Apple bought a company focused on super-accurate GPS

Apple has snapped up more than a few companies that know how to deal with your location data, but it now appears to be focused on improving the accuracy of that data from the get-go. MacRumors has discovered evidence that Apple recently acquired Coherent Navigation, a company specializing in very accurate GPS. It combined the usual GPS positioning with information from Iridium’s low-orbit communication satellites to pinpoint your whereabouts within inches, rather than feet.

It’s not clear just what the Coherent team is doing under Apple’s wing. Its CEO and co-founders have taken positions in the Maps and wireless technologies teams, but that’s about as far as the revelations go. We’ve reached out to Apple to confirm the deal, but it doesn’t historically reveal what its plans are following buyouts. However, it could be for more than just ensuring that your Maps directions are on the mark. Apple is rumored to be developing an electric car with self-driving features that, by their nature, would depend on very accurate GPS info to get you around safely. There’s no guarantee that Apple took on these new hires with autonomous vehicles in mind, but the move would at least make sense in that light.

Filed under: Cellphones, GPS, Internet, Mobile, Apple

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Source: MacRumors

Apple Appears to Have Acquired GPS Firm Coherent Navigation

In one of its latest efforts to bolster its mapping capabilities, Apple appears to have acquired Coherent Navigation, a Bay Area GPS-related firm founded in 2008 by engineers from Stanford and Cornell.

One of Coherent Navigation’s areas of focus was High Integrity GPS (“iGPS”), a system that combines signals from the traditional mid-earth orbit GPS satellites with those from the low-earth satellites of voice and data provider Iridium to offer greater accuracy and precision, higher signal integrity, and greater jam resistance. Iridium touts iGPS as having the potential to provide location information accurate to within centimeters.

A number of Coherent’s key employees recently began working for Apple, including tech veteran and CEO Paul Lego in January and co-founders William Bencze and Brett Ledvina as of last month. Coherent’s website has also been taken offline, but on April 30 the name servers for the domain were updated to point to Apple’s servers.

It is unclear exactly what the Coherent Navigation team is working on at Apple and whether there was a specific technology Apple was interested in or if it simply wanted to apply the expertise of Coherent’s employees to its own projects. Lego simply notes that he is now a member of Apple’s Maps team, while Ledvina and Bencze are working in similarly location engineering roles.

Coherent Navigation would be just the latest in a long string of mapping-related acquisitions Apple has made over the last several years, including the developers behind Pin Drop, Locationary, WifiSLAM, Hopstop, Embark, and Broadmap. Apple has continued to improve its mapping services since a rough transition away from Google Maps with the release of iOS 6 in 2012, with the company working to add features like transit information and perhaps Street View-like imagery to its services.

Inhabitat’s Week in Green: folding cars and an R2-D2 van

Each week our friends at Inhabitat recap the week’s most interesting green developments and clean tech news for us — it’s the Week in Green.

Tesla‘s on a roll lately — it’s planning to reveal a $35,000 electric car next year, and it just unveiled a home battery that could take your house off the grid. But if you’re hoping to get in on the paradigm-shifting technology, you might have to wait — the Powerwall home battery is sold out through 2016. The enormous level of interest in the batteries has translated to $800 million worth of reservations, begging the question: Can Tesla’s battery hit $1 billion in sales faster than the iPhone? On the topic of the iPhone, Apple is seriously greening up its act. Back in 2011, Greenpeace named Apple the least clean tech company. Now, just four years later, Apple rates as the greenest tech company of all. Part of the reason for that improved rating could come from Apple’s partnership with World Wildlife Fund in China to create sustainable forests.

On the green energy front, a startup called Move Systems is working to bring 500 solar-powered street food carts to NYC. The carts come equipped with solar power, rechargeable batteries, plug-in hybrid technology and alternative fuel hookups. Hawaii is aiming to become the first US state to run entirely on renewable energy. If the measure passes, the state would get its energy from a mix of solar, wind, hydro, geothermal and biomass facilities. And is this the world’s most efficient solar system? Ripasso has developed a massive sunlight-concentrating disc that converts 34 percent of the sun’s energy into electricity — that’s twice as much as traditional solar systems.

