Earlier yesterday morning, Apple held its “Scary Fast” event where it announced its new M3 family of processors, and MacBook Pros and iMacs powered by said chip. In true Apple fashion, the event also had the disclaimer that the entire event was “Shot on iPhone” which sounds amazing, until it was (unsurprisingly) revealed that the entirety of it was done with a ton of really, really expensive camera equipment.
If you’re wondering what iPhone Apple used to shoot the entire “Scary Fast” event, it’s the iPhone 15 Pro Max. It goes without saying that the end result of that shoot definitely looks impressive but again, a camera inside a phone is only as good as the resources thrown at it.
In Apple’s official behind-the-scenes video, the crew behind the entire process shows off a great deal of professional equipment that includes industrial-set studio lighting, high-end gimbals, dollies, as well as the drone because how else do you get that long, fast-moving close up shot of your CEO.
Needless to say, a lot of blood, sweat, and probably tears of virgins that went into the production process, but more importantly, it can also interpreted that the behind-the-scenes look of Apple’s “Scary Fast” event also sends an indirect message that, the iPhone 15 Pro Max used here is only one of several cogs in the machine and that, once again, a camera is only as good as the equipment it’s paired with.
For comparison’s sake, here’s another video shot with the iPhone 15 Pro, featuring Olivia Rodrigo albeit on a smaller scale because, as The Verge puts it: she’s no Tim Apple.
Phones are getting more and more expensive as the years go by, and among the brands most guilty of this include Apple and its iPhones. There’s a very fair chance that you’ll be right in thinking that the iPhone 15 series coming out at the end of the year will be more expensive than ever. But whatever that price may be, it will still be dwarfed by the price that the first ever iPhone just went for in a recent auction.
The still factory-sealed first-generation iPhone was put up for auction with LCG Auctions earlier in the month, with the auction itself having ended over the weekend. It had a starting price of US$2500 (~RM11080), which is already a ridiculous price to pay for any phone, never mind one that’s 16 years old. But by the end of the auction, it went for US$63356.40 (~RM280796), including a “buyer’s premium”.
There’s also an interesting story to go with this relic from the earlier days of the second millennium. This still sealed first iPhone was owned by one Karen Green, who got the iPhone as a gift, according to a linked Business Insider article. As for why the phone remained sealed, this was because it wasn’t something that Green could use anyway. iPhones of the time were only compatible with the telco AT&T in the US, while Green already had three phone lines with another telco, Verizon.
An old relic of the past like the original iPhone selling for such a huge sum of money is pretty incredible on its own. But what makes it more so is the fact that it’s not the only one in recent times. Just last October, another sealed iPhone was auctioned off to the tune of US$40000 (~RM177280). Indeed, Green intended to hold on to hers for awhile longer to let its value bloat up even further, but decided to sell it to fund a business she’s running.
Apple is reportedly planning to allow alternative app stores and sideloading on iPhones, a major u-turn from the company’s long-standing policies. This is seen as the tech giant’s compliance with new European Union laws that are set to go into effect soon.
According to Bloomberg, engineers in the company are preparing to make Apple’s platform more open by finally allowing users to bypass the App Store when installing third-party software on their iPhones and iPads. This would allow them to avoid the company’s strict restrictions as well as the infamous 30% commission taken from developers on purchases.
The move is apparently a response to a new EU law titled the Digital Markets Act. The legislation will start being applicable in May 2023 but companies will have until early 2024 to actually comply. Companies that will be subjected to the law are those that have a valuation of at least EUR75 billion (~RM351 billion) and have a minimum of 45 million monthly users in the EU. Failure to comply could result in penalties amounting to 10% of a firm’s worldwide turnover and up to 20% for repeated infringements.
The act mandates that companies that fall under its purview allow the installation of third-party apps and allow users to change default settings with ease. Interestingly, it also requires messaging apps to work together, putting up the possibility of popular messaging services such as WhatsApp, Signal, and others becoming interoperable.
