Daniel Jalkut on Siri’s new behavior:
Apple “broke” the haptic feedback associated with invoking Siri, by “fixing” the problem that there had ever been any latency before. Have an iPhone 6s or 6s Plus? Go ahead, I dare you: hold down the home button and start talking to Siri. You will not escape its attention. It’s ready to go when you are, so it would be obnoxious of it to impose any contrived delay or to give taptic feedback that is uncalled for. Siri has become a more perfect assistant, and we have to change our habits to accommodate this.
Great little detail of Siri that I didn’t notice until today. Siri seems to agree, too.
In the past eight years, each new advancement in iPhone camera technology has made dramatic improvements to image quality. The new 12-megapixel iPhone 6s iSight camera is no exception. With 50% more megapixels than the last four iPhone 8-megapixel models, the iPhone 6s boasts a number of key improvements including: improved auto-focus, local tone-mapping, noise reduction, and colour separation, with that fancy “deep trench isolation” technology Apple is raving about.
In this follow-up post to my previous iPhone comparisons, I present a 9 iPhone comparison from all iPhone versions taken with Camera+ including: the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3Gs, iPhone 4, iPhone 4s, iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 6, and the new iPhone 6s, in a variety of real-life situations to test each iPhone camera’s capabilities.
Lisa Bettany’s annual iPhone camera comparison is always well worth a read. Make sure to tap on the examples for more details, and check out Lisa’s explanation of the photos.
Matt Birchler has asked the question I imagined many would come to ask after the launch of iOS 9:
One of my favorite new features of Apple’s iOS 9 is Low Power Mode. This feature is designed to kick in when you reach 20% battery remaining, and give you a little more time before you have to race to a charger. And while most iOS 9 reviews covered this mode briefly and determined it worked as advertised, I wondered what would happen if you used Low Power Mode all the time. I was surprised that no reviewer seems to have done this, so I took it upon myself to give it a try. I don’t have any standardized battery tests that I can do, so I simply spent the last 2 weeks alternating between using Low Power Mode all day, and not using it at all and comparing the differences. My findings are rather remarkable.
As I explained, I advise against leaving Low Power Mode enabled all the time because it’ll alter your iPhone experience across system apps and third-party ones. Still, fascinating findings with impressive results.
Great take by MG Siegler on Live Photos:
You know the scene in almost every movie where a person is looking at an old picture of a loved one when suddenly it triggers their memory of the moment and we’re taken back to a live version of the scene? In a small way, that’s Live Photos. It’s hard to see right now because these iPhones with the functionality are brand new and so the memories are still fresh in our heads. But just imagine what these Live Photos will be like when you look at them in a year? Or ten years? They’ll be memories, captured in time.
See also: Jeremy Olson on capturing moments of a child’s life with Live Photos.
Writing for Ars Technica, Peter Bright reports that the iPad Pro version of Office for iOS won’t offer the same free tier available for smaller iPads, which was later confirmed by Microsoft to the publication.
The Office apps on the current iPads offer both viewing and editing documents for free. A handful of features require Office 365 subscriptions, available as in-app purchases, but the core editing capabilities are all zero cost.
Install those same apps on the iPad Pro once it arrives in November, however, and all those editing features will go away. Office on the iPad Pro will require an Office 365 subscription for any and all editing.
This is part of Microsoft’s “cut-off” policy that identifies devices above 10.1 inches as computers that are too big to get the Office apps for free. I’m curious to see how they’ll handle this in the same app for multiple iPads.
Storehouse Storehouse 2.0 has been released with a major redesign that gets rid of social features and other complexities. Here’s CEO Mark Kawano on why they did it. Pinner Pinner, an excellent Pinboard client, has been updated for iOS 9 with iPad multitasking, Safari View Controller, and – first time I see this since...
Free- Download iPhone App Sleep++ Developed by David Smith, Sleep++ is a new sleep tracker for iPhone that uses its Apple Watch counterpart to more accurately monitor the quality of your sleep. Unlike other sleep trackers, Sleep++ will require a change in your habits: you’ll have to wear an Apple Watch at night,...
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$4.99- Download Mac App I use my Mac twice a week to record Connected and Virtual on Relay FM. When I sit down at my Mac to record with Skype and QuickTime, I always make sure one app is running in the menu bar: Shush. This simple utility by Mizage does...
Busy week for Apple’s developer team: following issues with XcodeGhost, App Slicing, and delays in processing app builds for third-party developers, the company has rolled out a brand new iTunes Connect.
https://twitter.com/pws/status/647188243318882304
As an app reviewer, the most notable change seems to be scheduled app releases that are automatically released to the App Store after App Review but no earlier than a specific date and time. If this works well with propagation on Apple’s servers (and that’s a big if), it could be a solution to the common dilemma of developers setting embargo times for their app launches. If I’m understanding this correctly, developers wouldn’t have to manually hold an app for release and push it live to the App Store and then wait for propagation – they’d just submit it for review (as usual) and pick the release time from iTunes Connect beforehand. I’m curious to see how this works in practice with iTunes’ servers.
A tour of what’s changed in iTunes Connect (and it sounds like a lot has changed) is available here.
