Apple might have bigger plans for next week than initially thought. The new iMac, iPad Pro, and Apple TV 4K are all set to start shipping to early preorder customers on or around May 21st, but now it seems there could be two surprise announcements: a hi-fi streaming tier of Apple Music, and maybe even AirPods 3.
The Apple Music part seems extremely likely when you factor in a report from 9to5Google. Digging into the latest Apple Music for Android beta app, they discovered direct references to high-resolution audio that didn’t exist previously
These are the prompts found in the app’s code, though they’re not user-facing quite yet:
Lossless audio files preserve every detail of the original file. Turning this on will consume significantly more data.
Lossless audio files will use significantly more space on your device. 10 GB of space could store approximately: – 3000 songs at high quality – 1000 songs with lossless – 200 songs with hi-res lossless
Lossless streaming will consume significantly more data. A 3-minute song will be approximately: – 1.5 MB with high efficiency- 6 MB with high quality at 256 kbps- 36 MB with lossless at 24-bit/48 kHz- 145 MB with hi-res lossless at 24-bit/192 kHzSupport varies and depends on song availability, network conditions, and connected speaker or headphone capability.
It doesn’t get much more direct and clear than that, with Apple warning about both the higher data consumption of streaming lossless music and the added storage space that will be necessary to download it for offline listening. The fact that Apple has now added this data to its Android app suggests that this could all be happening sooner than later. I say that because Apple’s Apple One bundle showed up in Apple Music for Android just days before its public announcement.
The Android app code also reveals that Apple Music will offer two choices for lossless playback:
Lossless ALAC up to 24-bit/48 kHz
High-Res Lossless ALAC up to 24-bit/192 kHz
So it sounds like Apple has every intention of matching what Tidal, Amazon Music HD, and services like Qobuz currently deliver. It’s also worth noting that there’ve been recent references to Dolby Atmos spatial audio in Apple Music on iOS, according to 9to5Mac.
Apple has for years stuck to its customary 256kbps AAC files for both iTunes and Apple Music. When iTunes Plus debuted all the way back in 2007, that was a substantial upgrade over heavily compressed MP3s that people were downloading from peer-to-peer apps like Napster and Limewire during the height of music piracy. And it’s still perfectly adequate. Mastering of tracks has just as much influence on the listening experience as encoding details do, and Apple has tried to play to this aspect with its “Apple Digital Masters,” which aim to get the most dynamic range and detail from songs on its platform.
But in terms of pure music fidelity, Apple has objectively been surpassed by companies like Tidal and Amazon over the last several years. My friend Micah Singleton has a great piece over at Billboard about how we’re entering the hi-fi era of the streaming music wars. Amazon Music HD is performing strongly, with subscriptions up 100 percent year over year. Spotify has also promised the launch of “Spotify HiFi” for later this year.
There’s money to be made, and the ingredients are all there: Apple now sells premium headphones in the AirPods Max, and wireless carriers continue to talk up the promise and speeds of their growing 5G networks. I can’t imagine 5G will be required for lossless Apple Music streaming, but it’s a nice flex of the technology right in the middle of the iPhone 12 cycle.
What about those AirPods 3, though?
There have already been quite a few leaks that revealed details about Apple’s next iteration of AirPods, but the real question has been around release timing. Yesterday, a report from a site called AppleTrack suggested that the new AirPods could be announced alongside this new lossless tier of Apple Music. I don’t quite follow the logic, myself; no one really thinks of regular AirPods as the right choice for audiophile listening, but maybe Apple just wants new hardware of some sort to launch in tandem with the new service.
Taken on its own, the AirPods rumor seems “sketchy” as 9to5Mac said. But the sudden discoveries about lossless audio in Apple Music for Android seem to add some fuel to the fire.
Elon Musk shouldn’t hold his breath waiting for bitcoin to become environmentally friendly enough for Tesla to take it as payment. Musk announced yesterday that Tesla was walking away from the cryptocurrency because of the fossil fuels used for bitcoin mining and transactions. In the announcement, he left the door open for Tesla to accept bitcoin again if mining the cryptocurrency eventually runs on “more sustainable energy.” But some experts caution that renewable energy is not a silver bullet for bitcoin’s sustainability problem.
The Verge spoke with Alex de Vries, a digital currency economist who has consistently called out bitcoin’s growing greenhouse gas emissions. He runs the blog Digiconomist, which keeps a running tab on bitcoin’s estimated energy use and emissions. While some other researchers and blockchain enthusiasts have been more optimistic about the potential for renewable energy to slash bitcoin’s emissions, de Vries has published papers arguing that the climate calculations just don’t add up. The Verge spoke with de Vries about why he’s still skeptical about bitcoin going green through renewables, other ways the cryptocurrency could cut its pollution, and how bitcoin compares to alternatives like Dogecoin.
This interview has been lightly edited for length and clarity.
Did you have any reaction to the news in February that Tesla was going to accept bitcoin for payments?
I was shocked at the time because bitcoin isn’t an ESG-friendly currency. We know that a big part of the mining is done by using Chinese coal; that’s something that isn’t new information. Mining itself is a really big lottery where the machines that are participating are just generating useless computations all the time so they’re literally wasting resources for making new blocks for this blockchain. It’s really weird that a company that has a mission statement that involves decarbonizing the planet gets involved with a currency that ultimately involves the waste of natural resources, specifically fossil fuels.
The bitcoin network is responsible for 55 million metric tons of CO2 annually, which is as much as a nation like Singapore. Ironically, it’s also more than the entire estimated net gains from deploying electric vehicles.
What was your reaction to yesterday’s news that Elon decided to backtrack on that?
Well, my initial response was better late than never.
