Includes everything in iOS 9.3, Apple's next iPhone and iPad update
Update: This iOS 9 update page has been revised to
warn about the 1970 iPhone date glitch, and to detail iOS 9.3 beta 3 news regarding Night Shift mode and Verizon Wi-Fi
calling.
iOS 9 launched back in
September of last year and it's a lot better than iOS 8, thanks to new features that make the iPhone and iPad software
easier to use.
Siri is smarter, Apple Maps has been improved
and the notifications drop-down menu is now sorted logically. Best of all,
every device that works with iOS 8 works with iOS 9. Since launch it's improved
even further too, with the rollout of iOS 9.1.2, the current stable version of
the software.
iPads benefit big from
this current operating system update. New iPad multitasking functionality, especially for the iPad Air 2, finally fulfills the tablet's promise of productivity on the
go.
While iOS 9 and even iOS 9.3 beta 3 lack some key Android
features, there's a lot to like about it, now that new hardware is available in
the form of iPhone 6S,iPhone 6S Plus and iPad Pro.
iOS 9.3 update
iOS 9.3 is Apple's
first major update with brand new features to highlight. While iOS 9.1 added
new emojis, iOS 9.2 tweaked Apple Music and Apple News and iOS 9.2.1 just fixed
bugs. But iOS beta actually bring new functionality.
Specifically, the
preview software debuts Night Shift, which automatically tints your iPhone and
iPad with warmer colors. Bright blue light can keep you up at night, studies
have shown.
Night Shift uses the
time and geolocation to determine the sunset and the display returns to normal
in the morning. It's a feature we've seen from third-party apps like f.lux on
Mac, but a first directly from Apple.
Educators wielding
iPads can dive into a new classroom app and multi-student login. Passing an
iPad around the class can let students save their work to individual profiles
and pick up where they left off.
As the battle between
the FBI and Apple Inc over unlocking iPhones continues to unravel, public opinion is
skewing towards the government. The Pew Research Center recently conducted a survey where it asked
people if the tech giant should unlock the iPhone used by one of the suspects
in the San Bernardino terrorist attacks for the FBI.Fifty-one percent of
respondents said Apple should cooperate with the FBI, unlocking the iPhone in
question, while only 38 percent said it shouldn't. It seems like this is not an
ideological or partisan issue. Fifty-five percent of the Democrats and 56
percent of the Republicans polled favored the Department of Justice and the
FBI. A factor that seemed to
have a larger influence over the positions that Americans took was smartphone
(especially iPhone) ownership. The chart below illustrates the stand of iPhone
and smartphone owners on the Apple-FBI dispute.
In case you missed it,
check out CEO Tim Cook's open letter, where he makes a case
for Apple and the safety of personal data, and against the demands of the DoJ
and FBI.Disclosure: Javier Hasse holds no positions in any of the
securities mentioned above.
KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has issued a research note to investors, a copy of which was obtained by MacRumors, in which he claims Apple's next-generation 4-inch iPhone will feature a 12-megapixel rear-facing camera, as opposed to an 8-megapixel sensor as previously rumored.
Kuo also reiterated that the new 4-inch iPhone will have other similar hardware specs as the iPhone 6s, including an A9 chip and NFC for Apple Pay. The device's form factor is expected to be similar to the iPhone 5s, although the display is said to have slightly curved 2.5D glass like the iPhone 6 and newer.
Apple's new 4-inch iPhone could also feature 16GB and 64GB storage capacities, 802.11ac Wi-Fi, Bluetooth 4.2, Live Photos support, and a slightly larger 1,642 mAh battery compared to the iPhone 5s. 3D Touch will likely remain exclusive to the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus as a differentiating feature.
The well-informed analyst continues to believe the smartphone will cost between $400 and $500 in the United States. The lower price point should help Apple target the mid- to low-price segment and drive iPhone sales in emerging markets such as China and India. Comparatively, the larger iPhone 6s starts at $649.
KGI Securities expects total 4-inch iPhone shipments to grow 131% year-over-year to 37 million units in 2016, on the strength of the new 4-inch iPhone launch and a 50% price cut on the iPhone 5s. Apple currently sells the iPhone 5s for $450 at full retail price, so the smartphone may soon be discounted to $225.
