AirPower is Dead

Apple has killed the AirPower project after months - almost years - of speculation. In a statement released to Tech Crunch, Dan Riccio - SVP of Hardware Engineering at Apple - said:

“After much effort, we’ve concluded AirPower will not achieve our high standards and we have cancelled the project. We apologize to those customers who were looking forward to this launch. We continue to believe that the future is wireless and are committed to push the wireless experience forward.”

Apple announced AirPower alongside iPhone X in September 2017 with a ship date of 2018. Of course, that never happened, and conflicting reports of progress and setbacks swirled around rumour sites. Most recently, it was generally believed AirPower went into production in January and the launch was imminent, following the release of the 2nd-Generation AirPods last week.

Whilst AirPower was an incredibly complicated product, this comes across as Apple being unable to deliver a charging mat - something many other companies sell for little expense. Of course - AirPower was far more than that, and nobody else has been able to pull off a similar product to date, but this can’t be anything but bad publicity for Apple.

At the end of the day, I’m very disappointed, and Apple will hopefully go back to announcing products when they are ready rather than being unable to deliver. I’m very glad, however, that rather than ship a broken and potentially dangerous product, Apple instead called it quits on this one.

AirPods are getting even better

Today Apple finally released the long-awaited update to AirPods. The new AirPods are powered by the new H1 chip and feature 50 percent more talk time, hands-free “Hey Siri” and the option of a wireless charging case.

The new H1 chip replaces the W1 used in the 2016 AirPods and has been developed specifically for headphones. Whilst Apple has consistently revised the W-series chips since 2016 for use in Apple Watch, it is interesting to see a new H-series for these. We can only assume when Apple’s rumoured over-ear headphones debut later in 2019, they will build on this technology. I can also imagine future Beats products will feature the H-series chips too. H1 delivers performance efficiencies, faster connect times, more talk time and the convenience of hands-free “Hey Siri.” Apple says the H1 chip in the new AirPods makes switching between devices up to two times faster, and enables up to a 1.5x faster connection time for phone calls and up to 30 percent lower gaming latency.

The AirPods come with either a standard charging case for the same price of £159, or a new Wireless Charging Case for Qi charging at £199. The wireless case is also available for existing AirPods customers at £79. This new case is the same case originally shown off alongside AirPower in September 2017. Seeing as code enabling AirPower functionality has been found in the latest iOS 12.2 beta, that should be launching any day now too.

A custom laser engraving on the case is also available exclusively from Apple’s online store.

A pretty minor update to the world’s most popular wireless headphones, with no redesign, no black colour option or any kind of health monitoring features. If you’re like most of the world and bought your AirPods within the last 6-12 months, there’s nothing to cry over. If wireless charging is a must for you, just get the case. I got my AirPods on day one in December 2016, and the batteries are really showing their age now. I’ve ordered a pair of these 2nd-generation AirPods as it’s time for me to upgrade, and these new features are welcome additions. It remains to be seen when and where all the missing long-rumoured features will turn up; will there be ‘AirPods Pro’ later on in 2019 alongside Apple’s over-ear headphones? Or will ‘AirPods Pro’ actually turn out to be the over-ear headphones themselves?

According to Mark Gurman, these AirPods were initially planned to go on sale last year. Gurman says Apple is working on a subsequent pair of 3rd-generation AirPods with noise cancellation and water resistance that were originally planned for release later this year, but he now speculates that they could arrive in 2020.

For the last 3 days straight Apple has released new products via press releases, so it’s safe to assume we’ll see something tomorrow and something else on Friday. My money is on iPod touch tomorrow and AirPower on Friday. It’s worth noting that these new AirPods do require iOS 12.2 or newer, suggesting 12.2 will drop on Monday after the keynote, ahead of AirPods deliveries beginning on Tuesday here in the U.K. As I previously mentioned, iOS 12.2 does support AirPower, so again, we could finally see that this week too...

...I hope.

:))

Apple Announces iPhone X, iPhone 8 and 8 Plus, Watch Series 3 and Apple TV 4K

It's the iPhone Ten

X is 10 for 2017 - the 10th anniversary of the iPhone. Let me start by saying the only thing I can fault coming out of this event is the lack of ProMotion on the displays of the new phones. I really, really like how much love the cheaper iPhone 8 and 8 Plus received; internally, they pack pretty much the same amount of grunt as iPhone X. All 3 phones feature a six-core (up from four in the A10 Fusion chip) A11 Bionic chip with support for Metal 2 API acceleration and a custom image-signal processor for photography. As usual, no word on RAM but it's rumoured to be 2GB in iPhone 8 and 3GB in iPhone 8 Plus and iPhone X. 

The return of Space Grey

iPhone 8 mostly looks like a 7, but with a glass back and aluminium edges. iPhone 8 is available in Space Grey, Silver and a new, previously leaked 'Blush Gold' colour, which Apple simply calls Gold. iPhone X is available Space Grey and Silver - both feature a black front this time around - with black or white backs depending on colour. No 'Blush Gold' for iPhone X which is surprising seeing as it originally leaked as being an option for the X and then became an assumed option for the 8. iPhone X also has a glass back, but with stainless steel edges rather than aluminium.