In his statement, Elon Musk says that they’re doing this because of an increasing amount of fossil fuels used for bitcoin mining. Now in all honesty, there hasn’t been that much change. Let’s be real, Tesla announced that it would accept bitcoin two months ago, and not that much has changed since then. The total amount of resources going into the network has gone up by a bit, but we already knew that was primarily Chinese coal.
It’s interesting that Musk says Tesla will go back to bitcoin “as soon as mining transitions to more sustainable energy.” Do you think that can happen? Why or why not?
In all honesty, it makes no sense.
In the past few years, miners have only been getting renewables from the south of China, that has been their only major source of renewables. And it doesn’t last. It lasts for only four months a year and because the production is seasonal.
That’s the problem with renewable energy sources in general: they can’t provide these machines with 24/7 power all year long. For example, it was recently argued that miners could be using solar power for bitcoin mining, which sounds like a great idea. But if you read what should happen to do that, bitcoin miners would need to be shut down during half the day in order to make that work.
That makes no sense if you’re an investor in these machines, because you’re paying a whole lot of money for a device that the moment you get, it starts becoming obsolete. If you miss out on half a day, you’re missing out on a level of income that’s just never going to come back. You want to have these machines running 24/7 if you want to maximize your profit, which is a lot easier if you’re running on Chinese coal than if you’re running on solar power for half a day — so there’s no real incentive to do that.
You published a paper that argued that renewable energy will not solve bitcoin’s sustainability problem — can you walk me through why?
A big amount of bitcoin miners can always cause problems no matter what type of energy they’re using. It can lead to outages if mining becomes really popular in the particular spot. What also might be happening is that you’re using renewable energy that you could have used a different way to clean up the grid elsewhere.
Even if, hypothetically speaking, this whole network was running on renewable energy. Still, it doesn’t solve the sustainability issues of bitcoin. Bitcoin uses excessive amounts of hardware. You have a bunch of specialized equipment that can only do bitcoin mining. The moment they become unprofitable, there’s nothing you can do with them. You can’t repurpose them, you can’t use them as a home computer. It’s trash. And they don’t last very long, on average maybe one and a half years. So you’ve got millions of devices that are becoming obsolete extremely fast. That just results in a big pile of electronic waste down the line. It’s already the case that a single bitcoin transaction is equivalent to throwing away an iPhone 12 mini in terms of materials, that’s already how bad it is.
Are there better solutions to bitcoin’s sustainability problem?
The good thing is that Elon Musk did mention the alternative cryptocurrencies that don’t have the same environmental impact. This is a very important point because the energy consumption issue in bitcoin relates to the proof of work algorithm. That is a specific part of the bitcoin software that is not necessarily present in alternative cryptocurrencies because there’s different ways to do the block creation process. In bitcoin, it depends on computational power, but there are alternatives. Proof of stake is the most popular one.
The second largest cryptocurrency of the moment, Ethereum, is right now running proof of work but is planning to change that to proof of stake. What that does is it makes the block creation process depend on wealth, rather than computational power, so there’s no incentive to have energy-hungry specialized hardware. That fixes both the energy need, as well as the hardware need. If you have something running on proof of stake, it wouldn’t even be 0.1 percent of the energy needed to run bitcoin.
If Ethereum can turn to proof of stake, theoretically, so can bitcoin, which would actually fix the environmental issues. But so far there has been no move inside the community to make such things happen.
Musk has also talked up Dogecoin in the past. How does Dogecoin compare to bitcoin? Do you see it becoming as bad for the climate as bitcoin?
The thing is, if something runs on proof of work, which is the case in Dogecoin, then it’s just as bad as bitcoin. The impact that Dogecoin has currently is a lot smaller than bitcoin, but that’s because the value of Dogecoin is a lot less and these things are directly related with each other. That’s kind of been the essence of my work over the past few years. There is a direct relationship between the value of these assets, how much money is being earned by the miners, and how much they’re spending on electricity. Very simply said, the more valuable an asset, the more money will be made by miners, the more they will spend on resources like hardware and energy. So, the fact that Dogecoin has a smaller impact than bitcoin is just because the value is a lot less, but if they were the same size, the impact would be equally bad.
We’ve already started to see the value of bitcoin drop after Musk’s announcement. Are we starting to see emissions or energy use fall as well?
No. The price has gone down by maybe 15 percent. That does reduce the potential future emissions of the network. But it doesn’t reduce today’s emissions because, right now, bitcoin mining is extremely profitable. As it stands, the network’s impact will still continue to increase, unless the price goes down by a lot more.
How much more would it take to see a decline in emissions?
I wrote about that in a paper recently. The current price is still around $50,000 per coin today, although I haven’t checked it for the past hour. Below $30,000, that’s where the current energy consumption would start to go down, so it has a long way to go. That’s kind of the bottom line.
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After a couple of generations making phones with flip-out cameras and increasingly large displays, Asus has taken the ZenFone 8 in a totally different direction: small.
The flipping camera concept lives on in the also-new ZenFone 8 Flip, but it’s no longer a standard feature across this year’s ZenFone lineup. Instead, priced at €599 (about $730), the ZenFone 8 lands in the upper-midrange class with a conventional rear camera bump and a much smaller 5.9-inch display. As a side note, final US pricing is TBD — Asus says somewhere between $599 and $799 — but it will be coming to North America, unlike last year’s model.
Rather than an attention-grabbing camera feature, the focus of this design has been to create a smaller phone that’s comfortable to use in one hand, which Asus has done without skimping on processing power or higher-end features.
It’s an Android iPhone mini, and it’s fantastic.
Asus designed the ZenFone 8 with one-handed operation in mind.