The research firm has lowered its new 4-inch iPhone shipments forecast to 12 million units from 18-20 million units because it believes customers that favor a small-size iPhone may purchase the cheaper iPhone 5s instead. KGI expects iPhone 5s shipments to "surge" following the half-off discount.
Kuo said Apple's upcoming 4-inch iPhone is "generally dubbed iPhone 5se," but a recent report said the smartphone may actually be called the "iPhone SE." The purported iPhone 5s successor has been given many other names in recent months, including "iPhone 6c," "iPhone 5e," and "iPhone 5s Mark II" internally.
Apple is expected to announce the new 4-inch iPhone, alongside a new 9.7-inch iPad Pro and minor Apple Watch updates, at its rumored March 15 media event. Barring any last minute changes, the smartphone could reportedly go on sale as early as March 18. Apple is unlikely to offer pre-orders for the device.
The research note also clarified that Apple will offer both single and dual camera versions of the iPhone 7 Plus.
Ever since the dispute between Apple and the FBI over unlocking the San Bernardino shooter's iPhone burst into the headlines, tech insiders have been speculating about whether Apple had the technical capability to do so (most assumed it did) and just how challenging it would be. Now, in its latest court filing, Apple reveals the answer.
In the motion filed Thursday in U.S. District Court, the company said it would take about two to four weeks for a team of engineers to build the software needed to create a so-called "backdoor" to access the locked phone.
"The compromised operating system that the government demands would require significant resources and effort to develop," Apple's lawyers wrote. "Although it is difficult to estimate, because it has never been done before, the design, creation, validation, and deployment of the software likely would necessitate six to ten Apple engineers and employees dedicating a very substantial portion of their time for a minimum of two weeks, and likely as many as four weeks."
Apple asks judge to reverse iPhone unlock order
Apple says the team would need to write new code to override the iPhone security measure which would erase all the phone's data after 10 failed password attempts.
"No operating system currently exists that can accomplish what the government wants, and any effort to create one will require that Apple write new code, not just disable existing code functionality," Apple stated.
It said the team would likely need to include "engineers from Apple's core operating system group, a quality assurance engineer, a project manager, and either a document writer or a tool writer."
"Apple's software ecosystem is incredibly complicated, and changing one feature of an operating system often has ancillary or unanticipated consequences," the company notes. "Apple would have to undertake additional testing efforts to confirm and validate that running this newly developed operating system to bypass the device's security features will not inadvertently destroy or alter any user data."
Once that software was created, investigators could attempt to crack the password using "brute force" -- digitally entering password after password until it gets the right one. Apple says its technical expertise would be required to do that, too.
Apple CEO Tim Cook has publicly argued that creating a backdoor to the company's phones would establish a precedent that could compromise the security and privacy of millions of iPhone users around the world -- a claim the government disputes.
The Samsung Galaxy
S7 is finally official, and while we'd gleaned a fair amount of information
about it in the lead-up to the launch, there are still a few surprises on
offer.
Cut
to the chase
··What is it?The
new flagship phone in Samsung's Galaxy S line.
·· When is it out?Launch:
February 21 (with pre-orders live), release date: March 11
·· What will it cost?We're still waiting for full pricing
info, but we expect it to be the most expensive mainstream Samsung phone ever.
·· Read our hands-on review of theSamsung Galaxy S7
·· Check out all thebest Samsung Galaxy S7 deals.
Release
date
As you'll have noticed above, the Samsung Galaxy S7
release date has been set for March 11, with pre-orders kicking off the second
the new phone was announced.Some retailers are promising to deliver the phone a
little earlier if you pre-order, so it's worth sticking your name on the list
if you're going to be buying it early doors anyway.
Price
Pricing
information for theSamsung Galaxy S7is
all over the place, but we're here to help. In the US, it'll cost $199 on a
two-year contract, but since carriers are phasing out these subsidized
agreements, expect to pay about $27 a month for the handset over the course of
24 months.
