test

Testing the operating range of AirPods and Beats Solo3 vs non-W1 Beats headphones

Much has been said about the virtues of the W1 chip Apple started baking into their latest wireless Beats line-up and of course the AirPods. By now we know for sure that W1 facilitates a much faster pairing process, as do we know that the chip significantly amplifies both battery life and conservation techniques. What’s less prominently talked about – at least from official sides – is the operating range of these wireless headphones and the presumed effect the W1 chip addition has had on that benchmark.

For I felt information on the internet was just a bit too murky to count on, I decided to take it upon myself and conduct a little experiment: I packed my rucksack with four headphones (two of which boast the new W1 chip) and headed to a nearby park in order to pit them against each other. Pairing them one after another and then slowly making a bee-line for the opposite direction, one thing quickly became clear: the results for the maximum distance obtainable aren’t surprising in terms of order, but they definitely are in their clarity.

Consumer Reports reportedly stands by its controversial MacBook Pro battery findings

As you probably heard, the influential consumer organization Consumer Reports is not recommending Apple’s new MacBook Pro due to inconsistent battery performance. Apple’s marketing honcho Phill Schiller responded by saying that the product-testing magazine’s test results don’t match the company’s own data. 9to5Mac reached out to Consumer Reports to learn more about their findings, here’s what the magazine had to say.

Consumer Reports won’t recommend new MacBook Pros over inconsistent battery life

Consumer Reports will not be recommending Apple’s latest MacBook Pro models due to inconsistent battery performance, the magazine said Thursday. After conducting a battery of tests, Consumer Reports discovered that battery life across all new Pros varied “dramatically” from one test to another.

On the other hand (as I note in this article), the battery woes might be caused by a software issue in Safari for Mac because Chrome (a notorious battery hog) fared far better in the tests.

Be that as it may, Apple’s latest notebooks received low rating and failed to earn Consumer Report’s recommendation “after battery life issues surfaced during testing”. As a result, the new MacBook Pro is the first Apple notebook that did not receive a Consumer Reports recommendation, said the magazine.

Video: iPhone 7 running circles around Note 7 in terms of switching apps

Apple makes the fastest smartphone chips on the planet and the iPhone 7’s in-house designed A10 Fusion chip has given top Android handset makers who buy off-the-shelf processors plenty to worry about. Tight interplay between Apple-designed silicon, operating system, apps and services gives the iPhone a distinct advantage over competitors when it comes to smooth app switching and multitasking.

A non-scientific video put together by YouTuber PhoneBuff, which compares app loading and switching times on the iPhone 7 and Samsung’s latest Note 7, highlights the benefits of designing the hardware and software under one roof as Apple’s new phone with half the Note 7’s RAM runs circles around Samsung’s exploding flagship in terms of loading and switching apps.

Scratch that: Apple Watch sapphire screen can take a beating

The iPhone 6, before it launched, was expected to feature an ultra-durable sapphire screen. So everyone wanted to get their hands on the material and put it through the ringer, to see how it would hold up in both every-day and not-so-every-day usage.

Well the Apple Watch, set to launch later this month, actually does have a sapphire screen, so naturally people are going to want to put it to the test too. In fact, the folks over at iPhonefixed already have, and they’ve uploaded a video of the torture session.