California is still gripped in its worst drought in recorded history, and it shows no signs of stopping any time soon. It’s gotten so bad that San Diego County is building a massive $1 billion desalination plant — the largest of its kind in the Western hemisphere. In response to the drought, Starbucks announced last week that it will stop sourcing water from California, and it will begin bottling its Ethos Water in Pennsylvania instead. But despite the severity of the problem, not everyone is working to conserve water. Nestlé CEO Tim Brown actually wants to increase the company’s bottled water operation in California, and new aerial photos reveal that some of Hollywood’s biggest stars are still pumping loads of water into landscaping to keep their estate grounds lush and green. To deal with the ongoing drought, Inhabitat has rounded up 10 possible solutions, ranging from wastewater recycling to fog catchers.

When you step into a self-driving car, you want to be fairly certain that the technology is sound — and above all, that the car is safe. So on the surface, it might seem concerning to learn that Google’s self-driving cars have been involved in a total of 11 minor accidents. But there’s good news: Google says the autonomous cars weren’t at fault in any of the accidents. In other transportation news, a Brazilian Star Wars fan created the ultimate tribute: a VW camper van retrofitted to look just like R2-D2! San Francisco is paving the way for bicycle safety by constructing new bike lanes that are raised two inches above the rest of the street. Parallel parking is one of the more difficult maneuvers asked of urban drivers, but the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence has produced a vehicle that makes it easy to parallel park in even the tightest of spaces. The EO Smart Connecting Car 2 can drive sideways, change its shape and even shrink itself to fit in smaller spaces. On the topic of mobility, a mobile garden with a wall of flowers and edible plants rolled into Expo Gate Milano last week. And on the interplanetary travel front, The Planetary Society is preparing to launch a test flight of the solar-powered LightSail spaceship that Carl Sagan dreamed up 40 years ago. The first test will take place on May 30th.

Filed under: Household, Transportation, Science, Apple

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Some Trader Joe’s Stores Accepting Contactless Payments, Including Apple Pay

Popular grocery store chain Trader Joe’s has installed new NFC-compatible VeriFone touchscreen checkout terminals in some of its stores, allowing for contactless payments. First noticed by AppleInsider, some of these stores with the new payment terminals are accepting Apple Pay, which works at any location that allows for contactless payments.

Image via AppleInsider
MacRumors has verified that Apple Pay works in some Trader Joe’s stores. In Raleigh, North Carolina, we were able to make a purchase at Trader Joe’s with the Apple Watch using Apple Pay.

Not all Trader Joe’s stores have the new payment terminals at this time, and not all stores with the new terminals are accepting Apple Pay via NFC. The Apple Pay logo is present on the checkout terminal, however, suggesting Trader Joe’s is perhaps considering becoming an official Apple Pay partner.

Trader Joe’s is known for its high-quality low-priced products, and it has more than 400 locations across the United States. If Trader Joe’s becomes an official Apple Pay partner, it will join other grocery store chains like Whole Foods, Dick’s Fresh Market, Winn-Dixie, Bi-Lo, Food Maxx, Lucky, Meijer, Sprouts, and more.

June Delivery Date for Backordered 15-Inch Retina Macbook Pro Sparks Refresh Speculation

With the Worldwide Developers Conference coming up in early June, there’s been some question about whether we might see a new 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro at the event. Shipping estimates for the high-end 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro have recently increased to two to three weeks, perhaps suggesting Apple is tapering down production on the existing model.

Supply shortages can sometimes signal an imminent update, but there’s uncertainty when it comes to a potential 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro refresh due to a distinct lack of Broadwell chips appropriate for the machine. For several months, we’ve had no updates on the release date of Broadwell chips that would be used in the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro, making it difficult to pin down an upgrade timeline.

Along with slipping shipping estimates, however, we have another potential piece of evidence pointing towards the possibility of a June refresh — a MacRumors reader who ordered a 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro has received a delayed delivery date ranging from June 9 to June 15. June 9 is one day after the kick off of the Worldwide Developers Conference and the day after the event keynote where any new product would be introduced.

The Retina MacBook Pro in question is a custom configured 15-inch model with a 2.8Ghz processor and 512GB of storage, originally ordered on April 23. At the time, it had a two to three week delivery estimate, suggesting it should have arrived in May, but Apple’s pushed it back to seven weeks.

A single customer’s order set to arrive on June 9 just after the WWDC keynote is curious and may suggest Apple’s waiting until a refresh to ship his order, but there’s also a chance that it’s a mere coincidence. It’s entirely possible we won’t see updated 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro models for several more months.