AT&T has the Galaxy S7 for $23.17, but keep in mind
that's for 30 months. Verizon, the other top network in the US, hasn't
announced its pricing plan yet, but expect it to hover around the same monthly
fee.
In the UK, the Samsung Galaxy S7 SIM-free price is £569.
Carriers defray this through monthly fees, so EE is asking for £44.49 a month with
just £49.99 up front, while Three wants £35 a month with £99 up front.
Australia is the one region that sees a price bump. Samsung announced the price
as AU$1,149 unlocked. That's the same premium people paid for Samsung Galaxy S6
Edge in Australia a year ago.
Design
The
design of the Galaxy S7 looks pretty much like that of theGalaxy S6– or so you'd think when you first lay
eyes on it.
The phone, from the front, does have a very similar look,
with the metal edges and rounded corners.
But the rear of the phone has been
rounded away (think the S6 Edge's front used on the back) in the same manner as
on theGalaxy Note 5, and it
feels completely different.
On
top of that, Samsung's brought back the IP68 rating (meaning you can dunk it in
1.5 meters of water for 30 minutes) that we last saw on theGalaxy S5– but this time, with the more premium
design of glass and metal.
It's still a touch chunkier than other phones on the
market, but it feels good in the hand, and the mix of glass and metal makes it
feel like a phone worth spending a decent amount of cash on.
Screen
Samsung's stuck with the same 5.1-inch QHD Super AMOLED
display on the Galaxy S7 as on the S6. It's usually a bad thing when a brand
doesn't add anything to the mix for its phone from one year to the next (we're
talking to you, Apple…) but in this case, last year's screen was so nifty that
it couldn't have been improved on much this year.
Super AMOLED tech means you're already getting great
color reproduction and brilliant differences between the light and dark
elements of the screen – and the results always seem to impress friends.
The
QHD resolution is pin-sharp too – at 1,440 x 2,560 pixels it's closing in on a
resolution that's so sharp the eye can't ever see the pixels.
It makes pictures and web pages, in particular, look
smooth and clear, and as OLED technology is self-emitting, the display sits
closer to the glass too. Side by side the two do actually look a little
different, with the Galaxy S7 showing up as a little brighter - Samsung's
clearly optimised the tech while not changing the resolution.
Always on display
While the display technology in the Samsung Galaxy S7
hasn't altered much, the way it's being used has.
Samsung's decided that it needs another headline feature,
and the Always On Display seems to be it. You can pretty much guess what this
is from the name: when the phone is in standby it'll either show a clock, your
calendar or some weird pattern.
In
fairness to Samsung it does add a level of gloss to the look of the phone, but
it does also draw power. The claim is that it's less than 1% per hour, but that
still adds up over the course of a day.
The claim here is that some users check their phones 150
times a day, mostly to check the time, and in doing so wake up the phone and
start munching down on power. Whether many people look at the clock that many
times a day is, well, less certain - but Samsung thinks this is a key way to
actually save power by leaving the display on.
The screen API is also open for developers, meaning
you'll be seeing new display choices in the near future - imagine a WhatsApp
message that stays on the front screen,for example.
Storage
We're still waiting for conformation on the internal
storage sizes Samsung will offer in the S7, but it seems that you'll be looking
at 32GB in most territories.
Considering that Samsung offered 64GB and 128GB variants
in the past, that doesn't seem like much of an offer. But in reality it's more
than enough, thanks to the addition of a microSD card slot in the SIM tray –
something Samsung fans have been crying out for over the last 12 months.
However, while Samsung is claiming that the performance
of this card will be good (in the Galaxy S5 it really slowed down the gallery
when you had loads of photos on it, for instance) there's a slight surprise
here: it's not adoptable.
What
does that mean? Well, with Android Marshmallow on board the Galaxy S7, in
theory Samsung could have used the new Adoptable Storage feature to take that
card, encrypt it and make it part of the internal storage, enabling you to
install apps and such on it as you would on the built-in storage – essentially
giving you a 288GB phone for not a lot more cash.
Camera
This is an area where Samsung's going to have to do a lot
of work in terms of spending its marketing dollars: the Galaxy S7 has a 12MP
camera, down from the 16MP in the Galaxy S6.
