In a somewhat amusing move, Netflix at the 2015 World Maker Faire show announced something called the Netflix Switch.
What's that, I hear you ask. It's basically an Internet-connected DIY physical button that turns on Netflix, dims the lights and puts your phone in Do Not Disturb mode to get you ready for a Netflix marathon with just one press.
Apple on Monday announced record iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus sales of 13 million units this weekend, beating last year's opening-weekend sales of more than ten million units.
In addition, the Cupertino firm has said the new phones will be available in more than 40 additional countries beginning Friday, October 9 including Italy, Mexico, Russia, Spain and Taiwan.
The new iPhones will be available in a total of over 130 countries by the end of the year, said the firm.
Learn how to snap up pictures while shooting video on your iPhone or iPad without having to stop the recording session or download camera apps.
iOS 9 brought out a new feature for iPads called easy text selection which lets you slide two fingers on the screen to turn the keyboard into a trackpad of sorts. While in this mode, you can control cursor movement and select chunks of text with precision.
Thanks to 3D Touch, you can bring up this trackpad-esque functionality on your iPhone 7 or later in order to easily select and manipulate text with great precision, here's how.
Using a grid of 96 sensors that read microscopic changes in the distance between the cover glass and the backlight, your iPhone is able to detect different degrees of pressure. This headline feature, called 3D Touch, is used to reveal content previews and contextual menus within apps and quick actions on app icons on the Home screen.
Do you feel like 3D Touch requires you to press the screen too hard? If so, iOS offers a handy slide to change the amount of pressure you need to activate the feature.
So you got your brand new iPhone and decided that 3D Touch is more of a nuisance than gets in your way than a time-saving feature you'd like to use on an everyday basis. Worry not, for iOS gives you an easy way to disable 3D Touch on a system-wide level with just a few taps.
3D Touch, of course, offers shortcuts to commonly used app-specific actions right from the Home screen and lets you preview content or jump straight into it within supported apps by applying varying degrees of pressure to the screen.
People with disabilities, those with limited motor skills and everyone who would rather do without these handy shortcuts for one reason or another can easily disable 3D Touch on your iPhone.
When Apple says that a redesigned vibrator inside the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus, branded as the Taptic Engine, gives you “real-time feedback” in the form of subtle taps, the company is not exaggerating. The new oscillating mechanism, now enclosed with its own aluminum shell, reaches its full power in just one cycle (and stops just as quickly) versus ten or more oscillations for most other smartphones.
This allows for a more precise level of haptic feedback to accompany the new Peek and Pop deep-presses provided by 3D Touch. As part of iFixit's detailed teardown analysis of the new iPhones, the repair wizards have blasted the Taptic Engine with X-rays to show it in action.
Repair wizards over at iFixit have performed their teardown routine by prying open the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s (model A1688/A1633) in an effort to identify its components, analyze their internal layout and calculate the device's repairability score.
While the new phone does feature a slightly smaller battery due to a heavier display with additional capacitive sensors, Apple's new Taptic Engine and a bigger 'A9' system-on-a-chip, the device packs in fewer chips overall and has the same repairability score as last year's iPhone 6.
Answer: far, far less than the previous model. Apple hasn't focused much on a lot stronger body of the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus so, naturally, we've been eager to find out just how Bendgate-proof the new devices are. A new non-scientific stress test video from Australia demonstrates that the iPhone 6s Plus is nearly unbendable versus the iPhone 6 Plus.
The new Series 7000 aluminum body can apparently withstand a significant amount of force being applied without bending. But don't take our word for it, watch the embedded video and post your impressions in the comment section.
The new iPhones are upon us and with them comes a headline feature: 3D Touch. Its name might suggest a marketing gimmick though 3D Touch is anything but, thanks to Apple's clever, elegant implementation.
In a word, 3D Touch is fast and instantaneous, unlike the tap-and-hold gesture, and responds to different levels of pressures. It's used to access app-specific shortcuts right from your Home screen.
Within apps, 3D Touch lets you peek something without leaving the context of what you're doing or pop from a content preview into the full view. We've put together a quick list of ten popular third-party applications for your brand spanking new iPhone 6s that have been graced with 3D Touch shortcuts and gestures.
Download them now and start peeking and popping like there's no tomorrow.
Here we go again...
In what could only be described as a continuation of its miserable anti-Apple advertising campaign, Samsung has hired people to wear backpack-mounted banners advertising its Galaxy smartphones to folks who queued up for iPhone 6s launch this morning outside the Apple Store in London’s Regent Street, The Inquirer reported.
The banners promote Samsung’s latest Galaxy S6 edge and S6 edge+ flagships and carry the provocative tagline “The itch to switch just got bigger.” In addition, International Business Times is reporting that Samsung even gave queued customers bright blue pillows and bottles emblazoned with the hashtag #NextIsNew.
But wait, there's more.
Not to be outdone by Google which just released a note-taking iPhone and iPad app called Keep, software giant Microsoft today rolled out a brand new productivity app of its own, Invite for iPhone.
A Microsoft Garage project, Invite was designed to help groups “agree on a time to meet, even when they can’t see each other’s schedules.”
Recognizing that scheduling group meetings is no easy task on desktop, let alone on mobile, Invite keeps things simple enough to help you effectively coordinate multiple people’s schedules on a small screen.
You simply suggest times that work for you, and then invite attendees. After attendees select all the times they can attend, and once everyone has responded through Invite or via the web interface, you simply pick the time that works best for everyone and your group meeting is a go.