Apple’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus wrap more power in a glass-backed design

Today, Apple is likely to announce more phones than it has at any event in its history. The iPhone 8 and 8 Plus are two major parts of today’s showcase, and after all those tantalizing leaks, we finally get to hear all about them. You won’t have to wait much longer to handle one either: Both iPhone 8 models, which mark a return to glass-backed design, with a powerful-sounding new processor inside, will go on preorder September 15th, with a launch date of September 22nd. For the bigger handset, you’ll get to pick storage configs with 64, 128 and 256GB options with prices start at $799, while iPhone 8 shoppers will get 64GB and 256GB options, with an entry-level price of $699. And yes, all three colors (silver, space gray and gold aluminum) will be coming to both phones. Let’s take a look.

Let’s be frank: the design hasn’t changed hugely. While this is the iPhone 8, in a lot of ways it’s the iPhone 7S in all but name. There are some physical changes, and the major one is the return to a glass-backed phone design. Beyond aesthetics, there’s a major point to this: wireless charging. Apple has embedded Qi inductive wireless charging, which means that both phones will charge on compatible pucks and surfaces when they launch. The good part? Qi charging surfaces are already on sale pretty much everywhere. Even Ikea does them.

Apple claims that the new glass backing is the hardiest glass ever found on a smartphone, while it’s also used aerospace-grade aluminum with the iPhone 8, for 50 percent more strength compared with previous devices. (Challenge accepted, right?)

Display-wise, the iPhone 8 will pack a new 4.7-inch Retina HD display, while the iPhone 8 Plus has a 5.5-inch Retina HD display — what’s important here is the addition of Apple’s True Tone tech.

Similar to (but much more complicated than) how iPhones adjust their color temperature in Night Shift, True Tone will try to ensure that your screen’s color temperature looks accurate irrespective of whether you’re looking at it under a streetlight, sunlight or, well, candlelight.

Inside, Apple has added its latest, most powerful processor: the A11 Bionic. It’s a six-core CPU, which includes two high-performance cores, both of which are 25 percent faster than the A10 found in the last iPhone models. Heck, even the four high-efficiency cores are 70 percent faster than the A10. This is also the first phone to house Apple’s first-ever GPU. Technical specs inch forward elsewhere too, with the stereo speakers now adding 25 percent more shout to your music and/or Siri responses.

How about the cameras? The iPhone 8 has a 12-megapixel camera — it’s a new sensor with a new color filter, which Apple’s Phil Schiller says will capture “deeper pixels” (I don’t know either…), and the redesigned camera itself will also take in 83 percent more light. Fear not: optical image stabilization is still here, to keep your shots sharp, and at least half decent in low light.

Meanwhile, the iPhone 8 Plus, with its dual camera, gets a duo of 12-megapixel sensors. Notably, the wide-angle lens has a f/1.8 aperture (with optical image stabilization), while the telephoto one now has f/2.8. Lower numbers are good here, and it means more light taken in by the lens to improve the photos you take.

What would a new iPhone be without a fancy new camera mode? Portrait Lighting, still in beta at the moment, will separate your portrait from the foreground, analyze the lighting and add a different effect as wanted. The effect will be generated on the fly — it’s not a filter, and it is generated by the iPhone itself.(Don’t worry, you’ll also be able to tweak these later, after taking a shot.)

Apple also added its own image signal processor, to allow for wider color capture, faster low-light autofocus and better HDR shots. It’s also upgraded its True Tone flash with a slow sync to help uniformly light up both the background and foreground of your next karaoke dinner party.

Video gets some love too: faster frame rates for both iPhones, as well as image and motion analysis. Cameras are now calibrated to make the most of augmented reality, while there are also new gyros and accelerometers working away inside the phone. The iPhone 8 series will also have motion tracking built into the camera, meaning the phone will help to ensure you’re capturing smoother footage. Those higher frame rates apparently top out at 240 fps at 1080p, meaning crisp (if not 4K) slow-mo options.

The two phones will get a head start on the (more expensive) iPhone X, but now the thinking begins: Why go for model no. 8, when no. 10 is right there?

Follow all the latest news from Apple’s iPhone event here!

Apple’s new iPhones are designed for augmented reality

At WWDC earlier this year, Apple introduced ARKit, its take on an augmented reality platform. Since then, a whole slew of ARKit projects have cropped up, including exploded camera art, an A-ha style video, an IKEA furniture app and many more. Google followed up with its own ARKit competitor, ARCore, just a few weeks ago, thus lending credence to the burgeoning popularity of augmented reality apps on the phone. Now, at Apple iPhone’s event, the company said that all of the new iPhones were designed from the ground up to be AR-ready as well.

