iPhone

Supported iPhones in the US and Canada can now contact emergency services via satellite • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 15, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Emergency SOS, Hardware, iOS, iPhone, satelliteNo Comments

Months after it was announced at an event in September, Emergency SOS via satellite, Apple’s service for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro that uses satellite to route emergency calls, launched today. Supported iPhones in the U.S. and Canada updated with the latest iOS 16 can send an SOS even when they’re off the grid, no dish required, thanks to an upgraded wireless chipset and Apple’s partnership with satellite service provider Globalstar. Emergency SOS via satellite will expand to France, Germany, Ireland and the U.K. next month, Apple announced this morning. As my colleague Devin Coldewey noted in his coverage of Emergency SOS earlier this year, the service differs from the satellite-based data and text connectivity offered by Lynk and T-Mobile and Starlink. While those rely on cell towers strong enough to reach and receive a satellite signal, Emergency SOS — via Globalstar — uses bands that normally require a special antenna. It’s a costly venture. Apple recently pledged $450 million through its Advanced Manufacturing Fund toward expanding the infrastructure powering Emergency SOS, including the satellite network and ground stations. A part of the funding went toward installing custom-built antennas designed to receive signals transmitted by Globalstar’s satellite constellation. Testing Emergency SOS via satellite on an autumnal day in Prospect Park. One presumes that Apple intends to eventually recoup its investment. But for now, Emergency SOS is fee-free. Existing iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners won’t have to pay for at least two years from today, while new iPhone owners will receive free service for two years from when they activate their phones. On a drizzly Friday morning in Brooklyn’s Prospect Park, I — along with other reporters — had a chance to give Emergency SOS a test drive ahead of the launch. Apple spokespeople arranged for us to place calls to 911 using the service, albeit calls that weren’t actually routed to first responders. So how’s the experience? Pretty smooth, I must say. Emergency SOS can be activated either by dialing an emergency number or automatically through Siri or the crash detection feature on the newer iPhone and Apple Watch models and fall detection on the Apple Watch. (In non-emergencies, Emergency SOS can also be used to send your location to friends and family via the Find My app.) After dialing 911, once Emergency SOS detects that cell and Wi-Fi service is unavailable, a prompt appears to launch Emergency SOS via satellite. Image Credits: Apple While active, Emergency SOS prompts you to select one of several types of emergencies — e.g. illness, crime, physical injury — and provide details about the emergency, such as whether you’re struggling to breathe or have medication handy. If you’ve set up emergency contacts, you can choose to notify them along with emergency responders. At this stage, Emergency SOS will instruct you to point your phone at the nearest satellite, showing an animation that indicates when you’ve locked on to the signal. If you’re not in a position to do so — say, unconscious or incapacitated — Emergency SOS will, where cellular and Wi-Fi aren’t available, attempt a satellite connection even if there isn’t a clear view. In my tests, Emergency SOS reliably found a signal through the thick tree branches in Prospect Park. The time to lock on varied from just a few seconds to as long as 10, though Apple says that lock-on success will depend on a number of factors, including the weather and obstructions in the way of the antenna. Like most satellite-based services, Emergency SOS doesn’t work indoors. Image Credits: Apple Apple also notes in a support page that mountains, steep hills and canyons can block Emergency SOS via satellite’s connection. But Prospect Park is devoid of these, so I wasn’t able to truly put Emergency SOS through its paces. Alas. Post-connection, Emergency SOS texts the answers to the aforementioned questions along with your phone’s battery life, location (including elevation) and — if you’ve entered it beforehand — basic medical information to either a public safety answering point (the local call center where emergency calls usually end up) or an Apple-operated emergency relay center. Which party receives the satellite-bound texts depends on whether the nearest public safety answering point supports text to 911. If it doesn’t, staffers in the emergency relay center will communicate the info to an emergency responder via voice, acting as intermediaries. Follow-up Emergency SOS texting happens in iMessage, where responders can ask about your specific location and current status. A notification shows the sending progress of each message; send times can range from a few seconds to up to around a minute for weaker signals. Image Credits: Apple It’s worth noting that Emergency SOS via satellite, as it currently exists, has a number of limitations. It’s only available in English, Spanish and French in Canada and the U.S., as mentioned — excluding Guam and American Samoa. It might not work in places above 62° latitude, such as northern parts of Canada and Alaska. And international travelers who purchased iPhones in mainland China, Hong Kong or Macao can’t use it. But it’s safe to assume we’ll see Emergency SOS via satellite evolve in the coming months to years, particularly if it someday gains a premium component — or Apple Watch support.