We last heard Broadwell chips for the 15-inch Retina MacBook Pro were coming in July or August, making a WWDC refresh unlikely, but a handful of desktop-class chips in the same family began shipping two weeks ago, suggesting Intel might be ahead of schedule.

If Intel is ready to ship the chips or if Apple has already quietly received shipments ahead of a wider release, there’s a chance we’ll see a Retina MacBook Pro update at WWDC. If the chips are not shipping out until July or August, a WWDC refresh or update announcement is not likely.

As we said in a deeper post covering potential chip upgrades for the Retina MacBook Pro and the iMac, Intel’s Broadwell chip delays and Broadwell’s convergence with Skylake chip release dates have made it difficult to divine accurate update timelines for these machines.

(Thanks, Joel!)

Buyer’s Guide: Deals on iPad Mini 3, Retina iMac, Apple Accessories, and More [Mac Blog]

Now that Mother’s Day has come to an end and we’re heading into June, deals have died down a bit. You can still get a decent discount on an iMac, older iPad, older MacBook Air, or Retina MacBook Pro, but when it comes to newer iPads and Macs, you might want to wait a week or two in case there are good Memorial Day discounts. The exception is the Retina iMac, which is available for the lowest price we’ve seen.

Best Buy’s offering solid discounts on some iPad mini 3 models this week, so it’s a good time to pick up one of Apple’s smaller tablets. As usual, we’ve rounded up the best deals on must-have Apple accessories, and we’ve highlighted the best app sales of the week.

iPad Air 2

B&H Photo is offering a small discount on most of its iPad Air 2 models, dropping prices by $30 to $50. With the discount, the 16GB WiFi only iPad Air 2 is priced at $459 and the 64GB model is priced at $569.

MacMall is also offering some discounts on iPad Air 2 models, dropping the prices by $30 to $50. With the discount, the 16GB entry-level Wi-Fi only iPad Air 2 is priced at $459, while the Wi-Fi-only 64GB iPad Air 2 is available for $539.

iPad Air

Both Best Buy and B&H Photo have deep discounts on some remaining stock of now-discontinued higher-capacity iPad Air models, as listed below.

– iPad Air Wi-Fi Space Gray 128GB – $549
– iPad Air Cellular Space Gray 128GB (AT&T) – $565
– iPad Air Cellular Silver 64GB (AT&T) – $629
– iPad Air Cellular Space Gray 64GB (AT&T) – $449
– iPad Air Cellular Silver 64GB (Verizon) – $566.99
– iPad Air Cellular Space Gray 64GB (Verizon) – $449
– iPad Air Cellular Silver 128GB (Verizon) – $579
– iPad Air Cellular Space Gray 128GB (Verizon) – $679

iPad mini 3

Best Buy is discounting Wi-Fi only 16GB and 128GB iPad mini 3 models by $50 to $100, resulting in some of the lowest prices we’ve seen for the higher-capacity models. With the discount, the 128GB Wi-Fi only iPad mini 3 is priced at $499 and the 16GB version is priced at $349.99. Only the Space Gray and Silver models are on sale.

B&H Photo is offering some modest discounts on various iPad mini 3 models, dropping the price by up to $60. The 64GB Cellular iPad mini 3 in gold is priced at $549, while the 16GB Cellular gold version is priced at $469. The Wi-Fi only 128GB iPad mini 3 in Silver is $519, while the 64GB version is priced at $439.

Discounts for each model and and color vary, but most models are being offered at a lower price than you’ll find at the Apple Store, and buying from B&H, you won’t have to pay sales tax unless you’re in New York.

iPad mini 2

Best Buy, B&H Photo, and Amazon have remaining stock of now-discontinued higher-capacity iPad mini 2 models, which are a good deal if you’re looking for an iPad mini. Compared to the iPad mini 3, the iPad mini 2 only lacks Touch ID.