Apple has spent years lobbying against sideloading and third-party apps with senior vice president Craig Federighi calling the practice a floodgate for malware last year and more recently, CEO Tim Cook lamented sideloading’s damage to digital privacy. The firm has apparently not yet decided on whether or not to comply with the EU law’s provision allowing developers to install in-app third-party payment systems, something the Cupertino-based company has famously fought against.
While no country or region outside the EU has yet to enact similar legislation, it is unlikely that the system overhaul would be limited to just Europe. On a related note, another EU legislation will force Apple to use USB-C on iPhones, which the company has confirmed. That being said, it remains to be seen if the shift will apply to Apple devices sold worldwide in the near future.
Apple is said to be releasing a new entry to its more occasional smartphone series, the iPhone SE, sometime in early 2022. According to Japanese blog Macotakara, the upcoming model will allegedly come with recent hardware for its core internals, but retains its predecessor’s overall design.
In regards to the latter, this means that the new SE will still sport the iPhone 8’s look once more. Therefore, it may also feature a 4.7-inch LCD display with large upper and lower bezels, a curved aluminium frame, and a single rear camera setup. Concurrently, this would see the return of the Touch ID-enabled Home Button below the phone’s screen as well.
As for hardware, Macotakara suggests the next-gen iPhone SE will be equipped with the 5G-enabled A15 chip – the same SoC that is featured in the brand’s current generation iPhone 13 series. Unfortunately, no information regarding its battery or its front and rear camera sensors were shared by the Apple-specialised Japanese blog. Lastly, it is said that the new SE will begin production this December, and is expected to be launched later in Spring 2022.
This actually isn’t the first time that Apple is rumoured to be releasing a follow-up model to its iPhone SE line-up. Back in June, reliable analyst Ming-Chi Kuo similarly suggested a new iteration of the phone with upgraded internals is currently in the works, and that it would also feature the same chassis as its predecessor. While the rumours are seemingly corroborating with each other, it is still worth reminding that both of which are unofficially sourced and may end up to be inaccurate in the end.
Phones of today have mostly adopted the increasingly universal, no pun intended, USB-C port. The iPhone is still the exception, despite so many previous reports of this changing. Someone probably had seen enough of such reports without any of them actually happening, and decided to do it himself.
The person in question is a Swiss Robotics Masters student Ken Pillonel. There have been two major attempts. The first was a rough prototype all the way back in May which had most of the modification sitting outside the iPhone. More recently, he has managed to squeeze all the changes into the phone itself, and the port can be used for both charging and data transfer.
While he never identified the specific iPhone that he is modifying, the process involved reverse-engineering a C94 Lightning connector. That and making his own PCB for the USB-C port. Pillonel has put up a short video showing it in action. And it’s very well done, as it looks very natural, despite the fact that it has a port that an iPhone shouldn’t have.
Pillonel also says that a longer video breaking down the process is on the way. But in the meantime, you can watch the short preview which Pillonel has posted on his YouTube channel.
iPhone owners using the latest iOS 15 update have reported issues of overheating and battery draining when running Spotify. According to a support thread on the music streaming service’s official forum that was created last week, dozens of users have been reporting the same issue with one user even claiming that the music app drains through 30-40% of their iPhone’s battery every hour.
Initially, the forum’s admins responded by continuously giving generic advice, such as removing and reinstalling the app and suggesting users to try disabling Background App Refresh for Spotify on their iPhone – all of which were ineffective. Spotify finally acknowledged the battery drain complaints on Monday, and stated that the relevant team is working on the issue.
Besides that, there are also reports of similar issues occurring on older versions of iOS, including 14.7 and 14.8. Some users reported that the app would crash whenever their iPhones were locked, while others said that they have uninstalled Spotify altogether as a result of overheating issues.
As of now, there’s no confirmation on whether this is a problem with iOS or Spotify. One of the affected iPhone owners said they’ve tried using an older version of the streaming app and concluded that these issues only occur on newer releases, though they did not specify which versions exactly.
Spotify recommends that users always keep their app up-to-date for the latest patches, but gave no definitive timeline on when this issue will be resolved. Apple is said to be releasing iOS 15.0.1 soon, which would hopefully shed some light on the matter.
