iPhone 7 Plus, 128GB, and Black Models Prove Most Popular With Pre-Order Customers

Slice Intelligence has shared new data that suggests the iPhone 7 Plus has outsold the iPhone 7 in the United States, marking the first time Plus-sized iPhones have proven more popular than 4.7-inch models, based on e-receipt data from nearly 32,000 customers who belong to the research firm’s panel.

The data shows that, in the first 48 hours of availability, 55 percent of customers ordered the iPhone 7 Plus, compared to 41 percent for the iPhone 6s Plus and 35 percent for the iPhone 6 Plus. The 5.5-inch model is a more attractive option this year given it has dual cameras, while the 4.7-inch model retains a single-lens camera.

55.9 percent of customers who pre-ordered an iPhone 7 or iPhone 7 Plus had previously purchased at least one iPhone between 2014 and now, according to Slice Intelligence. 34 percent of customers had not purchased any smartphone since 2014, while the remaining shoppers switched from Samsung, LG, and Motorola.

Meanwhile, given the lack of Space Gray this year, Black has emerged as the new most popular iPhone color, accounting for 46 percent of pre-orders. Jet Black is also a popular choice, selected by 23 percent of customers, although limited supply of Jet Black models has pushed shipments of Jet Black models to November, likely leading many customers to choose Black, Gold, Rose Gold, or Silver instead.

Rose Gold models, first introduced on the iPhone 6s, represented 15 percent of iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus pre-orders, while Gold and Silver models trailed behind with 9 percent and 8 percent of orders respectively.

For the past three iPhone launches, over 60 percent of pre-orders over the first two days were on the middle storage option, according to Slice Intelligence. iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus continue that trend, with 128GB proving most popular at 67 percent, followed by 32GB at 14 percent and the all-new 256GB tier at 19 percent.

Slice Intelligence tracks e-receipts from 4.2 million online shoppers in the U.S., allegedly the largest panel of its kind, that sign up for the company’s value-added services such as Slice and Unroll.me. Slice, for example, is a free app for tracking packages, receipts, price drops, product recall alerts, and more.

Slice Intelligence has charts with more detailed information on its website.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: Slice Intelligence
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These are the coolest hidden features in iOS 10

It’s official: iOS 10 is awesome.

In Pocket-lint’s review of the software, which released on 13 September, we said Apple clearly focused on layering the entire experience with even more complexity and depth than ever before. In fact, in our short time with iOS 10, we’ve already discovered hundreds of new tricks, as you can see in our tips round-up. But in every new piece of software, there’s always a few buried features that are ridiculously cool.

Pocket-lint has found a bunch of those features and listed the very best ones below. For instance, did you know you can turn your iPhone into a magnifying glass that launches with a triple-tap of the Home button, or that iOS 10 can now transcribe your voicemails for you — as in, give you an actual word-for-word readout of whatever someone said to you in the voice message? Ladies and gentlemen: the future is upon us. For reals.

Check out our round-up to see the coolest hidden features in iOS 10. Keep checking back though, as we’re bound to stumble upon more in the coming months, and we’ll update this piece when we do.

Turn your camera into a magnifying glass

We’ve all had that moment where we’ve tried to zoom-in with our iPhone’s camera in order to use it as a magnifying glass, but thanks to iOS 10, it’s become an official thing. With a quick settings change, you’ll be able to triple-tap on the Home button to automatically open the camera with magnification that you can adjust. Brilliant. Go to Settings > General > Accessibility > Magnifier. From there, set the toggle to On.

Your iPhone now transcribes voicemails 

Seriously. It’s about as accurate as Google Voice, too. From now on, whenever someone leaves a voicemail, iOS will take a few minutes to transcribe it. When it’s complete, tap the voicemail to expand it, and then you’ll see the transcription. Huzzah!

Note: This feature may not work for everyone. It depends on your carrier.