Apple’s Phil Schiller said on stage that the new phone cameras are calibrated for AR, and that they designed to handle low-light and 60 fps video, which is perfect for augmented reality applications. Further, there’s a new gyroscope and accelerometer, to ensure more accurate motion tracking.

Schiller also took some time at the event to talk about the latest cool ARKit apps. One was a Warhammer game that lets you fight virtual mechs in the real world. If you’re a baseball fan, you’ll love MLB’s new app that will let you hold up your iPhone at the game to see real-time information and stats superimposed on the field. There’s also an app that lets you view the constellation as you move your phone across the sky. Last but not least, Apple showed off a game called The Machines that let you go head to head with your friends in a virtual battlefield.

Even though the new iPhones — that’s the iPhone 8/Plus and the iPhone X — are designed specially for AR, ARKit is still available for the iPhone 6s and the iPhone 7 with the upcoming iOS11 update.

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iOS 11 comes to your iPhone and iPad on September 19th

Months after its initial unveiling at WWDC this year, iOS 11 is finally (almost) ready for public consumption. Come Sept 19, you’ll be able to install Apple’s latest software update — should you choose to, anyway. The new iOS will ship with the newly announced iPhone 8 and 8 Plus when they arrive in stores on Sept 19, which is also most likely when the upgrade will roll out to the public. Those of us with aging iPhones (and iPads) will likely need to clear out old files and apps to make room for the update. But when you do eventually get iOS 11, you’ll enjoy cool new tricks like Live Photo modes, a more-intelligent Siri and a customizable Control Center.

iOS 11 may also create animated emojis based on your facial expression, and facilitate much better multitasking prowess on iPads. One of the most major new features the new system brings is Apple’s ARKit, to help developers make augmented reality content more realistic. It also adds an important security benefit: you’ll be able to dial 911 and disable TouchID by pressing the power button five times in a row. This helps prevent you from being forced to unlock your phone with your fingerprint.

It seems like there are plenty of reasons to upgrade to iOS 11 once it’s available, but as with most new software launches, there are bound to be bugs, so make sure you back up all your data before starting the installation.

Follow all the latest news from Apple’s iPhone event here!

Follow your favorite local sports teams with Apple’s latest TV update

Its venerable phone line wasn’t the only newly minted product Apple showed off at the iPhone 8 event on Tuesday. Eddie Cue announced onstage that the company will expand availability of its TV app to seven new countries by the end of the year and will be adding local news and sports programming as well.

The TV app will be available in Australia and Canada next month, the spread to Germany, France, Sweden, Norway and the UK by the end of the year. US sports fans (that is, those that live in the country), will be able to track their favorite teams and have Apple TV push an on-screen notification whenever a game starts. By the end of the year, Apple also announced that users will be able to ask Siri directly to switch to a game. Or, if the user is deep in a Netflix hole and don’t want to change the channel, they can simply ask the assistant “What’s the score of the Giants game?” to get a quick update (hint: the Giants are losing).

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Apple’s $999 iPhone X packs an edge-to-edge display and dual cameras

The iPhone X (pronounced “iPhone Ten”) is real, and it’s finally here. CEO Tim Cook just unveiled the biggest redesign of the iPhone we’ve seen yet, at today’s event in the Steve Jobs Theater at Apple’s brand-new campus. As expected, the phone is dominated by a massive screen that takes up the entire front of the display. Just as on Samsung’s Galaxy S8, the bezels are barely there, though the iPhone X has a slightly odd “cutout” at the top of the phone to allow for the front-facing camera and sensors. The lack of bezels means the phone isn’t that much bigger than the iPhone 7.

The “Super Retina” display is 5.8 inches, with a 2436 x 1125 resolution — that works out to 458 pixels per inch, by far the highest ever seen on an iPhone. Phil Schiller also notes that it’s an OLED screen, the first that’s “good enough” for an iPhone. The screen supports HDR, and naturally includes 3D Touch technology and the “True Tone” display found on the iPhone 8 and iPad Pro.

To accommodate this giant display, Apple has ditched the home button and Touch ID. You can raise the phone to wake it up, but you can also tap the screen to do the same. Given that every iPhone has had a home button, this change might even be a bigger deal than the bigger screen. To get home, Apple has added gestures like the ones we’ve seen on the iPad for years — a swipe up from the bottom gets you back to the home screen, while swiping up and pausing will bring you to the multitasking menu. To access Siri, you can say “Hey Siri” or hold the side button, which Apple has enlarged. The phone is wrapped with stainless steel and has glass on the front and back; surprisingly, it comes in only two finishes: silver and black.