Apple has been making iPhones that are ever increasing in size, in both their form factor as well as price tag. But things may be a little different next year. At least according to noted analyst of Apple products Ming-Chi Kuo.
In his latest investor note, Kuo says that in 2022 Apple will have four phones to announce. They come in two sizes, 6.1 and 6.7 inches. Each size will have two variants, one on the lower-end of things and another flagship model. He adds that one of the larger ones will represent “the lowest price ever for a large (6.7-inch) iPhone”.
Though as is usually the case, price is relative. And this is especially true when we’re talking about iPhones. Kuo’s estimate is that said lower-price 6.7-inch iPhone will be priced under US$900 (~RM3750). Comparatively speaking, sure, it’s a lower price than you’d expect from an iPhone these days. But ultimately it’s not really saying much.
Since Kuo only mentions these two sizes, it means that there will likely not be a mini model next year. Unsurprising, considering the company ended production of the iPhone 12 mini ahead of schedule due to poor sales.
Other details include the possibility of the 2022 iPhones to come with “under-display fingerprint support”. This would mark the return of Touch ID, which mostly went away to make way for Face ID. Kuo did make a similar prediction for this year’s iPhones back in 2019, but it remains to be seen if it will pan out the way he predicted.
Rumours of an iPhone generation featuring a display with 120Hz refresh rate started with the iPhone 12. That didn’t happen, as all four variants sport the standard 60Hz refresh rate displays. But that didn’t stop the rumour from resurfacing for this year’s model. Such displays have reportedly entered their production stage.
South Korean news outlet The Elec reports that Samsung and LG have both started the production of said display. The outlet’s sources claim that the former started production in the middle of the month. The latter, on the other hand, began production more recently.
Also included in the report is the fact that this production run started a month early compared to last year. Apple itself made the request to start production earlier. This could suggest that the iPhone maker intends to introduce this year’s phones a month earlier than it did in 2020, which was in October.
While the 120Hz display is the more recent of rumours surrounding this year’s iPhones, they are not the only one. Others, some dating all the way back to 2019, include the lack of a Lightning connector port, or just ports in general. Then there’s the alleged design leaks of a mini variant, which contradicts the one on portless design.
Who hasn’t heard of Clubhouse by now? The trendy social network for voice messaging is gaining unprecedented momentum, and competitors such as Twitter and Facebook promise to present their analogues as soon as possible.
But right now only owners of iOS devices have official access to this platform, just like when Instagram was first launched. However, if you like a challenge and don’t lack command line skills, you have the opportunity to join the Clubhouse right now.
How? Let’s figure it out
Unfortunately, it’s impossible to create an account without an iPhone. It’s easier to ask for an invite, and, having received a text message to your number, register online using a friend’s iOS app. Then you can exit the app and leave your friend in peace.
If this is problematic, you can use a service for testing iOS applications that provide a “virtual” iPhone for your needs, like BrowserStack, but such services aren’t usually free. For example, BrowserStack’s Desktop & Mobile package costs $39/month. Too much to our needs.
It is based on the hacked Clubhouse protocol and the author promises to remove the app after the official version for Android is released. For it to work, you need Python version 3.7 or higher. The application works on Windows and macOS.
First, as of February 19, 2021, the agora-python-sdk library compilation for Windows is broken, so instead of installing via pip, it’s better to build the project by hand. The tutorial is available here.
Secondly, for macOS, you need to give Terminal and Python access to Microphone and Accessibility. And also, you will probably need to change the key combination for the “raise your hands” command, since in macOS the module for binding hotkeys will not work properly. To do this, open cli.py in any editor and change:
if not channel_speaker_permission:
print("[*] Press [Ctrl+Shift+H] to raise your hands for the speaker permission.")
keyboard.add_hotkey(
"ctrl+shift+h",
_request_speaker_permission,
args=(client, channel_name, user_id)
)
to
if not channel_speaker_permission:
print("[*] Press [3] to raise your hands for the speaker permission.")
keyboard.add_hotkey(
"3",
_request_speaker_permission,
args=(client, channel_name, user_id)
)
Thirdly, on macOS, you will have to run apps via sudo:
sudo python3 cli.py
After launching, the app will ask you to specify the phone number and enter the authentication code, after which it will save the received token in settings.ini
This is how the program window looks like:
And here is a small video demonstrating the working app:
If 20 channels and 20 users in rooms is not enough for you, you can increase the limit by making changes to cli.py
Despite its expected Q4 launch window later this year, it is never too early for iPhone leaks. New information regarding Apple’s upcoming 2021 flagship model – which would unlikely be named as the “iPhone 13” because of obvious reasons – has surfaced online, thanks to leakster Max Weinbach via YouTuber EverythingApplePro.