Asus ZenFone 8 screen and design
The ZenFone 8 may be small, but that hasn’t kept it from offering the latest flagship processor: a Snapdragon 888 chipset, coupled with 6, 8, or 16GB of RAM (my review unit has 16GB). I can’t find fault with this phone’s performance. It feels responsive, animations and interactions are smooth, and it keeps up with demanding use and rapid app switching. This is performance fitting of a flagship device.
The display is a 5.9-inch 1080p OLED panel with a fast 120Hz refresh rate that makes routine interactions with the phone — swiping, scrolling, animations — look much more smooth and polished than a standard 60Hz screen or even a 90Hz panel. By default, the phone will automatically switch between 120 / 90 / 60Hz depending on the application to save battery life, but you can manually select any of those three refresh rates if you prefer.
The display’s 20:9 aspect ratio was carefully considered by Asus. The company says it settled on this slightly narrower format so the phone would fit more easily into a pocket, and it does. I can’t get it all the way into a back jeans pocket, but it mostly fits. More importantly, it fits well inside a jacket pocket and doesn’t feel like it’s going to flop out if I sit down on the floor to tie my shoes. The ZenFone 8 is rated IP68 for dust protection and some water submersion.
The front panel is protected by Gorilla Glass Victus and houses an in-display fingerprint sensor, while the back uses Gorilla Glass 3 with a frosted finish that’s on the matte side of the matte / glossy spectrum. The front panel is flat, but the rear features a slight curve on the long edges for an easier fit in the hand. At 169 grams (5.9 ounces), it’s heavy for its size, and it feels surprisingly dense when you first pick it up. The phone’s frame is aluminum, giving the whole package a high-end look and feel. There’s even a headphone jack on the top edge as a treat.
The power button (an exciting shade of blue!) is well-positioned so my right thumb falls on it naturally with the phone in my hand. Same for the in-screen fingerprint sensor: the target appears to be positioned higher on the screen than usual, but that actually puts it within a comfortable reach of my thumb.
I’ll admit up front that I have a personal bias toward smaller phones, but the ZenFone 8 just feels great in my hand. I’ve spent a lot of time using big devices over the last six months, and I’ve gotten used to it. But the ZenFone 8 is the first device that feels like it was adapted to me, not something I’ve had to adapt to using.
A smaller phone means a smaller battery.
Asus ZenFone 8 battery and software
The phone’s small size makes a smaller battery a necessity — 4,000mAh in this case, much smaller than the ZenFone 6 and 7’s 5,000mAh. I felt the difference in using this phone versus a battery-for-days budget or midrange phone, but I had no problem getting through a full day of moderate use. I even left Strava running for 20 hours by accident, and the battery still had some life in it the next morning. The ZenFone 8 supports 30W wired charging with the included power adapter, which takes an empty battery to 100 percent in a bit more than an hour. Wireless charging isn’t supported, which makes the ZenFone 8 a bit of an outlier in the flagship class.
Asus offers a ton of options to help stretch day-to-day battery life as well as the overall lifespan of your battery. There are no fewer than five battery modes to optimize phone performance or battery longevity on a daily basis, and different charging modes let you set a custom charging limit or stagger charging overnight so it reaches 100 percent around the time of your alarm for better battery health. You won’t find class-leading battery capacity here, but rest assured if you need to stretch the ZenFone 8’s battery, there are plenty of options.
The ZenFone 8 ships with Android 11, and Asus says it will provide “at least” two major OS with security updates for the same timeframe. That’s on the low side of what we’d expect for a flagship phone, especially compared to Apple’s typical four- or five-year support schedule. An important note for US shoppers is that the ZenFone 8 will only work with AT&T and T-Mobile’s LTE and Sub-6GHz 5G networks; you can’t use this phone on Verizon, and there’s no support for the fast, but extremely limited, millimeter-wave 5G networks.
The ZenFone 8 offers standard wide and ultrawide rear cameras.
Asus ZenFone 8 camera
There are just two cameras on the ZenFone 8’s rear camera bump, and they are both worth your time. Rather than cram in a depth sensor, macro, or some monochrome nonsense, Asus just went with a 64-megapixel main camera with OIS and a 12-megapixel ultrawide. They’re borrowed from last year’s model, minus a telephoto camera and the flipping mechanism.
As in the ZenFone 7 Pro, the 8’s main camera produces 16-megapixel images with vibrant color and plenty of detail in good light. Images can lean a little too far into unnatural-looking territory, and some high-contrast scenes look a little too HDR-y for my liking. But overall, this camera does fine: it handles moderately low-light conditions like a dim store interior well, and Night Mode does an okay job in very low light, provided you can hold the phone still for a few seconds and your subject isn’t moving.
Ultrawide camera
Ultrawide camera
Ultrawide camera
A skin-smoothing beauty mode is on by default when you use portrait mode, and it is not good. Skin looks over-smoothed, unnaturally flat, and brightened, like your subject is wearing a couple of layers of stage makeup. Turning this off improves things significantly.
The ultrawide camera also turns in good performance. Asus calls it a “flagship” grade sensor, and while that might have been true in 2018, it’s at least a step up from the smaller, cheaper sensors often found in ultrawide cameras. Likewise, the front-facing 12-megapixel camera does fine. Beauty mode is turned off by default when you switch to the selfie camera, and thank goodness for that.
There’s no telephoto camera here, just digital zoom. On the camera shooting screen, there’s an icon to jump to a 2x 16-megapixel “lossless” digital zoom to crop in quickly, which works okay, but it isn’t much reach, and it just makes the limitations of the small sensor and lens more obvious.
On the whole, the camera system is good but not great. The lack of true optical zoom or a telephoto camera is a disappointment, but you can’t have everything on such a small device, and I’d personally take an ultrawide before a telephoto any day.