– iPad mini Cellular Silver 128GB (AT&T) – $435
– iPad mini Cellular Space Gray 128GB (AT&T) – $449.99
– iPad mini Cellular Space Gray 64GB (AT&T) – $399.99
– iPad mini Cellular Silver 128GB (Verizon) – $499.99
– iPad mini Cellular Space Gray 128GB (Verizon) – $534.99
– iPad mini Cellular Space Gray 64GB (Verizon) – $438.99

iMac

– 21.5-inch 2.7GHz/8GB/1TB (Best Buy) (B&H Photo) – $1,199, $100 off
– 21.5-inch 2.9GHz/8GB/1TB (Best Buy) (Adorama) (B&H Photo) (MacMall) – $1,399, $120 off
– 27-inch 3.2GHz/8GB/1TB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $1,689, $110 off
– 27-inch 3.4GHz/8GB/1TB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $1,794.99, $204 off
– 27-inch 3.5Ghz/8GB/1TB Retina iMac (Best Buy) – $2,249.99, $250 off

Mac mini

– 1.4GHz/4GB/500GB (Amazon) (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $464.99, $34 off
– 2.6GHz/8GB/1TB (MacMall) – $663.99, $35 off
– 2.8GHz/8GB/1TB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $938, $60 off

MacBook Air

– 2015 11-inch 1.6GHz/4GB/128GB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $824.99, $75 off
– 2015 11-inch 1.6GHz/4GB/256GB (Best Buy) (Amazon) (B&H Photo) (Adorama) – $1044.99, $50 off
– 2015 13-inch 1.6GHz/4GB/128GB (Amazon) (B&H Photo) (Adorama) – $949.99, $50 off
– 2015 13-inch 1.6GHz/4GB/256GB (Best Buy) (Amazon) (B&H Photo) – $1,139.99, $60 off
– 2014 11-inch 1.4GHz/4GB/128GB (B&H Photo) – $749, $150 off
– 2014 11-inch 1.4GHz/4GB/256GB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $899, $200 off
– 2014 13-inch 1.4GHz/4GB/128GB (B&H Photo) – $819, $180 off
– 2014 13-inch 1.4GHz/4GB/256GB (B&H Photo) – $999, $200 off

Retina MacBook Pro

– 2015 13-inch 2.7Ghz/8GB/128GB (Amazon) (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $1,234.99, $64 off
– 2015 13-inch 2.7GHz/8GB/256GB (Best Buy) (B&H Photo) (MacMall) – $1,424.99, $74 off
– 2015 13-inch 2.9GHz/8GB/512GB (Best Buy) (B&H Photo) – $1709.99, $90 off
– 2014 15-inch 2.2GHz/16GB/256GB (Adorama) (MacMall) – $1,799, $200 off
– 2014 15-inch 2.5GHz/16GB/512GB (Adorama) –$2,249, $250 off
– 2014 13-inch 2.6GHz/8GB/128GB (B&H Photo) – $1,079, $220 off
– 2014 13-inch 2.6GHz/8GB/256GB (Adorama) (B&H Photo) – $1,249, $239 off
– 2014 13-inch 2.8GHz/8GB/512GB (B&H Photo) – $1,529 $270 off

Apps

There are quite a few apps that are on sale at discounted prices or available for free for a limited time. We’ll highlight a few here, but make sure to check out our sister site AppShopper for a complete list.

Mac ID for iOS, an app that lets you unlock your Mac with your iPhone using Touch ID or your Apple Watch, is available for $0.99, down from $2.99. Fighting game Combo Crew is available for free, down from $1.99. Strategy games Squids and Squids Wild West are also available for free, down from $1.99.

Cut the Rope 2 is available for $0.99, down from $2.99. Duet Display, the app that turns your iPad into a second screen for your Mac, is available for $9.99, down from $15.99. AmpliTube and Amplitube for iPad are both available for free this week, down from $19.99.

Puzzle game Quetzalcoatl was named Apple’s App of the Week, so it will be free to download until next Thursday when a new app is picked.

Apple Accessories

LivingSocial has two Apple Lightning cables available for $14.99, regularly $38. Groupon is selling a single set of Apple EarPods for $12.99 or a set of two for $24.99, a decent discount off the regular price of $29, and it has an Apple 5W USB power adapter for $9.99, down from $19.99.

Groupon has Star Wars iPhone cases for the iPhone 4/4s/5/5s for $7.99, regularly $19.99 to $39.99, and it’s offering a custom Printerpix case for iPhone 5/5s/6/6 Plus with optional screen protector for $7.99, down from $39.99.

Groupon has the OtterBox Defender Case and Holster for the iPhone 6 available for $29.99, down from $59.95. The Otterbox Defender Case for the iPhone 6 Plus is available for $34.99, down from $70. The Apple iPad mini Smart Cover is available for $17.99, down from $39.