This time around, it is said that the new handset would feature a battery-efficient LTPO (low-temperature polycrystalline oxide) display, with a high refresh rate of 120Hz – the highest ever featured on the company’s smartphone releases. An even more interesting tidbit from Weinbach revealed that this model may also be Apple’s first iPhone to come with an always-on display. This suggests that the upcoming model would be even more power conserving than its predecessors – something that cannot be proven accurate until we are able to test it out for ourselves, which is still a long way to go.
The always-on display feature has been a standard on most Android smartphones, and was already introduced on the company’s Apple Watch wearables starting with the Series 5. The leak detailed that notification bars and icons will be displayed for a limited amount of time on-screen when the phone is locked, while the battery and clock indicators would be visible throughout.
Weinbach added the 2021 iPhone would also feature upgraded cameras, but was not specific regarding their improvements. Instead, the leakster said that the handset would come with a better ultra-wide camera, automatic astrophotography, and a Galaxy S21-like portrait video mode. Other than that, he claims that the handset’s rear case would sport a grippier matte finish and the built-in MagSafe magnets are stronger too.
Keep in mind that the MagSafe feature on the current iPhone 12 models is known to cause interference with medical implants, as previously reported. Therefore, Apple’s precaution of keeping its iPhones away from these devices would still apply to the supposed upcoming models, given its increased magnet strength.
As a quick recap, earlier rumours of the 2021 iPhone specifications suggests a smaller notch on its display, and an in-display Touch ID feature – another purported first for Apple’s smartphones. Weinbach’s recent leak also corroborated on an earlier report claiming that the upcoming models would sport a similar design to last year’s iPhone 12 series, but with some minor tweaks.
As usual, we highly advise to take the provided information with a pinch of salt despite Weinbach and EverythingApplePro’s track record in regards to smartphone leaks. With the 2021 iPhone’s expected announcement still being far off, we can expect even more rumours and leaks to surface along the way.
The difference in look between iPhone generations has generally been small ever since the iPhone X. But going from iPhone 12 to 13, the difference looks to be even smaller.
Macotakara reports Apple will be keeping the the look of the iPhone 12 for the next batch of iPhones. The report cites supply line sources as saying it will continue to have four models, just like the current generation of devices. The four devices will also have the same height and width, but will see a thickness increase of 0.26mm.
Beyond that, the rear cameras of the iPhone 13 devices may also see some changes. The main one being sapphire glass going onto the whole camera bump. Specifically for the Pro and Pro Max versions, their camera bumps will have the same measurements in terms of size. This may suggest that the Pro model will be getting thesensor shifting stabilisationtech that is currently exclusive to the Pro Max.
In front, the report states that the notch on the iPhone 13 models will be thinner. This is due to the reduction in size of the TrueDepth camera.
The smaller notch and the posibility of the iPhone 13 Pro getting the same camera features as the Pro Max are good news, assuming they are true. But it will be awhile before we know for sure. For what it’s worth, Apple will probably announce this year’s batch of iPhones at around its usual September window. 9to5Mac also reports that analyst Ming-Chi Kuo predicts this year’s batch of iPhones to be available immediately after.
Several journalists seem to have fallen victim to a series of cyber-attacks. According to The Guardian, the attacks were part of an orchestrated digital espionage campaign that targetted the iPhones of 37 journalists, the majority of them working for Al-Jazeera.
