Apple

Poll: should the next iPhone implement Apple Watch’s Force Touch pressure sensing?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 14, 2018

If you believe recent reporting by Tech News Taiwan and UDN, Force Touch, one of the technologies behind the Apple Watch, could make its way into this year's refresh of the iPhone 6, likely to be referred to as an ‘iPhone 6s’.

To get you quickly up to speed on Force Touch, it's a handy feature that relies on a bunch of tiny electrodes around the Watch's display that recognize the difference between a tap and a press, thereby providing the user with quick access to contextually specific controls.

But would Force Touch make sense on the iPhone, do you think?

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Samsung’s Galaxy S6 rumored to adopt touch-based fingerprint sensor akin to Touch ID

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated August 4, 2016

Samsung's upcoming Galaxy S6 flagship smartphone will include a much-improved fingerprint sensor which takes cues from Apple's Touch ID in that it will recognize a fingerprint when a user places their fingertip on the Home button, according to an unverified report last week by SamMobile.

The Galaxy S5 made some noise by adding a fingerprint sensor that requires users to swipe their finger on the sensor. It didn't win praise for quality or innovation as reviewers were quick to pan it due to inaccurate and unreliable performance, which ultimately frustrated the users.

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Check out the original 1995 Apple Watch!

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

Contrary to popular belief, the iPhone maker's upcoming Apple Watch is not the first wrist-worn watch the company has created.

Back in 1995, two years before Jobs was brought back to save the company he co-founded, Apple had used a custom-made wrist watch with anodized aluminum bezel and scratch-resistant glass as an incentive for users to upgrade to Mac OS System 7.5.

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Snowden docs give new insight into how GCHQ tracked iPhone users

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 19, 2015

New documents by NSA leaker Edward Snowden were published this weekend by German newspaper Der Spiegel, giving us new insight into how the GCHQ tracked iPhone users without their consent.

Rather than tap specific exploits that GCHQ's U.S. counterpart, NSA, relied on in order to compromise the iPhone's software, GCHQ surveilled targets by following a device's UDID across different services.

They were even able to pull data from the device itself when syncing with a compromised computer took place.

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Apple.com celebrates Martin Luther King Day

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 19, 2015

Apple is celebrating Martin Luther King Day with an appropriate graphics on its homepage.

Furthermore, the company is encouraging its employees, who did not get the day off on Monday, to volunteer and promised to donate an additional $50 for every voluntary hour worked by employees.

This is actually part of the iPhone maker's gift matching program that was put into effect by Steve Jobs's hand-picked successor Tim Cook shortly after he became the CEO in late-2011.

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This concept does an ambitious rethinking of outdated handling of contacts in iOS

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 27, 2016

I'm very displeased and unhappy (and I'm putting it mildly) that innovation in the iOS Contacts department has stalled out.

Argue as much as you want, but there's no denying that integration of contacts in Apple's mobile software is a convoluted mess, one that lacks consistency and completely eschews any reasonable expectations of a unified communications solution.

Product designer Frank Costa felt the same way so he went about creating a smart concept that tries to reimagine the address book experience on iOS, by envisioning an Invisible Address Book of sorts.

The ideas he proposes are quite intriguing. His Medium post, for example, describes profile pictures of frequently accessed contacts right in Spotlight for effortless one-tap interactions. From there, a list of apps that use your address book would be one swipe away, along with a handy log of your interactions with a friend.

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Revered analyst predicts a creative stylus accessory for rumored iPad Pro

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 18, 2015

The “If you see a stylus, they blew it” line that Steve Jobs famously used during the January 2007 iPhone introduction is about to get challenged in the post-Jobs era.

At least that's what KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo proposed in his newly published note to clients.

Long story short, the analyst predicted that a rumored ‘iPad Pro,’ expected in late-2015, will include an optional in-house built stylus accessory as a niche product aimed at creative professionals.

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Facebook testing voice transcription feature in Messenger ahead of official rollout

Christian Zibreg ∙ January 18, 2015

Facebook has begun testing a new feature in its mobile Messenger software that can read transcripts of received voice messages in case you don't want to listen to them.

The company is currently testing the feature with a tiny subset of Messenger's more than 500 million users ahead of a forthcoming launch in the near future.

In addition to Messenger's voice transcription capability, the firm announced buying a successful boutique design firm which has created popular mobile applications and online services, including the read-later app Readability and the rising blogging platform Medium.

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Apple adds Tennis Channel Everywhere to Apple TV

Jake Smith ∙ Updated April 30, 2018

The Apple TV content march continues, as the company has added Tennis Channel Everywhere to the set-top box for tennis lovers.

Previously just an iOS app, the Tennis Channel Everywhere app on the Apple TV extends its functionality to the larger screen. The app streams live matches for $69.99 per year, or if you don't feel like paying, highlights from some of the recent matches are available to view for free.

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