Apple pledges $450M toward expanding the satellite infrastructure powering Emergency SOS • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on November 10, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Hardware, infrastructure, iOS, iPhone, satelliteNo Comments

As a part of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, Apple will invest $450 million in satellite network and ground stations to power Emergency SOS, its service for the iPhone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro lineups that uses satellite to route emergency calls, the company announced today. The majority of the funding will go to Globalstar, the satellite provider with which Apple has an existing partnership to deliver Emergency SOS when it launches later this month. In part, Apple’s capital infusion will fund the installation of new custom-designed antennas manufactured by California-based company Cobham Satcom. Designed to receive signals transmitted by Globalstar’s satellite constellation, the antennas have already be installed in the satellite provider’s existing ground stations including facilities in Nevada, Hawaii, Texas, Alaska, Florida and Puerto Rico. “The launch of Emergency SOS via satellite direct to iPhone is a generational advancement in satellite communications, and we are proud that Globalstar’s satellites and spectrum assets will play a central role in saving lives,” Globalstart executive chairman Jay Monroe said in a statement. “With Apple’s infrastructure investment, we’ve grown our teams in California and elsewhere to construct, expand, and upgrade our ground stations, and we look forward to the next chapter in Globalstar’s lifesaving technology.” As CNBC notes, Apple’s investment — one of the largest to date out of its Advanced Manufacturing Fund, through which the company has furnished U.S.-based suppliers including Corning, Finisar, XPO Logistics and Copan Diagnostics with over $1.4 billion dollars combined — underscores the costly nature of satellite-based communications. In addition to substantial technical and communications infrastructure, Emergency SOS requires human-staffed call centers. Apple says that over 300 Globalstar employees will work on the service. Emergency SOS doesn’t support ordinary data, voice or text. But it alerts emergency services with a location and other key information. Once users point their phone at a satellite using an orientation guide in iOS, they can choose between preset messages to be sent along with the phone’s battery level and medical info to local EMS. If supported in the region where the emergency call is placed, iPhone users can have a two-way conversation with first responders. If not, Emergency SOS will route communications through Apple-operated local relay stations that act as intermediaries with emergency services. Emergency SOS will remain free for two years to Phone 14 and iPhone 14 Pro owners when it goes live in late November in the U.S. and Canada. But Apple has left open the possibility of charging for it after that.

Apple earnings see iPhone revenues up, still short of forecast • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, earnings, Hardware, iPad, iPhoneNo Comments

Sometimes earnings leave you wondering how good is good enough. Take, for example, Apple’s Q4, which finds the iPhone maker beating Wall Street expectations overall, but still seeing an extended trading stock dip after iPhone sales were improved, but still managed to miss the mark. Revenue hit $90.15 billion for the quarter, edging out the $88.9 billion estimates and rising roughly 8% over this time last year. iPhone revenue, too, saw a healthy uptick of 9.6% on the strength of the new iPhone lineup, though the $42.63 figure fell short of Wall Street’s $43.21 project enough to see a dip in late trading. Mac revenues saw double-digit revenue gains for the quarter, at $11.51 billion. The ever-important Services sector, meanwhile, saw a (relatively) modest y-o-y bump to $19.19 billion – making it another category that just failed to miss the mark of $20.10 billion. iPads, which only recently saw a refresh, were down 13% from last year. The numbers, of course, arrive in the face of significant economic headwinds. In a release, CFO Luca Maestri notes, “Our record September quarter results continue to demonstrate our ability to execute effectively in spite of a challenging and volatile macroeconomic backdrop.” Tim Cook, meanwhile, used the opportunity to discuss environment concerns. In a separate interview with CNBC, however, Apple’s CEO addressed inflationary and other issues that stalled a potentially larger overall revenue growth for the behemoth. Cook expained, “We would have grown in double digits without the foreign exchange headwinds.” Specifically, the company was hurt by the US dollar’s strength. He added that the company has joined a number of other tech giants in slowing its overall pace of hiring, saying that Apple is instead doing so “deliberately.”

China’s smartphone shipments slumped 23% in Jan-Aug • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 27, 2022Posted in Apple, China, chips, Gadgets, Hardware, Huawei, iPhone, oppo, Phone, semiconductors, shipment, XiaomiNo Comments

Smartphone shipment is often seen as the bellwether of China’s consumer spending, and right now, the picture isn’t very rosy. The world’s largest market for smartphones shipped 175.1 million handsets between January and August, marking a sharp 22.9% decline year-over-year, according to research from a state-backed institution. In August alone, shipments dropped 21.9% year-over-year. The global smartphone market as a whole is experiencing a slowdown, logging a 9% decline in the second quarter due to a mix of challenges including a COVID-struck economy, inflation, and deceleration following years of frantic growth. China’s growing consumer appetite obviously played a big part in driving the boom, and now that the world’s second-largest economy is hitting a speed bump, the smartphone industry is inevitably taking a hit. The era of economic miracles is coming to a close in China. On Monday, official data reported a 3.9% GDP growth rate from July to September, which beat forecasts but was way below the double digits that propelled the country’s economy forward for three decades. China is not only the world’s largest market for hanset users but is also its largest phone producer, with home-grown brands like Huawei, Oppo, Vivo, and Xiaomi rising over the years to rival Apple and Samsung. These domestic phone markers began seeking overseas expansion well before their home market start cooling down. And they’ve successfully carved out their international market share and have in recent years consistently shared the top five spots alongside Apple and Samsung. The smartphone industry is notoriously cut-throat with modest margins, so it wasn’t unsurprising when Xiaomi and Oppo, which are long known for selling budget phones, started offering higher-end models in recent years. Huawei established a strong presence in the premium handset space before the U.S. cut off its supply of critical chipsets and key Android services. Having seen how overdependence on advanced U.S. technologies and geopolitical tensions has wrecked Huawei’s revenues, Oppo and the likes are rushing to work on their own smartphone processors. The need for Chinese firms to have their own high-end chips is getting dire as the Biden administration hit China with possibly the strictest export controls earlier this month. Analysts are still parsing the impact of the policy, but initial observation shows that the new rules will not only restrict Chinese companies’ access to high-end U.S. chips but will also bar their access to chip-making equipment, which will hobble the country’s ability to develop such advanced technologies.