The ZenFone 8 doesn’t sacrifice a flagship experience to achieve its small form factor.
The ZenFone 8 fills a void in the Android market for a full-specced, small-sized device. The Google Pixel 4A is around the same size, but it’s decidedly a budget device with a step-down processor, plastic chassis, and fewer niceties like an IP rating or a fast-refresh screen. Aside from battery life, which is manageable, you give up very little in the way of flagship features to get the ZenFone 8’s small form factor.
You have to look to iOS for this phone’s most direct competition: the iPhone 12 mini, which it matches almost spec-for-spec from the IP rating down to the camera configuration. The 12 mini is actually a little smaller than the ZenFone 8, and when you factor in storage capacity, it’s likely to be the more expensive choice at $829 for 256GB. However, when you consider that the 12 mini will probably get a couple more years of OS and security support, it may be the better buy in the long run, if you’re flexible in your choice of operating system.
I like the ZenFone 8 a lot, but I’m not sure it’ll find a big audience, at least in the US. Apple is having trouble selling the iPhone 12 mini, and if there’s one thing Apple is good at, it’s selling phones to US customers. As much as I hate to entertain the idea, maybe we’ve gotten used to giant phones. I love how the ZenFone 8 feels in my hand and in my pocket, but I do notice how much smaller the screen and everything on it seems compared to the bigger phones I’ve used recently.
There are also a few important considerations, like the lack of compatibility with Verizon and the comparatively short support lifespan of the phone. If you need the absolute best in battery life the ZenFone 8 can’t offer that, and if you want a class-leading camera, you’ll need to look elsewhere.
All that said, the ZenFone 8 will be the right fit for a specific type of person, and I can heartily recommend it to my fellow small phone fans. You’ll get flagship-level build quality and performance quite literally in the palm of your hand.
Samsung is never exactly a quiet company when it comes to launching smartphones, but even by its standards, August is looking like a particularly busy month. The firm is plotting three major phone launches that month, according to sources, possibly alongside the Galaxy Buds 2 true wireless earbuds.
The phones in question are the Samsung Galaxy S21 FE, Galaxy Z Fold 3 and Galaxy Z Flip 3, Yonhap News Agency reports.
The last two are folding phones, as the names suggest, while the S21 FE is a tweaked version of Samsung’s current range topper, the Galaxy S21. FE stands for Fan Edition – last year’s S20 FE was a more affordable take on the Galaxy S20, but still retained many of the S20’s key features, including a 6.5-inch AMOLED screen with 120Hz refresh rate, a triple-lens rear camera and the same chipset.
The Z Fold 3 is said to be Samsung’s first folding phone with a front-facing camera built under the screen. This design would negate the need for a notch, meaning more screen and an uninterrupted view of whatever you’re watching. It’s also thought to support the S Pen stylus for writing and drawing on screen.
The Z Flip 3 will be a clamshell design, with bigger screens and a lower price than its predecessor.
An August launch would be sooner than expected. Last year, the S20 FE launched in October, and the Z Flip (Samsung is thought to be skipping the Z Flip 2) and Z Fold 2 in September. It’s thought an August launch is to plug the gap left by the lack of a new Galaxy Note handset this year.
Samsung also has a new pair of true wireless earbuds in the works, the Galaxy Buds 2. These are said to be launching in July or August, possibly alongside these phones. So August could be a very busy month for Samsung.
MORE:
Read all our Samsung Galaxy reviews
Our guide to the best smartphones
Apple or Android? Samsung Galaxy S21 vs iPhone 12: which should you buy?
It’s a little-known fact that you can sling a PS5 or PS4 to another room of your house, streaming your games to a Mac or Windows PC, iOS or Android device, or even an old PS4 with Sony’s PS Remote Play app. But until recently, you could only remotely control your shiny new PlayStation 5 with the old DualShock 4 gamepad.
That’s now changing, as Sony has just announced the PS5’s new DualShock controller is supported across every Apple platform running the latest operating system, including iPhones, iPads, iPod touches, and Apple TVs running 14.5 and Macs running macOS Big Sur 11.3.
I just gave it a quick try myself with an iPhone 12 mini and a recent iPad Pro, and I have some thoughts!
The good news: if the only controller you own is a DualSense controller, it totally works — and your awesome adaptive triggers come along for the ride.
Here is some bad news:
There’s no haptic feedback. Absolutely zero. It feels extremely weird.
Each time you want to switch devices (to your iPhone or back to your PS5), you’ll have to manually pair your DualSense again. That was true of previous pads as well, but I was hoping they’d fix it.
The built-in microphone, headphone jack, and speaker don’t work. The speaker is a serious loss — games like Returnaluse it in combination with haptic feedback to add some serious immersion.
The streaming quality, as always, will depend heavily on your home wireless network. Give it a try, though; it’s free!
You’ll have to decide whether these things defeat the purpose of pairing a DualSense with an Apple device. As far as I’m concerned, I’ll keep my DualSense hooked up to the PS5 where it can actually help me sense things, and use a DualShock 4 (or third-party pad) when I want to stream.
It’s also more ammunition for the argument that we should be able to play PS5 games on our PS5 with a PS4 pad. This is the second time Sony has shown that limitation is totally arbitrary: first when it allowed us to control PS5 games with the PS4 controller over Remote Play to start, and now again with this signal that the DualSense’s sensing abilities are optional when streaming games over a network.
(Pocket-lint) – We’ve compared the three iPhone 11 devices against each other elsewhere, as well as the iPhone 11 and the iPhone XR in separate features, but here we are looking at how the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max compare to the iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max to help you work out what the differences are.