StackSocial is offering the Satechi Aluminum 4-port USB Clamp Hub for $19.99, down from $29.99. The MOTA Smartphone Air Vent Car Mount is available from Groupon for $14.99, down from $55. Best Buy has the Pebble Steel smartwatch in black or silver for $144.99, $50 off the regular price.

Best Buy has Incase laptop sleeves available at a 30 percent discount. Groupon is selling an inexpensive Apple Watch Charging Stand for $14.99, valued at $30, and it has the Jawbone BIG Jambox for $189.99, down from $299.

The iWalk Extreme Trip battery 10,000 mAh pack is available for $49.99 from StackSocial, discounted from $85. Woot has the Mophie Juice Pack Helium case for iPhone 5/5s for $29.99, down from $79.99. Woot’s also discounting a range of Beats headphones by 17 to 45 percent, dropping prices as low as $60.

Groupon’s still running a big Apple event and selling a range of Apple products and accessories at discounted prices, including the LifeProof Fre case for the iPad Air, Apple EarPods, Speck MacBook cases, MagSafe chargers, Mophie battery cases, and more.

MacRumors is an affiliate partner with some of these vendors.

MacRumors Giveaway: Win a Journeyman Leather Messenger Bag from Intrepid Bag Co [Mac Blog]

For this week’s giveaway, we’ve teamed up with Intrepid Bag Co to give MacRumors readers a chance to win one of the company’s high-quality Journeyman Commuter Leather Messenger Bags. Priced at $379, the Journeyman is a cross-body messenger bag made from Latigo Saddle Leather in a rich brown color.

The bag has a minimalist design with a simple flap held by two buckles, but it’s equipped with lots of pockets to hold all of your gear. There’s a suspended laptop pocket that can hold a 13-inch Retina MacBook Pro (or smaller) and an iPad, plus there are additional pockets for the iPhone, chargers, documents, passports, pens, and more.

There’s a herringbone lining on the inside, steel hardware, and a side-mounted padded strap to distribute weight comfortably.

The Journeyman’s unique styling and fit makes it a true stand out with its 2″ padded side-mounted strap that disperses weight evenly across your shoulders and stays in place perfectly. Think of this as your new lifelong traveling partner for all your EDC that only gets better with age.

Intrepid’s Journeyman Messenger Bag, one of its first products, was the result of a Kickstarter campaign, and in the very near future, the company is expanding to offer several other bags and accessories.

Intrepid’s latest collection, Explorer, recently debuted on Kickstarter. The Explorer collection includes the company’s all new Wayfarer Messenger bag, which is its biggest yet and capable of holding a 15 to 17-inch MacBook, plus it includes a convertible backpack/messenger bag and a Tech Roll that holds cords, hard drives, and other loose accessories. Each piece in the collection, which ships in August, can be pre-ordered from Kickstarter.

To enter to win one of the Journeyman Messenger Bags, use the Rafflecopter widget below. You can earn additional entries by subscribing to our weekly newsletter, subscribing to our YouTube Channel, following us on Twitter, or visiting the MacRumors Facebook page. Due to the intricacies of international law regarding giveaways, this giveaway is open only to U.S. residents who are 18 years of age or older.

a Rafflecopter giveawayThe giveaway will run from today, Friday, May 15 at 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time through Friday May 22 at 11:15 a.m. Pacific Time. Winners will be chosen randomly on May 22 and will be contacted through email. A response to our email is required within 48 hours or the winner will forfeit the prize and we will pick a new winner.

Oculus Rift Development on OS X ‘Paused’ to Focus on Strong Windows Launch

Following the acquisition of Oculus by Facebook last year, not much news came out regarding the virtual reality headset’s availability to its non-developer fanbase. Recently, however, Oculus confirmed the Rift will be up for pre-order later this year, with the first units shipping sometime in the first quarter of 2016.

A glimpse inside the consumer model of the Oculus Rift
Atman Binstock, Chief Architect at Oculus and technical director of the Rift, today wrote a blog post on the company’s website providing more details on the exact rig configuration PC players can expect to need when playing games on the Rift. Towards the end of the blog, Binstock also notes that development for the Rift on both Mac and Linux has “paused” to deliver as strong a launch as possible on the headset’s sole platform – Windows.