While that sounds like a downgrade, in reality it's a big
change for the better, thanks to the fact it'll be letting in more light – 25%
more, thanks to the 56% large pixels being used.
There's
also less strain on the processor, as it doesn't have as large file sizes to
work with – so taking pictures is faster, and images are sharper.
The autofocus has also been hugely improved, with
Samsung's new dual-pixel sensor technology offering lightning quick focusing –
it seems to be on a par with what Sony's put together in the Xperia range, so
should result in clearer pics even with a shaky hand.
Battery
Power-hungry users will be pleased to learn that Samsung
seems to have put a lot more effort into the battery pack with the Galaxy S7 –
boosting it up from 2550mAh in the S6 (which was actually a reduction from the
S5) to 3000mAh.
While Samsung doesn't have the best track record when it
comes to power management in its phones, the combination of the improved power
management in Android 6 Marshmallow and more mAh to work with could mean we've
finally got a long-lasting Galaxy flagship.
OS and power
The Galaxy S7 is one of the first Samsung phones to jump
to Android 6, which comes pre-installed on the handset.That's running on top of two different chipsets: the
Qualcomm 820 CPU and Samsung's own Exynos unit plus 4GB of RAM, which means the
S7 is able to handle really meaty tasks like stitching together 360-degree
video on the fly from the new Gear 360 camera.
Both engines offer a huge amount of power and graphical
grunt to make the stuff on the phone's display shine - with the Exynos nipping
ahead in the benchmarks. Samsung has told techradar that the intention is to
use the Snapdragon 820 in US markets, and the Exynos for Europe and most other
parts of the world.
Is it
too much power? Probably – and here's hoping the new Qualcomm chipset doesn't
suffer from the same thermal issues as its predecessor.
Game launcher
The other big feature on show here is the Game Launcher,
a sandboxed area where you can store the latest gaming titles you've
downloaded, and access a suite of tools to improve your gaming experience.
For the lower-power games you can shed framerate
and processing to save battery, and while in-game you can lock the buttons,
disable alerts and even record footage of your gaming experience.
It's a neat idea and one that, combined with the Vulkan
API under the surface should yield a really powerful gaming experience,
although just chucking in all that power doesn't mean gaming will instantly get
better - that's going to be a good test.
iPhone 7 rumours are
flying, and we've picked up lots of hints about new features that could appear
in the iPhone 7, from wireless charging to a touchscreen with built-in Touch
ID. It's believed that Apple is going to ditch the 3.5mm headphone jack, and is
working on an 'unhackable' iPhone, after its run-in with the FBI
The iPhone 6s and
iPhone 6s Plus launched in September 2015, so now we're starting to excitedly
think about what this year's iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus could bring. The web is
full of speculation about new iPhone(s) that Apple will launch in 2016, and in
this article we gather all the rumours about the iPhone 7: release date,
design, specs and new features, from wireless charging to a touchscreen display
with built-in Touch ID. Plus any leaked photos of iPhone 7 components we get
hold of, and all the cool iPhone 7 concept illustrations and videos that
designers have come up with.
We're sure to see a
next-generation iPhone in 2016, but what will the new iPhone 7 look like?
(Traditionally, Apple alternates between internal upgrades for the 'S' update,
then a physical redesign for the full-number update, so a completely redesigned
chassis is likely.) What new features should we expect? And when will the
iPhone 7 come out? We round up the evidence to bring you everything there is to
know about the iPhone 7 so far.
In this article we talk
about the 4.7-inch iPhone 7 - the follow-up to the iPhone 6s. If you'd like to
read about the 5.5-inch iPhone 7 Plus, take a look at our iPhone 7 Plus release
date and new features rumour roundup.
Bookmark this page for
a regularly updated summary of all the information currently available - and
all the rumours doing the rounds - related to the iPhone 7: details, clues,
hints and rumours, as well as any leaked photos of the iPhone 7 that emerge.
We'll update the article whenever we hear worthwhile new information (or
scurrilous but interesting gossip) on the subject of Apple's next iPhone.