Keep in mind that the iPhone 11 series has been succeeded by the iPhone 12 series, and if you want to know how the iPhone 11 and iPhone 12 compare, then we have a separate feature for that too.
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Design
iPhone XS: 143.6 x 70.9 x 7.7mm, 177g
iPhone XS Max: 157.5 x 77.4 x 7.7mm, 208g
iPhone 11 Pro: 144 x 71.4 x 8.1mm, 188g
iPhone 11 Pro Max: 158 x 77.8 x 8.1mm, 226g
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max share several similarities in design compared to the iPhone XS and XS Max. They all have stainless steel frames, glass rears and a large notch at the top of their displays, though their colours differ and the iPhone 11 Pro models have a matte glass rear rather than glossy, which is beautiful in the flesh.
Naturally, the iPhone 11 Pro Max and iPhone XS Max are larger than the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone XS but there isn’t much difference between the models with the XS and 11 Pro similar, and the XS Max and 11 Pro Max measuring around the same too. The Pro models are a little heavier than the XS models though and the matte finish does make the Pro Max appear smaller than the XS Max did but it is of course just an illusion.
Where the main differences can be seen is the rear of the devices. The iPhone XS and XS Max both have a dual rear camera situated in the top left of the device, while the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max have a somewhat polarising square camera housing sporting three camera lenses, also in the top left, like the iPhone 12 series also does.
Apple iPhone 11 Pro Max review
Display
iPhone XS: 5.8-inch, HDR, True Tone, 3D Touch, 625nits
The Apple iPhone XS and iPhone 11 Pro both come with a 5.8-inch Super Retina OLED display that has a 2436 x 1125 pixel resolution, delivering a pixel density 458ppi. The iPhone XS Max and iPhone 11 Pro Max meanwhile, have a 6.5-inch Super Retina OLED display with a 2688 x 1242 pixel resolution, also delivering a pixel density of 458ppi.
The technology changes for the Pro models though, despite them offering the same size and resolution. The screens are much more efficient, offering big battery life improvements and they are brighter too, delivering between 800nits and 1200nits of brightness compared to the XS models that offer 625nits maximum brightness, which is apparent when placed side-by-side.
The Pro models also opt for Haptic Touch like the iPhone XR, rather than 3D Touch like the XS models. All four models have mobile HDR compatibility, coupled with Apple’s True Tone technology and a P3 wide colour gamut however.
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Cameras
iPhone XS/XS Max: Dual rear (12MP wide-angle+12MP telephoto), 7MP front
iPhone 11 Pro/11 Pro Max: Triple rear (12MP wide-angle+12MP ultra-wide+12MP telephoto), 12MP front
The Apple iPhone XS and XS Max both offer dual rear cameras, comprised of two 12-megapixel sensors, one wide-angle and one telephoto. The wide-angle lens has an aperture of f/1.8, while the telephoto lens has an aperture of f/2.4. The two devices have 2x optical zoom and digital zoom up to 10x.
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max both have a triple rear camera, made up of a 12-megapixel ultra-wide angle sensor with an aperture of f/2.4, a 12-megapixel wide-angle sensor with an aperture of f/1.8 and a 12-megapixel telephoto sensor with an aperture of f/2.0. The Pro models have dual optical image stabilisation, 2x optical zoom in, 2x optical zoom out and digital zoom up 10x.
On the front, the iPhone XS models have a 7-megapixel TrueDepth camera, allowing for Face ID, and offering 1080p video recording at 30fps and 60fps. The iPhone 11 Pro models bump the front camera resolution up to 12-megapixels and offer 4K video recording at 24fps, 30fps and 60fps and they also feature a slow-motion video mode for what Apple calls Slofies. It’s another gimmicky feature like Animoji and Memoji but they can be quite fun.
All four devices have Portrait Mode with advanced bokeh and Depth Control, Portrait Lighting and they all have Smart HDR. The Pro models have an extra Portrait Lighting effect though, as well as a brighter True Tone flash, Night Mode and Auto Adjustments.
It’s Night Mode that really sets the iPhone 11 Pro models aside from the XS models though – offering significant improvements in low light environments. The third ultra-wide angle lens is great too though, enabling you to get more in your shot.
Apple iPhone 11 Pro cameras explained: Why three and what does each do?
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max have Apple’s A13 chip under their hoods, offering a power boost compared to the iPhone XS and XS Max that have the A12 chip. All four models originally came in 64GB, 256GB and 512GB storage options when they launched and none of the devices have microSD for storage expansion.
Apple doesn’t talk about specific RAM and battery capacities, but the iPhone 11 Pro models offer some great improvements on their predecessors in terms of battery. The iPhone 11 Pro is claimed to last up to four hours longer than the iPhone XS , while the iPhone 11 Pro Max will last up to five hours longer than the iPhone XS Max and we found those numbers to be pretty accurate in our experience.
Apple Pay is on board all four devices, as you would expect, and all offer dual-SIM capabilities with nano-SIM and eSIM. All four models are also 4G capable but none offer 5G capabilities, like the iPhone 12 models.
Both the iPhone 11 Pro models and the iPhone XS models offer wireless charging and support for fast charging. Only the iPhone 11 Pro models come with an 18W fast charger in the box though.
Price
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The Apple iPhone 11 Pro started at $999/£1049 when it first launched, while the iPhone Pro Max starts at $1099/£1149, which is similar to what the iPhone XS and XS Max started at when they launched in 2018.
The Apple iPhone XS and XS Max aren’t available through Apple anymore – and neither are the iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max (though the standard iPhone 11 is) – but you might find them cheaper elsewhere if you’re considering these models over the latest iPhone 12 models.
