SE or the 7th-generation iPod touch. If you have an iPad and you are looking for iPadOS 13, it’ll be available on September 30 with the release of iOS and iPadOS 13.1.

But first, backup your device. Make sure your iCloud backup is up to date by opening the Settings app on your iPhone or iPad and tapping on your account information at the top and then on your device name. Additionally, you can also plug your iOS device to your computer to do a manual backup in iTunes (or do both, really).

Don’t forget to encrypt your backup in iTunes. It is much safer if somebody hacks your computer. And encrypted backups include saved passwords and health data. This way, you don’t have to reconnect to all your online accounts.

Once this is done, you should go to the Settings app as soon as possible to get in the queue. Navigate to ‘Settings,’ then ‘General’ and then ‘Software Update.’ Then you should see ‘Update Requested…” It will then automatically start downloading once the download is available.

Here’s a quick rundown of what’s new in iOS 13. This year, in addition to dark mode, it feels like every single app has been improved with some quality-of-life updates. The Photos app features a brand new gallery view with autoplaying live photos and videos, smart curation and a more immersive design.

This version has a big emphasis on privacy as well thanks to a new signup option called “Sign in with Apple” and a bunch of privacy popups for Bluetooth and Wi-Fi consent, background location tracking. Apple Maps now features an impressive Google Street View-like feature called Look Around. It’s only available in a handful of cities, but I recommend… looking around as everything is in 3D.

Many apps have been updated, such as Reminders with a brand new version, Messages with the ability to set a profile picture shared with your contacts, Mail with better text formatting options, Health with menstrual cycle tracking, Files with desktop-like features, Safari with a new website settings menu, etc.



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iOS 13: Here are the new security and privacy features you need to know

It’s finally here.

Apple’s new iOS 13, the thirteenth major iteration of its popular iPhone software, is out to download. We took iOS 13 for a spin with a focus on the new security and privacy features to see what’s new and how it all works.

Here’s what you need to know.

You’ll start to see reminders about apps that track your location

1 location track

Ever wonder which apps track your location? Wonder no more. iOS 13 periodically reminds you about apps that are tracking your location in the background. Every so often it will tell you how many times an app has tracked where you’ve been in a recent period of time, along with a small map of the location points. From this screen you can “always allow” the app to track your location or have the option to limit the tracking.

You can grant an app your location just once

2 location ask

To give you more control over what data have access to, iOS 13 now lets you give apps access to your location just once. Previously there was “always,” “never” or “while using,” meaning an app could be collecting your real-time location as you’re using it. Now you can grant an app access on a per use basis — particularly helpful for the privacy-minded folks.

And apps wanting access to Bluetooth can be declined access

Screen Shot 2019 07 18 at 12.18.38 PM

Apps wanting to access Bluetooth will also ask for your consent. Although apps can use Bluetooth to connect to gadgets, like fitness bands and watches, Bluetooth-enabled tracking devices known as beacons can be used to monitor your whereabouts. These beacons are found everywhere — from stores to shopping malls. They can grab your device’s unique Bluetooth identifier and track your physical location between places, building up a picture of where you go and what you do — often for targeting you with ads. Blocking Bluetooth connections from apps that clearly don’t need it will help protect your privacy.

Find My gets a new name — and offline tracking

5 find my

Find My, the new app name for locating your friends and lost devices, now comes with offline tracking. If you lost your laptop, you’d rely on its last Wi-Fi connected location. Now it broadcasts its location using Bluetooth, which is securely uploaded to Apple’s servers using nearby cellular-connected iPhones and other Apple devices. The location data is cryptographically scrambled and anonymized to prevent anyone other than the device owner — including Apple — from tracking your lost devices.

Your apps will no longer be able to snoop on your contacts’ notes

8 contact snoop

Another area that Apple is trying to button down is your contacts. Apps have to ask for your permission before they can access to your contacts. But in doing so they were also able to access the personal notes you wrote on each contact, like their home alarm code or a PIN number for phone banking, for example. Now, apps will no longer be able to see what’s in each “notes” field in a user’s contacts.

Sign In With Apple lets you use a fake relay email address

6 sign in

This is one of the cooler features coming soon — Apple’s new sign-in option allows users to sign in to apps and services with one tap, and without having to turn over any sensitive or private information. Any app that requires a sign-in option must use Sign In With Apple as an option. In doing so users can choose to share their email with the app maker, or choose a private “relay” email, which hides a user’s real email address so the app only sees a unique Apple-generated email instead. Apple says it doesn’t collect users’ data, making it a more privacy-minded solution. It works across all devices, including Android devices and websites.

You can silence unknown callers

4 block callers

Here’s one way you can cut down on disruptive spam calls: iOS 13 will let you send unknown callers straight to voicemail. This catches anyone who’s not in your contacts list will be considered an unknown caller.

You can strip location metadata from your photos

7 strip location

Every time you take a photo your iPhone stores the precise location of where the photo was taken as metadata in the photo file. But that can reveal sensitive or private locations — such as your home or office — if you share those photos on social media or other platforms, many of which don’t strip the data when they’re uploaded. Now you can. With a few taps, you can remove the location data from a photo before sharing it.

And Safari gets better anti-tracking features

9 safari improvements

Apple continues to advance its new anti-tracking technologies in its native Safari browser, like preventing cross-site tracking and browser fingerprinting. These features make it far more difficult for ads to track users across the web. iOS 13 has its cross-site tracking technology enabled by default so users are protected from the very beginning.

First published on July 19 and updated with iOS 13’s launch. 

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