To replace Touch ID, the iPhone X is locked until you look at it and it recognizes you. Apple is calling this “Face ID.” It uses the front-facing camera as well as other sensors, including an infrared sensor, flood illuminator and dot projector, to unlock the phone. (Apple refers to it as a True Depth sensor.) It’ll update your face scan frequently to account for changes like haircuts, hats and beards. Schiller says it’s a one-in-a-million chance that someone else’s face would unlock your phone, as compared with one in 50,000 for Touch ID.

Face ID will also let you authenticate Apple Pay purchases — by clicking the side button twice and looking at the screen, your phone will make the desired payment. And Apple’s also using the True Depth sensors to let you create and share animated emojis. The company is starting with a dozen different emojis (most of them animals) that you can animate using your face.

As for the camera, it’s a dual camera, much like that on the iPhone 8 — it has dual 12-megapixel sensors with a f/1.8 aperture on the wide end and f/2.4 on the telephoto lens. The big thing to note here is that both lenses have optical image stabilization, while the iPhone 8 Plus has only OIS on the wide-angle lens. It also features factory calibration on the cameras, for augmented reality, as well as the new software-enhanced “Portrait Lighting” mode found in the iPhone 8 Plus.

The processor is the same as the A11 Bionic chip found in the new iPhone 8, and it sounds like a big step up over last year’s processor. It’s a six-core CPU, with two high-performance cores. Those high-performance cores are 25 percent faster than the A10’s, while the four high-efficiency cores are 70 percent faster than the A10’s. Apple also designed the GPU for the first time and says that it’s optimized for the company’s Metal 2 graphics framework.

Despite all the new features and power of the A11 chip, Schiller says that the phone should last two hours longer than the iPhone 7. Like the iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, the iPhone X will also include wireless charging for the first time. To facilitate this, the entire iPhone lineup now has glass backs, just like the iPhone 4 and 4S had many years ago. Somewhat surprisingly, Apple is using Qi, one of the biggest open wireless charging standards. That means that plenty of wireless charging pads out there should work with the iPhone X right out of the box.

Naturally, Apple has made its own charging mat that can accommodate the iPhone X or iPhone 8, as well as the series 3 Apple Watch and the AirPods, provided you buy a new wireless charging case for them. It’s called AirPower, but it doesn’t come out until next year, unfortunately.

There are a few changes when it comes to navigating iOS, to accommodate for the lack of a home button. Since swiping up from the bottom gets you home or to multitasking, you now access Control Center by swiping down from the top of the screen. You need to hit the targets on the left or right, where your status and battery indicator live, to do that, though. Apple hasn’t shown the notification center yet, but we’re guessing you can get it by swiping down from the middle of the screen.

One of the biggest questions about the iPhone X has been its cost. It’ll start at $999 for 64GB, and the 256GB model will likely run an extra $100. Pre-orders start on October 27th, and the phone will begin shipping on November 3rd. Start saving your couch change, folks.

Follow all the latest news from Apple’s iPhone event here!

Source: Apple

Apple TV 4K starts at £179 in the UK

The makers of most popular streaming pucks made the jump to Ultra HD some time ago, and today Apple has finally caught up. As expected, Apple announced the new Apple TV 4K, which plays nice with both high-resolution content and the high dynamic range standards HDR10 and Dolby Vision. It’ll be available to buy in the UK for £179 for the 32GB model and £199 for the 64GB version on September 15th, with shipping starting a week later on September 22nd. The fourth-gen Apple TV (32GB) will continue to be sold for £149.

A new processor means the Apple TV 4K is twice as fast as the last model, and Apple has worked with Netflix, Amazon and others to bring their 4K content to the box. Naturally, 4K movies and shows will be available on iTunes, too, and they’ll be no price difference between HD and Ultra HD versions. Better yet, you’ll receive a 4K copy of anything you’ve previously bought for free.

Apple’s TV app, which pulls content from loads of different services so you can search and browse in one, unified UI, still isn’t ready for the UK unfortunately. Apple promised today, however, that it’ll hit set-top boxes over here before the end of the year.

Follow all the latest news from Apple’s iPhone event here!

Apple’s new iPhones use AI ‘Portrait Lighting’ to improve shots

Apple’s iPhone 8 and 8 Plus cameras are similar to those on the previous models, and the new iPhone X has a similar dual camera arrangement to the 8 Plus. While the hardware hasn’t changed dramatically, there are some interesting new software features, though, most notably one called “Portrait Lighting.” Taking advantage of the camera’s multi-focus feature, it can separate you from the background and blur it out, as before, but now uses AI to examine the contours of your face and “light” you in a variety of flattering or dramatic ways.