Apple iPhone 11 review
Conclusion
The Apple iPhone 11 Pro and 11 Pro Max look similar to the iPhone XS and XS Max, at least from the front, but they offer big camera and processor upgrades, material upgrades, display and battery improvements and they trade 3D Touch for Haptic Touch.
If you have an XS or XS Max, the upgrade to the respective 11 Pro model will offer several improvements, especially in terms of camera, design finish and battery capacities, but you’ll need to decide if these are enough to warrant the expense, and whether it might be worth stretching to buy the 12 Pro instead.
If you’re making a choice between the iPhone 11 Pro models or XS models, you’ll save some cash buying 2018’s models, but you’ll miss out on a couple of the features offered by the 2019 models – predominantly camera and battery. It just depends how important these features are to you and your wallet.
Apple is awarding Corning another $45 million investment from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, in addition to the $450 million it’s already given to the US-based company over the past four years. According to Apple’s announcement, the investment will “expand Corning’s manufacturing capacity in the US and drive research and development into innovative new technologies that support durability and long-lasting product life.”
Corning provides glass for a variety of Apple products, including the iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch. The two companies have a history dating back to the original iPhone. Last year, they collaborated on the iPhone 12 lineup’s Ceramic Shield technology, which Apple claims is “tougher than any smartphone glass” and makes its latest flagships four times more resistant to damage from drops. As well as Apple, Corning’s Gorilla Glass is used in phones from countless Android manufacturers including Samsung’s Galaxy S21 Ultra.
Corning’s ultra-thin glass.Image: Corning
Apple doesn’t say exactly how Corning will use the $45 million investment, but its timing coincides with recent reports that Apple could launch a foldable iPhone in 2023. Back in 2019 we heard Corning was developing a bendable version of its glass, and last February the company said it expects devices using the technology to reach the market in 12 to 18 months. If it works, the glass could allow for durable foldable smartphones that don’t require a layer of plastic protection used in Samsung’s latest foldables.
“Today, when you buy a phone with Gorilla Glass, you’re touching glass … that’s what we’re working towards,” Corning said of its ambitions for bendable glass last year.
Apple has announced that it’s awarding Pennsylvania-based optical technology company II-VI with $410 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted that the company’s tech helps power Apple’s FaceID, Memoji, and Portrait Mode. The company also manufactures lasers that are used in the LIDAR scanner found in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro, technology that Apple touts as being key to augmented reality experiences.
Finisar, which was later acquired by II-VI (pronounced “two-six”) received $390 million from Apple’s fund back in 2017. While this latest investment likely shows that Apple intends to keep FaceID (which is powered by II-VI’s vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers) around for a while, it could also be another sign pointing to Apple’s future with AR and VR.
Tim Cook has publicly said that he believes AR is “critically important” to Apple’s future, and II-VI manufactures devices that help computers see the world in 3D. The money could help develop more advanced version of the technology already found on Apple devices, potentially for the rumored mixed reality headset. II-VI’s CEO says in Apple’s press release that the partnership with Apple “sets the stage for a new wave of breakthrough technologies that we believe will enable a wide range of applications that will benefit our world for decades to come.”
The press release states that II-VI will use the funds to expand manufacturing capacity, create jobs, and “accelerate delivery of future components for iPhone.”
Correction: A previous version of this article had II-VI written as II-IV throughout. We regret the error.
Apple has announced that it’s awarding Pennsylvania-based optical technology company II-IV with $410 million from its Advanced Manufacturing Fund. Apple CEO Tim Cook tweeted that the company’s tech helps power Apple’s FaceID, Memoji, and Portrait Mode. The company also manufactures lasers that are used in the LIDAR scanner found in the iPhone 12 Pro and iPad Pro, technology that Apple touts as being key to augmented reality experiences.
Finisar, which was later acquired by II-VI (pronounced “two-six”) received $390 million from Apple’s fund back in 2017. While this latest investment likely shows that Apple intends to keep FaceID (which is powered by II-IV’s vertical-cavity surface-emitting lasers) around for a while, it could also be another sign pointing to Apple’s future with AR and VR.
Tim Cook has publicly said that he believes AR is “critically important” to Apple’s future, and II-IV manufactures devices that help computers see the world in 3D. The money could help develop more advanced version of the technology already found on Apple devices, potentially for the rumored mixed reality headset. II-IV’s CEO says in Apple’s press release that the partnership with Apple “sets the stage for a new wave of breakthrough technologies that we believe will enable a wide range of applications that will benefit our world for decades to come.”
The press release states that II-IV will use the funds to expand manufacturing capacity, create jobs, and “accelerate delivery of future components for iPhone.”
YouTuber Unbox Therapy has got hold of an iPhone 13 Pro Max dummy unit, which seems to have been put together based on leaked schematics. The unofficial (but well-made) model shows how the biggest iPhone 13 could look with a smaller notch and new camera module.
The video, which has racked up 1.4m views since it was posted on 4th May, compares the iPhone 13 Pro Max to the current iPhone 12 Pro Max. The two flagship phones look similar but the 13 Pro Max is thought to be 3mm thicker to accommodate its rumoured 120Hz display.
As for the cameras, the iPhone 13 is expected to sport Apple’s best-ever telephoto zoom lenses, which is why the dummy unit sports a larger camera module. Larger lenses should theoretically capture more light, meaning better-quality photos.
On the front, the iPhone 13’s notch is set to shrink, although it’s not expected to disappear until the launch of the iPhone 14 in 2022. As you can see from the dummy model in the video, the notch could be much less intrusive, freeing up extra space for the status bar.
The notch is almost certain to hold FaceID but there’s also talk of Apple adding a TouchID sensor under the iPhone 13 display. We could even see LiDAR depth-sensing tech rollout to the whole iPhone 13 range (it’s currently only available on the iPhone 12 Pro and Pro Max).