Evidence of the cyber-attack were first discovered by the security group, Citizen Lab, who say that the hackers were using NSO Group software, which was developed by an Israeli firmware group, and known by its nickname, Kismet. In this instance, Kismet was used to exploit an iMessage vulnerability that was first discovered about a year ago, and employed no-click attacks. Rendering affected phone vulnerable and open to the hackers.
Even more interesting is that four members of the hacker group seem to have origins in two Gulf states: Saudia Arabia and the United Arab Emirate (UAE). The former having been suspected by one Al-Jazeera journalist, supposedly due to her fierce opinions on women’s rights in the country.
Despite the vulnerability, Citizen Lab did provide a silver lining of sorts; the security group said that Kismet only affected iPhones that aren’t running on iOS 14. In other words, if your phone is still running on iOS 13 or older, it’s probably about time you get your mobile device up to date.
Having torn down the threedifferent iPhones of the year, the folks at iFixit have finally done the same to the iPhone 12 Pro Max. And with this teardown, we get a look at the tech, and size, of its camera. Specifically, the very impressive sounding sensor-shift image stabilisation.
Despite sporting the same 12MP main camera, the one on the iPhone 12 Pro Max is about 47% larger than the base model. This is mainly down to the sensor shift image stabilisation tech. As mentioned during its launch, this tech allows the sensor itself to shift whenever your hands shake while taking shots. And as mentioned, this is usually tech found in modern DSLR and mirrorless cameras.
Another highlight here is the return of the L-shaped battery. While it’s something that has made appearances in previous models, it’s something not found in the other iPhones of the year. It’s also marginally smaller than last year’s Pro Max model’s battery.
All in all, the iPhone 12 Pro Max, like the other iPhones of the year, gets a reparability score of 6/10. It shares mostly the same pros and cons as the previous devices. And one key pro among them being modularity of components, leading to easier repairability. Not that you’d want anyone besides Apple itself to deal with that.
Having tore down the base iPhone 12 and the Pro model, iFixit has since broken down the mini variant. And this teardown reveals the components that Apple shrunk for it to fit in the much smaller frame.
To start, the display of the iPhone 12 mini is, obviously smaller than the base model. To recap, the base model came with a 6.1-inch 2532 × 1170 screen, the mini instead comes with a 5.4-inch 2340 x 1080 screen instead. In addition to that, the screen itself is connected with two display cables. This is opposed to three on the standard model.
The next component to be shrunk is the battery. The mini comes with a 8.57Wh battery, as compared to the 10.78Wh one in the base model. Beyond that, even the Taptic Engine is about 25% smaller. But despite the smaller size, it’s still fit “snugly”, leaving no space for anything else, like a 3.5mm audio jack.
As with the base iPhone 12, the mini variant also gets a 6/10 repairability score. Most of the positive, as well as negative, points from the base device applies here as well.
In case you missed our previous report, here is the pricing for all four new iPhone models:
iPhone 12 Series
iPhone 12 Mini 64GB: RM 3399
iPhone 12 Mini 128GB: RM 3599
iPhone 12 Mini 256GB: RM 4099
iPhone 12 64GB: RM 3899
iPhone 12 128GB: RM 4099
iPhone 12 256GB: RM 4599
iPhone 12 Pro Series
iPhone 12 Pro 128GB: RM4899
iPhone 12 Pro 256GB: RM5399
iPhone 12 Pro 512GB: RM6299
iPhone 12 Pro Max 128GB: RM5299
iPhone 12 Pro Max 256GB: RM5799
iPhone 12 Pro Max 512GB: RM6699
On a related note, Apple no longer provides a power adapter to the iPhone as part of the company’s effort to reduce its carbon footprint. If this is your first iPhone or you don’t have any USB-C chargers lying around and you want to obtain first-party power adapters, we have laid down the options that are available on Apple Malaysia’s store for you right here.
This also applies to those who want to obtain the MagSafe Charger or MagSafe Duo Charger for their new iPhone 12 and iPhone Pro 12 devices as the power adapter is also not included with these chargers.
The absence of the power adapter and Earpods inside the packaging for iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro devices has resulted in smaller boxes for them. In fact, some may find the boxes so compact that all four of them can be held with just one hand:
