News

Do iPhone 8’s supposedly revolutionary VR/AR features sound too good to be true?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated October 17, 2018

Will iPhone 8 knock our socks off with revolutionary virtual reality and augmented reality capabilities? I'm not sold yet, but that's not stopping some people from making far-fetched speculations based solely on wishful thinking and little evidence. And what evidence has been presented thus far is very flimsy.

In January, blogger Robert Scoble ran a scoop claiming Apple had partnered with German lens specialists Carl Zeiss on a pair of digital glasses that would connect wirelessly to the next iPhone and display images and other information to the wearer.

Following today's research from UBS's Steve Milunovich saying Apple has 1,000 engineers working on a top secret project that would give the next iPhone 3D mapping capability using stereoscopic vision, Scoble told MacRumors that Apple is “readying a three-ounce pair of glasses that pair with iPhone 8 for mixed reality.”

New iPad Pro ad focuses on Apple Pencil

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

Reminiscent of Apple's legendary "I'm a Mac, I'm a PC” commercials, the latest iPad Pro ad campaign based on real tweets from real people continues with a new 16-second video posted to the company's YouTube channel Tuesday.

Titled “No More Printing,” the video is based on a 2013 tweet which reads: “When you're printing personal things at work and you have to run to the printer to get your stuff before anyone else does.”

The commercial shows off iPad Pro's ability to sign digital documents right on the device with Apple Pencil. “You wouldn’t have to print anymore, if your computer was an iPad Pro,” Apple wrote in the video's description.

UBS: Apple has 1,000 engineers working on augmented reality, tech to debut in iPhone 8

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

According to analyst Steven Milunovich and his team at UBS, augmented reality (AR) will likely be Apple's next major product innovation.

In a research note seen by Business Insider, Milunovich writes that the Cupertino firm may have well over a thousand engineers working on a project in Israel that could be related to augmented reality.

UBS expects Apple to implement augmented reality in iPhone 8, which could include “moderate 3D mapping using stereoscopic vision” based on a technology called Simultaneous Localization and Mapping (SLAM) as well as a software development kit for app makers to take advantage of the handset's rumored AR features.

Apple granted yet another patent for in-screen fingerprint reader ahead of iPhone 8

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

Apple has been granted yet another patent for a fingerprint reader embedded underneath the display itself, a feature widely expected to debut on iPhone 8.

The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) this morning awarded the iPhone maker a patent for an “electronic device including finger biometric sensor carried by a touch display and related methods”. The company first applied for this patent on January 27, 2015.

Mozilla acquires popular read-later service Pocket

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

Mozilla, the non-profit organization behind the Firefox browser, has acquired the read-later service Pocket for an undisclosed sum. The deal files as Mozilla's first acquisition and was confirmed by both Mozilla and Pocket.

I've been a longtime Pocket user because their elegantly designed cross-platform apps let me easily save stripped down versions of articles from online publications for reading later, even without an Internet connection.

Pocket will continue on as a wholly-owned, independent subsidiary of Mozilla. Pocket has native apps on App Store and Mac App Store, plus a browser extension.

Google Home to launch in UK this spring

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

Amazon's Echo will soon get some real competition as Google gears up to launch its Home smart connected speaker in the United Kingdom this spring. According to Rick Osterloh, Google's Vice President of Hardware, Home's “artificial intelligence skills and vast data” will give it the edge over Amazon's voice-activated wireless speaker.

All YouTube links now open in mobile app instead of browser

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

Google's mobile YouTube app takes advantage of iOS's deep linking capability to automatically launch itself when a user taps a video URL in their browser. That useful feature doesn't always work as intended, however, prompting Google to push an update to YouTube for iPhone and iPad to rectify this. If clicking a YouTube link in Safari or Chrome doesn't launch the app and iOS doesn't display the “Open this page in YouTube?” pop-up, be sure to update your copy of YouTube for iOS to version 12.07.

WSJ: iPhone 8 to sport curved OLED screen, supplant Lightning with USB-C

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 28, 2017

The Wall Street Journal is reporting that iPhone will feature a flexible screen based on organic light-emitting diode (OLED) display technology and supplant Lightning with USB-C.

The story corroborates KGI Securities analyst Ming Chi-Kuo's claims that Apple will release three new phones this year in the form of the brand new OLED-based iPhone 8 model with refreshed industrial design and the more iterative LCD-based iPhone 7s and iPhone 7s Plus updates.

Apple-SAP partnership to bring first enterprise app in March

Christian Zibreg ∙ February 27, 2017

The very first enterprise app born out of Apple's partnership with German business software solutions maker SAP will arrive by the end of March, or about a full year after the Apple-SAP deal was announced. SAP said at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain this morning that the official Cloud Platform software development kit for iOS will hit March 30 to help developers write business apps based on SAP's Cloud Platform and Swift, Apple’s modern programming language.

10.5″ iPad Pro may sport 2,224×1,668 screen with same density as 9.7″ iPads

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated February 23, 2018

Rhoda Alexander, IHS Markit's director in charge of tablets and PCs, shared some interesting observations with Forbes over the weekend regarding Apple's rumored new bezel-less iPad Pro model which, according to other analysts, would house a display measuring 10.5 inches inside a body the same size as 9.7-inch iPads.

According to Rhoda, the new iPad Pro model should have a 2,224-by-1,668 display with the same pixel density as 9.7-inch iPads. For context, Apple's 12.9-inch iPad Pro has a 2,732-by-2,048 Retina display at 264 pixels per inch and its 9.7-inch counterpart has a 2,048-by-1,536 screen, also at 264 pixels per inch.

Oppo unveils periscope-style camera lens system with 5x lossless zoom

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 19, 2019

Chinese electronics manufacturer Oppo today announced a brand new camera system at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Spain. Developed in collaboration with an Israeli startup named Corephotonics, it's based on a periscope-style lens design which makes possible 5x lossless zoom, earning it a rather unexciting but apt 5x Dual Camera Zoom moniker.

What's more, Oppo's new technology kills the need for an unsightly camera bump at the back. The company did not say when the new camera technology can be expected to debut on its smartphones.

Apple TV 4 jailbreak for tvOS 10.0-10.1 complete, release imminent

Joaquim Barbosa ∙ February 27, 2017

As previously reported here on iDB, rumours of a jailbreak for the oft-neglected Apple TV 4 have been circulating since soon after the disclosure of Ian Beer's Project Zero exploits, and especially since those exploits were used by Luca Todesco to fashion the Yalu jailbreak for iOS 10.0-10.2.

It was discovered soon after Yalu was released that many of the exploits used were also present on tvOS, and Apple TV developer nitoTV commented that consequently the jailbreak could be ported, with modifications, to that platform.