Apple today has shared a new advertisement for the iPhone 8 Plus touting the new Portrait Lighting feature. The video was uploaded to Apple’s YouTube channel and comes in at 38 seconds, showcasing the various new effects that Portrait Lighting offers.
In this week’s top stories: Apple release iOS 11.0.1 as well as its next round of beta updates, we discuss iOS 11 battery life concerns, Apple faces off with the FCC, and much more. Read it all below…
Expand
Expanding
Close
After facing intensifying pressure from Chinese regulators, Weibo announced this week that it has hired 1,000 “supervisors” whose primary responsibility will be to censor content on the social media platform. The move marks a new turn of censorship for Weibo, one of the most popular social media networks in China…
My hands-on look at the Apple Watch Series 3 is still forthcoming, but I have to say that I’ve been extremely impressed by the potential and speed of this device. The Series 3 is, in my opinion, what the original Apple Watch aspired to be. The hardware has not only increased in efficiency and speed, but the connectivity — with LTE finally in tow — provides it with a measure of independence that seemed like science fiction just a few years ago.
The addition of watchOS 4, an operating system update that brings several fundamental changes and enhancements to the Apple Watch as a whole, is just icing on the cake. In this week’s Friday 5 we take a look at several apps that work great on the Apple Watch Series 3. One such app even works solely on LTE, independent of a paired iPhone or Wi-Fi.
Expand
Expanding
Close
This week for 9to5Rewards, we’re giving away an Apple Park tote bag, the same one that Apple will sell at its new Apple Park Visitor Center retail store when it officially opens in the coming months.
The exclusive Apple Park swag at the Visitor Center store isn’t available to the public just yet, but the store was open for one day to press during Apple’s iPhone 8, iPhone 8 Plus, and iPhone X event earlier this month at the new campus.
Apple’s latest retail flagship to receive a new store is its Michigan Avenue, Chicago location. Set for a grand opening on October 20, the company has a new webpage dedicated to the store. Continuing a trend seen used at its Dubai store, the soon-to-open Michigan Avenue location is already featuring local artists.
Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.
Expand
Expanding
Close
When I first wrote about using solid state drives (SSDs) to radically improve the performance of older Macs, high-capacity SSDs were just beginning to become affordable. Replacing a Mac’s 500GB or 1TB hard drive with a same-sized SSD required at least $250 back then, but the benefits were tremendous: even an aging machine became markedly (5x) faster, silent, and — unexpectedly — more fun to use. All for much less than the price of a new Mac.
Today, high-capacity SSDs are more affordable than ever. Replacing your old 500GB hard drive with a same-sized SSD from a reputable manufacturer costs only $150, while 1TB drives are under $330, each $100 less than only a couple of years ago. Once unthinkably huge 2TB and 4TB SSDs are now commonly available, too, albeit at eye-watering prices.
With this week’s release of macOS High Sierra, Apple has officially made SSDs its preferred Mac storage solution, introducing the new APFS standard to further optimize SSD performance over Fusion and traditional hard drives. So this is a perfect time to revisit the topic of SSD upgrades; if you held out before, now’s the time to jump in!
Apple has acquired Regaind, a French startup that focused on using its computer vision API to recognize content within photos, TechCrunch reports. Apple issued the standard confirmation statement to TC when asked about the company purchase.
Apple is proud of its environmental credentials, and publishes an annual Environmental Responsibility Report to describe its goals and the actions taken to achieve them. But the company has now gone further, and published a specific environmental report on the upcoming iPhone X.
The four-page report details everything from the breakdown of materials used to produce both the phone and its packaging, through to the greenhouse gas emissions involved in every stage from production to eventual recycling …
Analysis of more than 73,000 Macs showed that some 4.2% of them were running the wrong firmware, leaving them vulnerable to attacks like Thunderstrike. For one model, the percentage was a staggering 43%.
Firmware exploits are among the most dangerous, because they potentially give an attacker complete control of a machine, are not detected by macOS security scans and remain in place even if you format or replace a drive and do a fresh install of macOS …
A woman has filed a lawsuit against Apple, alleging that she suffered a severe injury when a display bracket fell onto her arm during a visit to a Florida Apple Store …
A Taiwanese iPhone 8 Plus owner has claimed that her device split open while being charged with the supplied cable and plug adapter. She posted photos which show damage consistent with a swollen battery.
A Japanese owner has posted similar photos of his device, which he says arrived in this state …
Apple has long stressed its strong commitment to user privacy, and we mentioned in passing a couple of days ago that it had refreshed its privacy page with a new look and updated information.
The company is clearly keen to draw attention to the updated page, with both Tim Cook and Phil Schiller tweeting links to it …
Apple’s ‘just works’ philosophy has hit a snag for those shooting video on an iPhone for editing in Final Cut Pro X: the app doesn’t yet support the new H.265 High Efficiency Video Coding used in iOS 11.
The HEVC codec is, as the name suggests, a far more space-efficient way to compress video, reducing the space needed to store video by as much as 50%. But right now, any HEVC video footage you import into FCP X will be unusable …
Adobe today has offered a sneak peek at some upcoming enhancements to Photoshop. In a video on YouTube, the company showcased a new Variable Fonts feature that allows designers to have an added layer of customization..
Over the last month, Snapchat has been rolling out a new World Lenses feature that uses augmented reality to place Bitmoji and other designs over real-world environments. Now, Snap is expanding those 3D Lenses to advertisers as it continues to look for new ways to monetize its platform….
Apple has issued its first public response to growing pressure by the FCC and other groups to activate FM terrestrial radio features inside iPhones for end-users. In a statement, the company said it cares deeply about the safety of its users and directed users towards its emergency calling and Medical ID features.
https://twitter.com/pschiller/status/913527252654088192
It also revealed that is technically impossible for iPhone 7 and iPhone 8 to serve as an FM radio anyway, as they lack chips and antennas to support the signal.
This week Benjamin and Zac discuss the new Apple TV 4K, macOS High Sierra launching, Apple Watch Series 3 and LTE apps, watchOS 4.1 beta and streaming music, and more.
9to5Mac’s Happy Hour podcast is available for download on iTunes and Apple’s Podcasts app, Google Play Music, or through our dedicated RSS feed for Overcast and other podcast players.
Disney has replaced its Disney Channel video app on iPhone, iPad, and Apple TV with the new DisneyNow app. As announced earlier this year, DisneyNow combines the company’s three kids cable channels — Disney Channel, Disney XD, and Disney Junior — into a single app that features content from each channel.
Acclaimed developer thatgamecompany has today brought Flower, one of its long popular titles, to iOS. If you haven’t heard of thatgamecompany or Flower before, you may remember the demo of upcoming iOS game Sky at Apple’s September event.
Google announced this week that Drive now fully integrates with Apple’s new Files app on iOS 11. Files allows you to access documents and media from multiple cloud providers including iCloud Drive and Dropbox in a single interface.
Amazon unveiled a host of new devices at a surprise event yesterday, and one of the company’s latest compelling products is the new 4K Fire TV. On the heels of the Apple TV 4K launch, let’s take a look at how the two set top boxes compare and what this could mean for the future of Apple’s offering.