For the same shot, for instance, you can create different effects like “Natural Light,” “Contour Light” and “Stage Light” (shown left to right, below). “You compose a photo, the dual cameras and the ISP sense the scene, they create a depth map, and they actually change the lighting contours over the face,” said Apple iPhone chief Phil Schiller. “These aren’t filters, this is real time analysis.”

Apple had promised to shrink down its AI systems onto a chip for use with its augmented reality ARKit and other things, and using it with the camera seems a smart choice. Assuming it doesn’t make shots look artificial in real world use (it looked great in the demo), it should be a handy feature.

The new camera shoots a lot quicker too, thanks to a new image signal processor that’s part of the A11 Bionic chip. It improves pixel processing, captures more colors, speeds autofocus and adds a new feature called “hardware-enabled multi-band noise reduction” that can eliminate a lot of the grain you’d see in low light. “Phone 8 takes fantastic portrait modes, and now you’re going to get more detail and even a more natural bokeh,” says Schiller.

Video also gets a boost, with 60 fps 4K and 240 fps slow-mo available at a full 1080p. There’s also a new, third video category called “augmented reality.” Since video is a key part of of its ARKit platform, it should help developers create even more of the wild experiments going on right now.

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Apple’s Face ID replaces Touch ID on the iPhone X

Apple has just revealed Face ID, a new facial recognition feature that will make its debut on the iPhone X. The technology is powered by what the company calls a TrueDepth camera system, which is made up of a bunch of sensors that detect your face, even in the dark, and let you unlock your iPhone by simply looking at it. Altogether, Face ID uses ambient light, infrared and proximity sensors, as well as a flood illuminator, speaker, microphone and, of course, the front camera to make the “magic” happen. Meanwhile, a newly minted, dual-core A11 Bionic neural engine will process that information.

Naturally, since there’s no longer a home button with Touch ID, you’ll use Face ID for your Apple Pay transactions. Apple says not to worry about randoms trying to get into your phone, as iPhone X can’t be spoofed by photos and all the data processing is done on the device itself. That means everything is encrypted and none of your info is sent to the cloud. According to Phil Schiller, Apple’s senior vice president of worldwide marketing, the chances of someone stealing access to your iPhone X is one in a million, compared to one in fifty thousand with Touch ID.

But what if your look changes over time? Like, say, you grow a beard or suddenly start wearing a cowboy hat… well, Schiller says Face ID is smart enough to recognize that. We’ll see just how accurate the new feature is when our own Chris Velazco, senior mobile editor, checks out the iPhone X at Apple’s spaceship-looking campus later today. Stay tuned.

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‘Journey’ studio brings a dreamy fantasy game to iOS and Apple TV

At Apple’s iPhone 8 announcement event today, founder of Thatgamecompany Jenova Chen went onstage to introduce a new title coming exclusively to Apple TV: Sky. Calling it a “romantic social adventure game,” players will use the set top box’s remote to control a character careening peacefully through the air.

The game’s simplistic, elemental play looks a lot like Chen’s studio’s previous hits Flow, Flower and Journey, the last of which was released in 2012 to great acclaim. It’s been five years since, which makes it even more curious for the studio to choose Apple TV as a platform for its next big release, which isn’t really known for gaming. But as Chen wrote in the studio’s blog, Sky is “a game specially created to be played, and shared, among loved ones and family. If you can imagine the delight of visiting a theme park where lasting memories are made, we envision Sky will sometimes feel like that.”

By that logic, a family entertainment center like the Apple TV is pretty suitable for Thatgamecompany’s particular flavor of simple, heartfelt narratives — not to mention the iPhone and iPad. But here’s Chen explaining the game’s development:

Sky doesn’t have a release date yet, but it will be “coming soon” for iPhone, iPad and Apple TV.

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Source: Thatgamecompany

Apple can turn your facial expressions into animated emojis

It seems that the rumors were true: iPhone X owners can use their phone to map emojis from their facial expressions. They need only select their chosen emoji from a fairly extensive list and the Animoji app will map our eye, mouth and cheek expressions to your animated counterpart. Yes, even the poo emoji.

Once you’ve selected an animoji, the depth-cameras will map the image of, say, a cute panda or unicorn on your face. Then you can record clips of you speaking that’ll directly animate onto the character you’ve chosen.

After you’ve made your recording, you can then send the animojis as video messages or stickers in iMessage, which will be sent to your friends as a looping clip. It appears that, for now, the feature is limited to the iPhone X thanks to its more sophisticated front-facing camera and facial recognition technology.

Like so many of the other features that were on show at the Apple event, details of the animoji app were spilled by the iOS 11 leak last weekend. 9to5Mac first reported on the feature, although back then it wasn’t clear that it was exclusive to the iPhone X.

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