iPhone 7 Plus Stock Expected to Remain Tight Through Holiday Shopping Season
Apple is unlikely to reach iPhone 7 supply and demand equilibrium by the end of the December quarter, suggesting stock will remain tight through the holiday shopping season, according to Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster.
Munster checked 134 Apple retail stores in the United States for in-store iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus availability and found 47% of models he checked were available for pickup compared to 40% a month ago. By comparison, he said last year the iPhone 6s lineup was at 100% availability at this time.
iPhone 7 models remain more widely available than iPhone 7 Plus models by a significant margin. In a research note obtained by MacRumors, Munster said iPhone 7 Plus inventory remains constrained, with only 3% of SKUs available in the Apple retail stores he checked compared to 14% a month ago.
Piper Jaffray said iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus inventory in China continues to be more constrained than on Apple’s home turf. It found 16% total availability of SKUs at 96 China Unicom stores versus the 47% figure in the United States.
Related Roundup: iPhone 7
Tags: Piper Jaffray, Gene Munster, Apple retail
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UK judge grants girl’s dying wish to be cryogenically frozen
In what’s thought to be the first case of its kind, a UK judge granted a dying girl’s last wish to be cryogenically frozen. The 14-year-old was diagnosed with a rare form of cancer last year, but as of this August was switched from active treatment to palliative care. She began researching cryonics and decided to be frozen following her death, but had to take the legal route to ensure her wishes were respected when her estranged father disagreed with what should happen to her body. After several hearings, a High Court judge granted her mother sole responsibility for making arrangements, and the girl now rests in the Cyronics Institute in the US.
While the girl was too sick to attend the hearings, she did pen a heart-wrenching note to the judge explaining her decision.
“I have been asked to explain why I want this unusual thing done. I’m only 14 years old and I don’t want to die, but I know I am going to. I think being cryo‐preserved gives me a chance to be cured and woken up, even in hundreds of years’ time. I don’t want to be buried underground. I want to live and live longer and I think that in the future they might find a cure for my cancer and wake me up. I want to have this chance. This is my wish.”
The girl’s father, who is also battling cancer, was concerned he may be liable for costs, and was also worried that should she ever be brought back to life, she would be a young girl in a foreign land with no surviving family. The judge issued the order in early October, just ten or so days before the girl died. It is only being reported now as the judge prohibited any publications for a one-month period following her passing. Shortly after her death, non-profit Cryonics UK prepared her body for transport to the Cyronics Institute’s facility in Michigan. The teen’s maternal grandparents raised $46,000 (around £37,000) to pay for the costs of cryogenic preservation.
In the decision, the judge made clear he focused on the legal merit of girl’s wish, and did not comment on the science of cryopreservation. It’s a controversial practice at the fringe of medicine, whereby bodies are supercooled and stored in the hope that technology and medicine will eventually crack incurable diseases and maybe even the aging process. Revival also poses a serious problem, as extreme subzero temperatures cause damage to cells that is currently irreparable.
Via: The Telegraph
Source: UK High Court
Amazon Echo can send hands-free texts for AT&T subscribers
Say, you have your hands full and need to text someone ASAP — if you’re an AT&T subscriber with access to Amazon’s speakers, you can now send messages completely hands free. Starting today, Amazon’s Alexa-powered devices can compose messages for you and send them to a pre-programmed list of contacts. You only need to say “Alexa, ask AT&T to text <name>,” and the assistant will prompt you to dictate your message. Company VP Jeff Bradley said AT&T “is the first carrier to bring this unique skill to a product already known for innovation.”
The feature does come with limitations, though. For one, you can only send messages to ten contacts, which you’ll have to pre-program through the Alexa app for smartphones. You’ll also have to have a compatible device and plan. If you’re not sure if you have either, you’ll have to download the voice assistant’s app to try it out. That’s assuming you already have an Amazon speaker — in case you don’t have one yet, you can also get the Echo or the Echo Dot directly from AT&T’s new website for the Alexa skill.
Source: AT&T
Wearhaus’ ‘social’ headphones are now on sale
Wearhaus isn’t slinging just any old pair of fancy headphones, but instead what it’s calling a social listening experience. Put simply, it makes cans that let you share whatever track you’re playing with whoever’s in your general vicinity. Now, after a few years in development, the Wearhaus Arc headphones are now available for everyone to buy. If you want to share your music with your closest friends but are considerate enough not to turn on your smartphone speaker while in public, then you (and them) can grab a set on Wearhaus’ website for $199.
Source: Wearhaus
TfL thinks tracking passenger phones will improve the Tube
The London Underground welcomes 1.34 billion passengers each year, many of whom have their own unique routes of travel. Transport for London wants to know more about these movements to improve the safety, reliability and management of the Tube network, so it’s conducting a four-week trial that will track people as they move between stations using their mobile phone.
When the trial starts on November 21st, TfL will log connection requests as passenger mobile phones attempt to connect to WiFi spots in 54 stations within Zones 1-4. The transport authority will identify devices by their MAC address, meaning it won’t be able to collect any personal data.
TfL says the data will help it to improve service across the network by allowing it to ease congestion, better manage disruptions and plan more efficient timetables, station designs and station upgrades.
It’ll also allow it to provide advertisers with a breakdown of the best places for brands to advertise. In TfL’s words, it could “increase revenue from companies who advertise on poster sites or rent retail units to reinvest in improving services across London.” Advertisers will only get insights, not actual WiFi data, but if travellers wish to opt-out, they will need to disable the WiFi connection on their device.
“This short trial will help us understand whether WiFi connection data could help us plan and operate our transport network more effectively for customers. Historically, if we wanted to know how people travelled we would have to rely on paper surveys and manual counting, which is expensive, time consuming and limited in detail and reliability,” says Shashi Verma, Chief Technology Officer at Transport for London. “We hope the results of this trial will enable us to provide customers with even better information for journey planning and avoiding congestion.”
Apple Hires Former WSJ Reporter as Public Relations Director in China
Apple has hired a former reporter and columnist for The Wall Street Journal, Wei Gu, to its public relations department in Shanghai, China. Gu’s role, per LinkedIn (via TechCrunch) will be PR Director, which she began this month.
Gu’s professional history spans 18 years and includes jobs at CNN and Reuters, working as a video journalist and reporter to break news regarding technology companies based out of the United States.
She left The Wall Street Journal in August — where her work included a focus on a weekly finance column — and had since been writing and editing a personal blog before joining Apple this month.
As Apple continues to boost its presence in China, it makes sense for the company to begin expanding and improving its talent pool in regards to China-based public relations. Just this year, Apple faced issues with Chinese regulators regarding a controversial independent movie which led to the shut down of iTunes and iBooks in the country.
Although China has lost ground to Europe and is now Apple’s third most profitable market, the company continues to expand its influence within the country, with CEO Tim Cook remaining steadily “optimistic” about Apple’s presence in China, recently saying that “China is not as weak as has been talked about.”
Tag: China
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Some 15-Inch MacBook Pro Models Misreporting Intel Iris Pro 580 Graphics
Several MacRumors readers have discovered that System Information readouts on some 15-inch MacBook Pro units appear to suggest they are running Iris Pro 580 integrated graphics, rather than Intel HD Graphics 530 as advertised in Apple’s tech specs.
The strange inconsistency was first found on some demo units running in Apple Store showrooms, leading some readers to suggest Apple was running higher-specced machines in-store. However, since then, some owners of newly shipped 15-inch MacBook Pros have also noted the same inconsistency in stock laptops sold to them.
MacRumors forum member torquer discovered that on their machine, System Information reports an Intel HD Graphics 530 when the laptop is running on battery, but reports Iris Pro 580 once it’s plugged in.
This would suggest a bug in macOS Sierra is causing System Information to misreport the integrated graphics chip in some 15-inch MacBook Pro models. Another indication of misreporting is that units which identify the GPU as an Iris Pro 580 appear to show the device ID string “191b”, which correlates with the Intel HD Graphics 530 chip.
In addition, owners of machines reporting the more powerful Iris Pro 580 are not seeing the kind of graphics performance improvement one would expect. For the record, Intel only matches the more powerful Iris Pro 580 to Core i5-6350HQ and Core i7-6770/6870/6970HQ mobile processors, none of which Apple chose to use in its latest lineup of notebooks, likely due to power consumption concerns.
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tags: Intel, Apple retail
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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Teardowns Confirm 13-Inch and 15-Inch Touch Bar MacBook Pros Have Non-Removable SSDs
iFixit has completed its teardown of the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar, confirming the notebook is equipped with a non-removable SSD just like the 13-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar. Only the entry-level 13-inch model with a standard row of function keys has a removable SSD in Apple’s new MacBook Pro lineup.
15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar
The teardown confirms the processor, RAM, and flash memory are soldered to the logic board, meaning the SSD in particular cannot be removed or upgraded after the fact. If you opt for Apple’s standard 256GB or 512GB configurations, for example, you will be unable to upgrade to a larger Apple or third-party SSD at a later time.
Interestingly, however, the teardown finds the new MacBook Pro has a connector that leads to “nowhere,” which iFixit speculates could be for Apple to access the soldered-in SSD for data recovery. iFixit suggests there might at least be a chance of recovering data with Apple’s help should the logic board experience hardware failure.
Apple’s notebooks have become increasingly hard to repair and upgrade as their designs have become thinner and lighter. iFixit gave the new 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar its lowest “repairability” score of 1 out of 10, noting the Touch Bar is difficult to replace while the entire battery assembly is strongly glued into the case.
The rest of the teardown reveals the 15-inch MacBook Pro with Touch Bar is very similar to the 13-inch model, beyond having a different six-cell battery layout.
Related Roundup: MacBook Pro
Tags: iFixit, teardown
Buyer’s Guide: MacBook Pro (Buy Now)
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Three UK data breach lets criminals intercept customers’ upgrade orders
Three men arrested as police probe ‘unlawful interception’ of phones.
Three British men have been arrested and bailed as part of a police investigation into a data breach at network operator Three UK, BBC News reports. But far from being your average hack of customer data intended to harvest financial details, the group responsible accessed a database of customers due a phone upgrade, then used this information to “unlawfully intercept” their upgrade orders through store burglaries and other means.
More than 400 handsets stolen over a four-week period.
In a press release issued today, Three said that over the process had been going on over the past four weeks, during which time “400 high value handsets” were stolen through burglaries of stores, while eight phones were “illegally obtained through the upgrade activity.”
Three insists customers’ financial details were not compromised during the initial data breach, adding that it’s taken measures to strengthen its security and prevent similar issues in future. The perpetrators used valid staff logins to access its upgrade systems, Three says.
This method is fairly unsophisticated by the standards of other high-profile data breaches, which target personal details and financial data like credit card and bank account numbers. Instead what’s notable in this case is the use of compromised customer info to steal real world goods, which would presumably then be sold on.
Three says it’s investigating how many customers may have been affected, and will be contacting them as soon as possible.
Download the OnePlus 3T wallpapers straight from the artist who made them
Illustrator tells the story of how OnePlus’s latest backdrops came to life.
OnePlus has become known for its unique and stylish wallpapers, thanks to the work of artist Hampus Olsson. For the upcoming OnePlus 3T, the company once again teamed up with the Swedish illustrator to bring to life four striking new abstract backgrounds.
And although the phone isn’t out yet, you can already download all of them, in full 1080p resolution, from Olsson’s personal site.
In today’s blog post, Olsson tells how a summer traveling in Europe inspired his latest work for OnePlus:
I went around town looking for inspiration at various art galleries. On the way, I found a great art supply store where I bought myself lots of ink, acrylics, mediums, brushes and papers. It was incredibly fun, they had everything I needed! I then rented an apartment for a couple of days, where I experimented and used up all the materials I had bought, leaving the apartment filled with art, covering the whole floor so that I had to jump over the artworks to be able to navigate around.
Check out the full story, along with the wallpapers themselves, over on the artist’s blog.
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