The iPhone 13 is expected to launch in September 2021, but we wouldn’t count on a foldable iPhone making an appearance. Apple is said to be working on several prototypes, but these are only due out in 2023 according to renowned Apple analyst Ming-Chi Kuo.
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There is nothing better than tech that just works. The satisfying joy that comes with transferring files via AirDrop, the relief when a new pair of wireless earbuds automatically pop up on a phone screen and ask to be connected without opening the Bluetooth settings. These moments are still rare, but when they happen it feels like I’m actually living in the future promised to me. One of seamless connection and endless possibilities.
And the iPhone’s MagSafe (not to be confused with the old MacBook MagSafe, RIP), it just works.
Moment’s MagSafe accessories are stainless steel disks with a matte finish.
Moment, which is well known for its high-quality phone lenses and cases, has always had a strong focus on creating products for the photo or video creator. And its new line of MagSafe accessories has something for all levels of creativity. From a car vent mount to a multi-threaded mount to attach other accessories to, there is a way to attach an iPhone 12 or later to almost anything. More importantly, you can even mount more things to the phone itself through the Moment accessories. The range starts at $19.99 for a basic wall mount puck and goes up to $59.99 for the tripod mount adapter.
Moment MagSafe accessories
$20
Prices taken at time of publishing.
Moment’s line of MagSafe accessories lets you attach your iPhone 12 or 12 Pro to a wide variety of things, including a tripod or other camera gear. They make it easy to attach or remove your phone thanks to their use of strong magnets.
$20
at Moment
$20
at Amazon
Apple’s own MagSafe wallet accessory notoriously did not provide enough strength to stay attached to the back of the iPhone when taking the device out of a pocket. And if you have used the MagSafe charger, you might think these magnets are not strong enough to hold your device on a tripod out in front of you. But Moment developed its (M)Force magnet array that claims to use “custom tuned magnets” with a “grippy backer pad” for extra strength to boost the holding power of Apple’s base system.
I stored these MagSafe mounts on the side of a metal filing cabinet.
When I received these mounts, I attached them to the outside of my metal filing cabinet for safekeeping and was pleasantly surprised at just how hard it was to pull them off the side of the cabinet when I went to use them. And in my testing, my phone remained glued to the mounts no matter what they were mounted to. Pulling the phone off of these mounts was easy, too; with a bit of a twist the device disengages.
Moment’s MagSafe accessories work on a bare iPhone 12 or later or in a MagSafe-compatible case. I was able to test out Moment’s iPhone 12 Pro Thin Case with MagSafe and found it to be equally as strong as the bare phone. Moment’s cases also allow you to attach their lineup of lenses to your camera’s wide and telephoto sensors. Moment has also included the MagSafe technology in cases for the Galaxy S21 lineup, which you can preorder now for $49.99, and they should provide a similar experience to the iPhone’s built-in magnets.
Moment currently offers a sticky wall mount, a car vent mount, a cold shoe mount, a cold shoe and ¼” thread mount in both portrait and landscape orientations, a ¼” thread mount, and a multi-threaded mount. The pucks themselves are stainless steel disks with a matte finish. They are just the right amount of heavy: they feel durable and ready to be put into action while maintaining an extremely strong magnetic connection to the iPhone 12 Pro I was using.
The best part about using these mounts, and MagSafe at large, is the ease in quickly being able to put your phone on and pull it off of various accessories. I’m used to using mounts that grip the sides of my phone. Mounting my phone to a tripod, for example, meant having to attach it to the mount first, which is a two-step process: first the phone goes into the mount, then you have to close the mount’s sides to hold the phone. None of this process seemed to be too much of a problem until I didn’t have to do it anymore.
Each mount has a rubber, grippy back to keep your phone protected and attached.Becca Farsace / The Verge and Becca Farsace / The Verge
Being able to seamlessly pull my phone off of any tripod, even with a light or mic attached via a cold shoe, is the time-saving, hassle-free experience I didn’t know I needed. I quite literally toss my phone on the puck and I’m ready to go. And it feels really good knowing I could answer the phone mid-take without putting a whole rig up to my ear with it.
Moment’s MagSafe accessories are available now, though some of the line is currently on backorder.
2023 could be the year of the foldable iPhone, reckons renowned analyst Ming-Chi Kuo. In an investor note seen by MacRumours, Kuo claims that Apple is beavering away on a folding iPhone with an 8-inch QHD+ flexible OLED display. He even goes so far as to say the tech giant will ship 15 to 20 million folding smartphones in 2023. A bold prediction indeed.
Kuo also claims the “the foldable iPhone will adopt TPK’s silver nanowire touch solution”. Silver nanowire (SNW) is a new conductive film solution said to be a cost-effective way to make paper-thin, bendable OLED displays. If that’s true, there’s every chance the first foldable iPhone could resemble the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold.
Not convinced? Kuo believes Apple is already using SNW to make the touch interface for the successor to the HomePod Mini smart speaker. The idea being that Apple will have time to “master the technology” and iron out any production issues – before rolling the tech out to its flagship 2023 iPhone (set to be the iPhone 15). Makes sense.
This week’s prediction comes hot on the heels of rumours that Apple is working on a foldable display with a “mostly invisible hinge” that could unfold to around the size of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Kuo has also weighed in on this debate in the past, tipping Apple to launch a 7.5- to 8-inch foldable iPhone in 2023 ‘provided the California company can solve key production issues’.
There’s even been talk of a foldable iPad lately. Kuo says it could “blur the product separation between mobile phones, tablets and notebooks”.