Super Retina!

iPhone 8 and 8 Plus feature the same 4.7" and 5.5" displays found on their predecessors, with the exception that they now include Apple's True Tone technology - debuted on the 9.7" iPad Pro in 2016. As we all knew, iPhone X features an edge-to-edge display, which Apple is branding as 'Super Retina'. It's a 5.8-inch OLED display, with a resolution of 2,436x1,125 equating to 2.7 million pixels. That's a pixel density of 458ppi. It also supports HDR (both Dolby Vision and HDR10). Unfortunately, as previously mentioned, no ProMotion here. Of course, the Home Button is no more - replaced by swipe gestures. Siri is now invoked via the newly renamed Side Button, as is quick access to Apple Pay. Tap to wake joins raise to wake and Control Centre is now at the top. It remains to be seen how taking a screenshot will be handled.

Touch ID 2013-2017

Face ID has replaced Touch ID, despite persistent, conflicting rumours about the relocation of the fingerprint reader. The A11 Bionic chip features a new neural engine (which is also present on the iPhone 8 for no apparent reason *Update 14/9/17: It's for the Portrait Lighting effects*), and a computer vision array. This allows Face ID to learn your face as it changes. Face data remains in the Secure Enclave just like fingerprints used to. It can be used in lots of different lighting thanks to an IR sensor, and can also be used for apps and Apple Pay just like Touch ID. Apple shared a statistic which revealed about 1 in 50,000 times Touch ID would unlock to the wrong fingerprint. This has improved to 1 in 1,000,000 with Face ID. The new sensor can also be used to create Animoji in iMessage, which are animated Emojis based on your facial expressions.

4K 60 FPS

iPhone X features a new 12MP camera sensor with dual OIS on both the wide angle lens and the telephoto lens, meaning less noise in those zoomed photos. Updates to the Portrait Mode introduced last year on iPhone 7 Plus include 'Portrait Lighting', with preset choices that you can swipe through to get interesting light effects on your subject. Slow-mo video has seen its first update since iPhone 6 in 2014, now recording 240FPS in 1080p HD. Apple made a surprisingly small deal of the fact all three new iPhones can record 4K resolution video at a silky-smooth 60 frames-per-second. This has never been done on a phone before and is usually reserved for pricey cameras. The new selfie camera remains at 7MP but now features Portrait Mode and Portrait Lighting. The 8 Plus has the same camera system as the iPhone X, whereas the iPhone 8 is a single-camera version.

AirPower...

Qi wireless charging is available on all the 2017 iPhones thanks to the glass backs. This should finally be a solution for people who still complain about last year's removal of the headphone jack as now you can charge and listen at once. At launch Apple will sell Belkin and Mophie charging pads in their stores and online. However, in 2018 they will be launching AirPower, a branch of Qi that charges iPhone 8/8 Plus, iPhone X, Apple Watch Series 3 and even AirPods via their newly-updated wireless charging case. Charging shouldn't be an issue anyway because Apple claims battery life improvements of an extra two hours over iPhone 7 on iPhone X.

Pricing and release

Pre-orders for iPhone 8 and 8 Plus go live on Friday 15th September, releasing the following week on Friday 22nd September. 

iPhone 8 64GB - £699/$699

iPhone 8 256GB - £849/$849

iPhone 8 Plus 64GB - £799/$799

iPhone 8 Plus 256GB - £949/$949

Pre-orders for iPhone X go live on Friday 27th October, releasing the following week on Friday 3rd November.

iPhone X 64GB - £999/$999

iPhone X 256GB - £1149/$1149

iOS 11 will be released on 19th September.

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Series 3

Apple's third-generation Watch is here and it has overtaken Rolex to be the most popular watch in the world. Externally, the Watch looks the same and remains the same thickness, crushing rumours of a redesign this year. The big feature this year is cellular support - initially rumoured for Series 2 last year - making the Watch more independent than ever. It features an embedded eSIM that mirrors your phone number and the antenna is built into the display to save space. Cellular models are only supported by certain carriers and to use it your iPhone must be on the same carrier. This isn't great for me as in the UK it will only be supported on EE yet my iPhone is on 3. All cellular models feature a red digital crown to externally differentiate them, and the pricier stainless steel models are only available in the cellular variety.

Performance

Series 3 features an updated S3 dual-core processor for a 70% performance increase over Series 2. They also feature a W2 wireless chip for faster Wi-Fi and of course, cellular. Also included is a Barometric sensor for improved accuracy when measuring elevation gain during workouts. The cellular model has also seen a storage bump to 16GB, up from 8GB previously. 

Pricing and release

Pre-orders for Watch Series 3 go live on Friday 15th September, releasing the following week on Friday 22nd September. 

Cellular models start at £399/$399 and non-cellular models start at £329/$329. 

watchOS 4 will be released on 19th September.

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Apple TV: Take 5

The 5th-generation Apple TV is finally here with both 4K and HDR support. It also has a new name: Apple TV 4K. It supports both of the current industry HDR standards, Dolby Vision and HDR10. It's an absolute beast - it has the same A10X Fusion chip as the 2017 iPads Pro. Games should run smoothly as will 4K content, which by the way, requires a minimum internet speed of 15mbps to stream. Any HD movies purchased previously from iTunes will receive a free upgrade to 4K/HDR (thank you Apple!). In addition to 4K movies on iTunes, Netflix, and soon Amazon Prime Video will have support for 4K content on Apple TV. The TV app will now feature live sports and news - speaking of which - the TV app will be expanding to seven new countries including Canada and Australia later this month, followed by France, Germany, Sweden, Norway, and the UK by the end of 2017.

Apple TV 4K will start at £179/$179 for 32GB, shipping on September 22.

tvOS 11 will be released on 19th September.

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Oh and last but not least, macOS 10.13 High Sierra will be released on 25th September.

:))