“Our development for OS X and Linux has been paused in order to focus on delivering a high quality consumer-level VR experience at launch across hardware, software, and content on Windows. We want to get back to development for OS X and Linux but we don’t have a timeline.”

The Rift has had a long and bumpy road ever since it was introduced in 2012 with a developer kit version being sold both on the company’s website and as a $300 reward tier on its widely known Kickstarter campaign. Ever since, the Rift has shown up at numerous gaming conventions and electronics shows, but not until this year was any sort of hint given concerning when a mass-marketed consumer version would finally be available.

Although the lengthy development process for the Oculus Rift is more than understandable – the consumer version plans to have improved head tracking, a wireless headset, and even integrated audio – today’s news of a delayed launch on Mac and Linux will undoubtedly be disappointing for many fans. For those interested in seeing what sort of system requirements the virtual reality headset will require on Windows PC’s, check out Binstock’s full blog post here.

Apple Watch Production Back on Track After ‘Labor Shortages’ Caused Initial Delays

The Apple Watch has been in high demand since the wearable began accepting pre-orders over a month ago, with the first wave of Space Black Link Bracelet, Leather Loop, and Modern Buckle just now shipping to customers this week.

A few reports have pointed to defective Taptic Engines produced by an Apple supplier in Shenzhen, China as the main reason behind the bottleneck, but a new story today out of DigiTimes suggests dramatic labor shortages during the Lunar New Year could have been the main source of the Apple Watch’s low yield rate in the weeks after launch.

“Because of labor shortages during the Lunar New Year holidays, Quanta was forced to borrow manpower from other manufacturers and was only able to deliver limited shipments in the first quarter,” said Quanta vice chairman CC Leung. “However, Quanta already has sufficient capacity to manufacture all the orders and should see a giant contribution from its wearable device business in the second quarter.”

Interestingly, Leung never mentions Apple or the Apple Watch by name and even “declined to state the name of its client or its products,” according to DigiTimes. The vice chairman did note, however, that the wearable in question is “unlike the smartwatches it produced before” and that it “has a lot of functions in it and its client is satisfied with the product.” Given that the Apple Watch’s unit shortage is very public knowledge and considering that Quanta is the primary source of its manufacturing, it would appear that the “smartwatch” in question is the Apple Watch.

Rumors of a limited Apple Watch supply began just a few weeks after the wearable was announced at Apple’s “Spring Forward” event in March. Although the Apple Watch’s supply has been strained, Apple confirmed before the Apple Watch launch that some models may arrive before their estimated delivery dates, with many 4-6 week shipping estimates improving dramatically for some customers.

Although there are exceptions, most Apple Watch orders placed today have between a 2-3 week and 3-5 week estimate for the smaller 38mm case size, while most models in the 42mm size are sitting on a delivery estimate of July. But, with today’s possible hint at an even more amped up production line alongside Apple’s already impressive attempt to come in ahead of delivery expectations, it’s still possible many orders will reach their owners ahead of time.

Next-Generation iPhone Again Rumored to Have 12-Megapixel Camera

Kevin King, IHS Technology Research Director for China, claimed on Chinese microblogging service Weibo that Apple’s next-generation iPhone will feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera with smaller pixels (via G4Games), corroborating the same prediction made by well-informed KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo earlier this week.

Apple has used an 8-megapixel rear-facing camera sensor since the iPhone 4s was released in late 2011, so the megapixel bump will be the first in nearly four years if the pair of analysts are correct. Prior to that, the iPhone 4 had a 5-megapixel camera and the iPhone 3GS had a 3-megapixel shooter. Given that megapixels don’t always matter, however, software improvements are often more important for image quality.

Last November, well-known Apple pundit John Gruber of Daring Fireball said the next iPhone could have “the biggest camera jump ever” with a dual-lens system that delivers DSLR-quality imagery, but a later report dismissed the rumor since Apple would need to redesign the current chassis of the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus, which is unlikely for this year’s refresh based on the history of “S” models.

Apple’s next-generation iPhones are rumored to retain 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch screen sizes, powered by an A9 processor with 2GB of LPDDR4 RAM and featuring Force Touch, improved Touch ID recognition, gesture control support, an additional microphone near the speakers for improved voice quality, a new rose gold color option, internal mechanical design changes and more.