Only time will tell, especially when you consider there’s currently no concrete evidence that Apple will pursue a foldable future. The firm has its hands full with the launch of the recently-announced iPad Pro 2021 and new Apple TV 4K, not to mention the upcoming iPhone 13.
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If you’re hoping to get one of the new 12.9-inch iPad Pros with a Mini LED display, you may be waiting a while — the delivery times for even the base model have slipped to late June or early July (via Bloomberg). Leading up to the device’s announcement, there were rumors that the display tech could be a production bottleneck for Apple, and that appears to be the case — Apple’s site says the 11-inch iPad Pro, announced alongside the 12.9-inch, would be delivered in late May.
The Mini LED display that could be to blame for the short supply of iPads is a new tech for Apple, but it promises to bring a ton of improvements compared to normal LED displays. However, they’re trickier to produce — Apple says that the previous iPad Pro’s display had 72 LEDs, while the Mini LED version boasts over 10,000. For a more in-depth look at the tech, we have an explainer here.
For the most part, the rest of the devices Apple announced in its April 20th event seem to be doing okay stock-wise: Apple’s site says the purple iPhone 12 and 12 Mini would arrive in early May, and the Apple TV is shown as shipping by mid- to late May. The lower-end iMac will arrive in late May, though the higher-end versions won’t get to you until early June — the same as the new Siri Remote.
Interestingly, while a single AirTag seems readily available, the four-pack is a bit harder to come by — Apple’s site has them delivering in June, while Amazon has the pack listed as out of stock.
Apple’s colorful new M1-powered iMacs, refreshed iPad Pros, and updated Apple TV 4K (with a not-terrible-looking remote) are now all available to preorder today from Apple’s website.
The company says that the new products will be delivered starting on May 21st —at least for the first wave of orders, although that timing will certainly slip as stock sells out.
Customers interested in buying the new iMac should take note that only some of the color schemes will be available in stores: green, pink, blue, and silver models will be sold in-person at Apple Store locations, but the full seven-color spectrum will only be offered through Apple’s website, at least for now.
The new iPad Pro also features Apple’s new M1 processor (the same as the iMac and last falls updated MacBooks), in addition to an upgraded ultra-wide angle camera for better video calls. Additionally, the larger 12.9-inch model will feature a new Mini LED display, which promises a far brighter and more accurate screen experience — at the cost of a $100 price increase over the 2020 model.
iPad Pro (2021, 12.9-inch, M1, Wi-Fi)
$1,099
Prices taken at time of publishing.
Apple’s new 12.9-inch iPad Pro features an M1 processor, as well as a new Liquid Retina XDR Mini LED screen. It costs $100 more for the base configuration this year, starting at $1,099 for a 128GB Wi-Fi-enabled tablet. It starts at $1,299 if you opt for cellular service.
$1,099
at Apple
$1,099
at B&H Photo
$1,099
at Best Buy
Also of particular note: in addition to the preorders for the updated Apple TV 4K, preorders have also opened for the standalone $59 Siri Remote for existing Apple TV HD and Apple TV 4K (first-gen) owners looking to replace the infamous first-generation Siri Remote with a (hopefully) better new design.
Alongside the preorders for the new Apple products, the first wave of last week’s AirTag and purple iPhone 12 and 12 mini devices should be arriving to both customers and in Apple Stores starting today.
Apple’s iPhone 12 lineup maintained enormously strong demand from consumers from January through March, according to the company’s fiscal Q2 earnings posted today. Apple reported record March quarter revenue of $89.6 billion, up 54 percent year over year. The iPhone took in just under $48 billion, jumping up by 66 percent from a year ago.
Sales of Mac and iPad hardware also surged for yet another quarter, up 70 and 78 percent respectively, due in part to continued remote work and schooling necessitated by the COVID-19 pandemic. That success might slow down as some regions of the world return to a sense of normalcy, so most eyes — as usual — are on the iPhone. It’s been reported that the iPhone 12 mini isn’t doing as well as Apple hoped, but other models are clearly hits with consumers. “This family of devices is popular with both upgrades and new customers alike,” Apple CEO Tim Cook said on the afternoon earnings call.
These Q2 earnings follow a historic, blowout December quarter for Apple that saw the company surpass $100 billion in revenue for the first time in its history. But now focus has shifted to how Apple will perform in the second half of the year and whether the iPhone 12 devices, Apple’s first to offer 5G data, have indeed sparked the huge upgrade cycle that some analysts had thought was likely.
Just last week, Apple held its first event of 2021 and introduced new products including a purple iPhone 12, a redesigned iMac powered by the M1 chip, updated iPad Pro tablets, a faster Apple TV 4K streaming box, and the long-rumored AirTag item tracker. The iPhone and AirTags go on sale April 30th, which is when Apple will begin taking preorders for its other newly announced hardware. An all-new MacBook Pro is expected to follow in the coming weeks — likely at Apple’s WWDC keynote.
Apple’s fiscal second quarter earnings come with a legal backdrop: the company faces an imminent courtroom battle with Fortnite developer Epic Games. Depositions from both companies have already been filed, and senior executives are expected to provide extensive testimony starting next week.
Even with Apple’s services business — up to $16.9 billion from $13.3 billion in the year-ago quarter — and hardware on such an upward trajectory, investors and consumers continue to await the next major device that will push the company into a new product category. Rumors have long suggested that AR and VR headsets are in Apple’s future; software boss Craig Federighi recently told The Wall Street Journal’s Joanna Stern that mixed reality tech “deserves exploration.” In an earlier interview with Kara Swisher, CEO Tim Cook described AR as “critically important” to Apple’s future.
And then there are the long-running reports of an eventual Apple-made electric car; back in February, Nissan and Hyundai both downplayed discussions the automakers were rumored to have held with Apple on the subject.
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