Cupertino doesn’t publicly announce all of its acquisitions, although the details of each are usually leaked soon after they occur. In the case of Apple’s purchase of Danish visual effects startup Spektral, it took nearly a year before the news trickled out.
Live Albums, available in the just-released version 4.3 update to Google Photos for iPhone and iPad, is a cool new feature that lets you choose the specific people and pets you'd like to see and then have the app automatically add new photos of them as you take them.
Stardew Valley, a popular indie farming simulation role-playing video game developed by Eric Barone and published by Chucklefish, is coming to an iPhone and iPad near you in a fortnight on Wednesday, October 24. According to yesterday's announcement in a blog post, the premium game is priced at $7.99, sports 50+ hours of content and contain no In-App Purchases whatsoever. As the initial purchase price gets you the full game, you won't be forced to spend cash on virtual stupidities like loot boxes, virtual coins and so forth.
Netflix might have the most to lose by Apple's upcoming entry into the world of internet TV. However, it doesn't look like the company is worried about the iPhone maker's move, at least not yet, according to CNET.
Speaking at the Vanity Fair New Establishment Summit in Los Angeles, Netflix's chief content officer Ted Sarandos said he doesn't know what Apple is doing with the $1 billion it has budgeted to produce original content. Further, he doesn’t “think people making shows for them have any idea” either.
Whether he’s worried, Sarandos says Netflix doesn’t “put much focus on any competitor.”
Those words might be accurate, of course. It's just as likely, Netflix isn't worried, because, like everyone else outside of Apple, it has no clue what's going on behind the scenes.
To date, occasional stories have popped up over the past year mentioning which TV projects Apple has approved and which stars are connected to them. We know, for example, that Apple is putting together a growing lineup of comedies, dramas, documentaries, and animated titles. We also know some of the biggest names in Hollywood are on board, including Academy Award winners like Reese Witherspoon and Octavia Spencer, plus Jennifer Aniston, Aaron Paul, and many more.
What no one seems to know is when the shows will begin airing and where. Rumors continue to suggest Apple plans on announcing a video streaming service that will somehow be tied to Apple Music. The specifics, however, have yet to surface, and might not until early next year. Most think Apple will begin airing programs in mid-2019.
For its part, Netflix continues to spend upwards of $8 billion each year on new content. Perhaps that amount of cash is the real reason Netflix doesn't seem worried about Apple. What do you think?
DxOMark last week published their full-on review of the iPhone XS camera. We originally skipped it because DxOMark scores can be very misleading or just meaningless, but have decided to pull some choice quotes that best describe why, in many areas, Apple's new flagship phone offers noticeable improvements over last year’s iPhone X.
Following August 2018's debut of Season 1, Season 2 of “Carpool Karaoke: The Series” is arriving this Friday, October 22. Apple's show about apps and their makers is based on the “Carpool Karaoke” segment made popular by “The Late Late Show With James Corden”.
On Tuesday, Apple introduced new beta software versions to developers. Registered users can now download iOS 12.1 beta 3, tvOS 12.1 beta 3, and watchOS 5.1 beta 3 on their respective devices.
Having pitted his iPhone XS versus Canon's C200 cinema camera that sells for $10,000, filmmaker Ed Gregory came away impressed by the quality of video capture on Apple's smartphone and was “quite shocked” at how good the new Apple phone is at shooting video.
Can you spot the difference?Writing on his blog yesterday, Ed explained he basically took a bunch of videos with both cameras over the course of a few days. He shot everything in the stock Camera app on the XS.
On the Canon side, he used the Canon RAW lite codec and set a similar focal length to the wide lens on his iPhone XS (f1.8). He then attached the phone to the top of the Canon camera and placed them both on the DJI Ronin-S stabilizer.
You can see the results for yourself on the comparison images and the video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k2CJoR3F2t0
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Follow along for a few notable observations.
The best smartphone camera there isEd was “actually shocked” at how good the iPhone footage looked on the phone itself—he'd also watch videos shot on his Canon and questioned which one he liked more. No surprises there because any piece of content displayed on that OLED panel with wide color (the P3 cinema profile), one to million contrast ratio and native HDR support looks great.
PRIMER: How Smart HDR takes iPhone photography to the next level
The iPhone footage took almost no work to color-grade in the Color Studios app, but Canon's required a lot of heavy lifting because the C200 camera was shooting in RAW. The iPhone footage “fell apart” when viewed in fullscreen on a 27-inch iMac due to too much sharpening.
“The details just got lost and all the leaves with details just got smushed together,” he observed, while the Canon footage “still looked great.” He could have gotten rid of sharpening by shooting on his iPhone in RAW using a third-party app, like the excellent FiLMiC Pro.
The dynamic range is “super impressive” on the iPhone XS camera.
Smart HDR steps into the limelightThanks to the new A12 Bionic chip powering computational photography advancements such as Smart HDR and real-time processing, Apple's smartphone keeps the highlights on the bright sun while keeping details in the shadows.
TUTORIAL: How to reenable manual HDR on iPhone 8/X/XS/XS Max/XR
“This is some crazy multiple exposure processing thats been done,” he notes. “Considering this is all being done in real time in the palm of your hand. It’s super impressive.”
From the conclusion:
The iPhone camera is a smartphone camera and always will be. It is incredibly small but to be honest give completely mind-blowing results. If you are shooting to video that is intended to be viewed on a smartphone and you don’t want to do any post processing then the files strait from the app are impressive. Apple has done a great job of optimizing the output to make the files look great instantly.
“Is it as good as a cinema camera, not at all,” he summed it up nicely. “Is it the best camera I have ever seen on a smartphone? Hundred percent!”
Thoughts?
Actress Katherine LaNasa (“Imposters,” “Satisfaction”) has joined the cast of Apple’s upcoming series, “Are You Sleeping?” The drama stars Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and Lizzy Caplan (“Masters of Sex.”)
Nearly two years following its tvOS launch, Microsoft has made the decision to pull Minecraft for Apple TV because there weren't enough players in the first place, BBC News said Tuesday.
The next iPad Pro models are rumored to adopt near bezel-less displays without any Home buttons, featuring Face ID biometric authentication with landscape support, a brand-new Magnetic Connector for third-party accessories, support for an updated Apple Pencil with seamless AirPods-like Bluetooth pairing and more.
Following the release of iOS 12.0.1 to the public on Monday, Apple is no longer signing iOS 11.4.1.
The move made by the Cupertino-based tech company means that iOS device users can no longer downgrade from iOS 12 back to iOS 11.