Clear all your Safari tabs with a press If you’re anything like us, your Safari app right in this very moment probably has 12 (or 30) tabs open. Heh. You no longer have to close every single one individually, however, as Apple now lets you simultaneously close them all. From the new tab page, tap and hold the Done button to pull up a menu that will give you the option to close all your tabs. Simples.

Clear all your Notifications with 3D Touch

Similar to how you can now clear all your Safari tabs, you can now clear all your notifications piled up on the lock screen, but this hidden features relies on 3D Touch. Just hard-press the “X” icon and select Clear All Notifications.

Prioritize your app downloads with 3D Touch

This one also takes advantage of 3D Touch. Ever go to use an app and see that iOS suddenly decided to download a bunch of updates, which is annoying when you want to use one of the apps updating. Well now, instead of waiting or canceling it, you can hard-press the icon, and then select the new Prioritize Download option in order to make it No. 1 in the update queue.

Do more in Control Center with 3D Touch

We love finding new places to use 3D Touch in iOS, and this one is at the top of the list. In iOS 10’s Control Center, you can now use 3D Touch on the bottom row of app icons. Press on the flashlight to get three brightness options. Press on the timer to get predefined timer amounts. Press the calculator to copy the calculation. Press the camera for more shooting options. Love it!

Give your Stopwatch a new face

The stopwatch feature in the default Clock app has looked the same for, like, years. But with iOS 10, you can give it a new face. Go to the stopwatch screen in the Clock app, then swipe to the left to use the new face. It’s classier than the digital look of the old one, too. 

Make Siri announce who’s calling you Siri has a new feature: she can announce the name of a caller when they call you. When you’re driving, walking around, wearing headphones, going for a jog, or whatever, you have to stop and look at your phone to see who’s calling, but that’s no longer the case. Siri will not only tell you, but you can make her announce callers only when you have headphones in or are connected to your car’s Bluetooth.

You’ll find these options under Settings > Phone > Announce Calls. You’re welcome. 

Remember where you parked

We’ve all forgotten where we’ve parked at one time or another. Thanks to Apple Maps in iOS 10 however, that’s now a thing of the past – so long as your phone is hooked up to your car’s Bluetooth or to Apple CarPlay. Apple Maps can now remember where you parked your car, if you have a GPS signal. It will send you a notification with your car’s location when you walk away from your car.

You must enable the feature under Settings > Maps.

Markup your photos

Apple has updated its Messages and Photos app with a new tool that lets you markup photos. Select a photo to send in Messages, then tap on it to preview it, and select the Markup option in the lower left corner. You can then draw, write, and color over the photo before you share it. Similarly, when viewing a photo in Photos, tap on the Edit icon, then the extension button, and select Markup.

Be selective with your read receipts 

You can now decide whether you want to send read receipts on a contact-by-contact basis. Previously, you could only enable or disable them for all your contacts, but now you can go into any conversation and enable or disable the feature. When in a conversation, tap on the “i” button in the top-right, and then turn read receipts on or off. That’s it.

Search for images in iMessage

It’s easy to see that Apple now offers a mini App Store just for the iMessage app, but you likely overlooked a buried feature that may persuade you to delete all of your GIF keyboard apps. You can now search for an animated image directly within iMessages. When writing a message in Messages, tap on App Store icon, then swipe to the images page, and enter a search term or pick a category.

Get rid of unwanted stock apps

iOS 10 now lets you remove any stock app you don’t want (Stocks, Compass, etc). This works the same way as removing third-party apps: long press on any app, then hit ‘x’ icon. They can always be re-downloaded from the App Store or brought back in Settings.

Americans divided on how much to spend to battle climate change

It’s going to take a lot of money (among many other things) to help combat climate change, and one of the challenges there has been getting citizens to pay for it. But a new survey from Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago and The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research indicates some Americans may be warming to the idea. While the data gathered shows that a whopping 42 percent of people wouldn’t even pay $1 a month on their energy bill to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, those who were willing to pay might put up some decent cash.

29 percent of survey respondents said they’d pay $20 per month to reduce greenhouse emissions, and 20 percent said they’d pay $50 a month. The $20 threshold is a significant one, as it’s the cost that the government estimates the damages from climate change would be on each household in the country. Still, the negatives in this study are hard to ignore: despite the fact that 77 percent of respondents said they think climate change is happening and 65 percent said the government should do something with it, that 42 percent who wouldn’t even pay a buck a month to do something about it is hard to ignore.

Perhaps not surprisingly, party affiliation was a big divider in how people responded to this survey. Democrats were “consistently” willing to pay more than Republicans, and they were also far more likely to believe in the effects of climate change in the first place. 84 percent of Democrats thought that the government should do something about climate change, versus only 43 percent of Republicans.

Still, one of the directors from the Energy Policy Institute at the University of Chicago is rather positive about the survey’s data. In The New York Times, Michael Greenstone writes that “many people are willing to pay real money for a carbon policy. In fact, on average, Americans appear willing to pay more than a robust climate policy is projected to cost.” That’s a good spin on things, but Greenstone also notes that plenty of respondents may have said they’re willing to pay more than they actually would if the time came to open their wallets.

Via: The New York Times

Source: The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research

Apple’s First Walk-In Customers Leave With iPhone 7 Instead of iPhone 7 Plus, But Get Free $100 Gift Cards

Five students from Sydney, Australia, namely Bishoy Behman, Mazen Kourouche, Marcus Barsoum, Matthew Alvarez, and Paul Behman, were the first customers in the world to walk out of an Apple retail store with an all-new iPhone today, although without the specific model they had been hoping for.

The students had been taking turns waiting since Wednesday morning local time for the chance to purchase an iPhone 7 Plus in Jet Black, but Apple later announced that no iPhone 7 Plus models in any color, or iPhone 7 models in Jet Black, will be available on launch day for walk-in customers.

The students were disappointed, but ultimately walked away with two iPhone 7 models each and $100 Apple gift cards provided by the store. Some customers who lined up elsewhere were provided with Apple gift cards of lesser value, but others received nothing, suggesting it was not a companywide initiative.

Despite rainy and windy conditions, and the lack of iPhone 7 Plus availability, the video below shows that hundreds of customers still showed up at the flagship Apple Sydney location for the launch today.

Just a few hours earlier, the first iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus pre-order deliveries began in New Zealand, and orders are now beginning in China, Hong Kong, Japan, and Singapore. The first-wave launch will continue through to Alaska and Hawaii as the date reaches September 16 across the world.

Apple has not indicated when stores will receive more iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus shipments, but in-store reservations will resume on September 17 at 8:00 a.m. local time in the U.S., Australia, Canada, and Hong Kong, and on September 17 at 6:00 a.m. local time in Belgium, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and the U.K.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: Apple retail
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Best Buy Delays Some iPhone 7 Plus Orders, Offers $100 Promo Code as Compensation

Some customers who pre-ordered an iPhone 7 or an iPhone 7 Plus from Best Buy are getting some bad news less than 24 hours before the official launch date, with Best Buy sending out delay notification emails this evening.

We’ve heard several reports from disappointed customers who are now seeing delayed shipments of their iPhone 7 Plus models that were originally scheduled to deliver on launch day, September 16. It is not clear if Best Buy has also delayed some iPhone 7 models.

@MacRumors @bestbuysupport just sent me this email delaying delivery of my 7+ to Oct 7. Initial date had been 9/16 pic.twitter.com/0dw6gMlzP2

— Jesse Isaacson (@jesse_isaacson) September 15, 2016

According to the emails customers are receiving, they can now expect to receive their devices on October 7, a full three weeks after launch. As compensation for the delay, Best Buy is offering customers a free $100 promo code to be used on a future Best Buy purchase.

Yesterday, Best Buy also began notifying customers who pre-ordered the Apple Watch Series 2 that their devices would be delayed. Customers who originally had a delivery scheduled for 9/16 will not get their new watches until September 28.

Supplies of the iPhone 7 Plus and the Jet Black iPhone 7 are highly constrained, leading Apple to announce that no iPhone 7 Plus models and no Jet Black iPhone 7 models will be available for walk-in purchases tomorrow, with stock having been fully depleted during pre-orders.

Apple recommends customers instead place orders for the iPhone 7 Plus online, where many models list shipping estimates of two to three weeks, and up to November in the case of the Jet Black iPhone 7 Plus. Apple Stores are expected to have some iPhone 7 stock available for walk-in customers, and carrier stores may also have very limited quantities of the iPhone 7 Plus.

Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tag: Best Buy
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Evening brief: Motorola fibs, Note 7 burns 92 people and SwiftKey goes neural

“I got a fever, and the only prescription is more cowbell!”

I flew home from New York to Toronto this morning, and prior to the flight attendant warning everyone about seatbelts and emergency exits, they told us to “power down all Samsung Galaxy Note 7s.” Like all infectious diseases, this one seems to be spreading quickly and widely before it can be contained, and Samsung, despite its best efforts, is having a tough time doing that. Obviously the implications for the company’s reputation are unclear right now, but it wouldn’t be unrealistic to say that this patient is going to take a long time to heal.

Speaking of healing, today was the first day I needed a sweatshirt in Toronto, which is both exciting and upsetting. Winter is coming, friends.

Now you can check if your Galaxy Note 7 is safe or explosive!

Samsung’s IMEI-checker is back! Plug your unique IMEI number (dial *#06# or check your Note 7’s original box) into samsung.com/us/note7recall/ to check whether your device is safe. If it’s not, recall that sucker!

The Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall is official

Samsung and the U.S. CPSC will recall around a million Note 7s sold over the past month. A total of 92 incidents of battery fires or explosions have been reported in the U.S. alone, with 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of damage to property. Replacement units will be available in the U.S. from September 21. More

‘Safe’ Galaxy Note 7s may use a green battery icon

… to easily tell them apart from the potentially explosive version, with its standard white icon. The report from ZDNet in Seoul doesn’t clarify whether the change will apply to all regions, or just Samsung’s home country. More

Google launches first Duo commercials

You’ll find the group of five on YouTube, and they’re all pretty clever … if not a little creepy at times. We expect these to land on TV soon, but you can already download Duo from Google Play, even if you don’t like the commercials.

Motorola commits a lie for a good(?) cause

Motorola brought a bunch of Apple diehards together for a “focus group” aimed at dispelling the hype around the latest iPhone. By showing so-called iPhone prototypes that were actually — you guessed it — Moto Zs, it got people interested. “It’s our challenge to you. To the industry.” How ’bout releasing it on more than one carrier, then?

OnePlus keeps the beta build train rolling

Good news for fans of tinkering with the OnePlus 3 and OnePlus X (RIP!): new community builds are available for both phones, and they’re rich in new features. For the OnePlus 3, specifically, a bunch of improvements to the dialer and messenger app are good news, but we’re not so sure about the “kill all background processes” option in the multitasking menu. Let’s not go backwards, OnePlus.

More colo(u)rs come to the HTC 10 in Canada

After launching in the U.S. in August, two more HTC 10 colors are now available, unlocked, in Canada — gold, and a nice, deep red. The price is still a hefty $999 CAD ($750 USD, $150 more than the U.S. model), but the red version is pretty special. Anyone biting?

SwiftKey gets swifter, smarter, and more cerebral

Remember last year when SwiftKey (now owned by $MSFT) debuted a version of its keyboard powered by a neural network? Well now that technology powers the popular, widely-used Android version of its app (at least when using U.S. or UK English). What does that mean? It can make better predictions based on longer pieces of text, which will hopefully make you type faster and with fewer mistakes. Bring it on!

This is what GoPro’s Karma camera drone looks like

GoPro is getting ready to unveil its Karma drone, so of course the company’s teasing the heck out of it, including giving us a quick, first glimpse. 

GoPro has published a new Karma teaser to both Twitter and YouTube, and in each version of the teaser, there is a brief moment where you can see what we presume is GoPro’s upcoming camera drone flying by. The 25-second video shows aerial drone footage of mountain bikers on a trail, then about 15 seconds into the teaser another drone comes in from the right, soaring above the bikers, before the video goes to black.

Watch for yourself: 

Thanks to PetaPixel’s handy work, there are already zoomed-in, cropped stills of the drone from the teaser available online. It looks like GoPro made a super-fast quadcopter with red lights at the ends of the arms (located under the rotors).

PetaPixel

We’ll know more on 19 September, when GoPro finally debuts this bad boy. A live stream should be available at GoPro.com. 

Karma is out there. Meet Karma 9.19.16 #GoProKarma https://t.co/45sp1cQa3G pic.twitter.com/zON1m2jzHm

— GoPro (@GoPro) September 15, 2016

Official US recall of Note 7 fully reveals how many have exploded

The US Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) issued a formal recall of the Samsung Galaxy Note 7 on Thursday.

The agency, which is tasked with promoting the safety of consumer products, developing uniform safety standards, and conducting research into product-related illness and injury, has made Samsung’s recall official by publishing a report that not only confirmed the full number of incidents reported and that the lithium-ion battery in the Note 7 can overheat and catch fire, but also that it posed a serious burn hazard to consumers.

According to the CPSC, Samsung has “received 92 reports of the batteries overheating in the US, including 26 reports of burns and 55 reports of property damage, including fires in cars and a garage”. As of 1 September, Samsung has only acknowledged 35 of these reported incidents. Still, the CPSC is concerned enough to issue a formal recall, in which it is asking US consumers to return more than 1 million purchased units.

This official recall only involves Note 7 units sold before 15 September. Samsung set up a page where consumers can go to see if they own a faulty unit eligible for exchange. This process requires them to enter the IMEI (serial number) of their device. In a statement following the CPSC’s recall on Thursday, Samsung said replacement devices for the US are expected to arrive in stores soon.

Most US retail locations should be able to offer consumers replacement devices no later than 21 September, the company said. Pocket-lint has a guide with more information about the recall, which includes details on how this saga began.

• Samsung Galaxy Note 7 recall: How to exchange or return your phone

Julian Assange: I’ll turn myself in if Chelsea Manning walks

America’s most wanted hackers apparently think they’ve got some leverage over the US government. The ACLU last week began petitioning the Obama administration for a full pardon for Edward Snowden and, on Thursday, Julian Assange announced that he would willingly hand himself over to US authorities. But that’s if, and only if, the Feds drop their court-martial conviction of Chelsea Manning.

Chelsea Manning, formerly Pvt. Bradley Manning, was sentenced to 35 years in Ft Leavenworth prison for violating the Espionage Act after she leaked a trove of classified documents to Assange’s Wikileaks website. Assange himself faces espionage charges in the US for his role in publishing those illicitly obtained documents.

While Assange’s grandstanding offer is sure to rally his supporters (especially those within the Russian intelligence community), there’s a catch to his plan: the US government doesn’t have dibs. Assange’s extended stay in the Ecuadorian embassy is the result of his ducking extradition to Sweden to face allegations of rape and sexual assault leveled by a pair of women. Earlier this week, the embassy did agree to let one of its prosecutors question Assange on behalf of the Swedish government. That meeting will occur on October 17th. But if he ever does step foot outside of the embassy, located in downtown London, he won’t be whisked away to America — he’s got some explaining to do in Sweden first.