Apple exec says future iPhones will comply with EU’s USB-C mandate • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 26, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, Hardware, iPhone, USB-CNo Comments

There has been a lot of consumer demand and regulatory push on Apple to change the iPhone’s charging port from the lightning connector to USB-C. Earlier this month, the European Parliament voted in favor of the legislation that mandated phonemakers to adopt USB-C connectors from 2024 — increasing pressure on the tech giant to make the switch. Greg Joswiak, Apple’s senior Vice President of marketing, confirmed on Tuesday that the company will comply with EU’s ruling, but stopped short of sharing any other detail. Speaking at Wall Street Journal’s WSJ Tech Live event, Joswiak didn’t seem pleased with how governments across the world are approaching this issue. A decade ago when the EU was pushing for micro USB connectors the firm had a disagreement with them, he said. While the regulatory body’s aim was to reduce the type of power adaptors consumers were using to make it easier on them, Apple approached the problem differently, he mentioned. Apple debuted the lightning connector almost 10 years ago and it has been the primary connector for many devices including the iPhone, the iPad, and Airpods. Over the last couple of years, Apple has launched iPads using USB-C as the primary connector — including the latest baseline iPad. “…we got to a better place which is power adapters with detachable cables. All of them being USB-A or USB-C and you choose the cable which is appropriate for your device. That allowed over a billion people to have that (lightning) connector and to be able to use what they have already and not be disrupted and cause a bunch of e-waste,” Joswiak said. The EU is not the only region pushing for a common charger for mobile phones. In June, Democratic senators including Bernie Sanders, Elizabeth Warren, and Ed Markey sent an open letter to Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo pushing the US to follow the EU’s steps. Other countries like Brazil and India are considering a common connector rule.

PayPal rolls out support for passkeys on Apple devices • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 24, 2022Posted in Apple, Apps, iPad, iPhone, mac, PayPal, SecurityNo Comments

PayPal is making it easier to log in to its services — if you’re an Apple device user, that is. The payments giant today announced that it’s adding passkeys as a log in method for PayPal accounts, allowing iPhone, iPad and Mac users on PayPal.com to sign in without using a password. Passkeys are a relatively new industry standard created by the FIDO Alliance and the World Wide Web Consortium — in partnership with Apple, Google and Microsoft — that are designed to replace passwords with bits of data called cryptographic key pairs. (To make matters somewhat confusing, Apple announced its own version of the passkey standard called Passkey in June.) The pairs consist of a public key stored in the cloud and a private key stored locally on users’ devices, separated to ensure that a compromised server won’t give an attacker access to account credentials. Passkeys have the added benefit of supporting a range of authentication techniques including fingerprint scanning, face recognition, PIN codes and even swipe patterns. One downside is that, because passkeys reside on local devices, it can be harder to log into an app or service with them if you’re using someone else’s phone or laptop. But in this way, passkeys are undeniably more secure than your typical password. Image Credits: PayPal With PayPal, Apple device users running iOS 16, iPadOS 16.1 or macOS Ventura can create a passkey by logging into the PayPal website on desktop or mobile, typing their username and password and selecting the “Create a passkey” option. They’ll be prompted to authenticate with Apple Face ID or Touch ID to create the passkey, which will then be synced with Apple’s iCloud Keychain service. Users with devices that don’t support passkeys can still tap an iPhone to log in with a PayPal passkey, but they’ll have to scan a QR code that appears after they enter their username. PayPal passkeys begin rolling out today for users in the U.S. Passkeys will become available in additional countries starting early in 2023, PayPal says, and on platforms beyond iOS, iPadOS and macOS “as they add support for passkeys.”

Belkin’s $30 Continuity Camera accessory is now available for MagSafe iPhones • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 18, 2022Posted in Belkin, Continuity Camera, Gadgets, Hardware, iPhone, macos, magsafeNo Comments

Continuity Camera was one of the odder additions that arrived in the last round of Apple operating system updates. It seemed like an awkward fix to a longstanding issue with Mac webcams, clipping your iPhone to the top of your laptop lid, but I’ve come to appreciate it in my recent travels. Today, Belkin announced the availability of the first official Continuity Camera solution, the memorably named Belkin iPhone Mount with MagSafe. This was the accessory Apple teased all the way back at WWDC this summer. It’s effectively a silicone circle with MagSafe magnets in the rear. Image Credits: Brian Heater That snaps onto the back of the iPhone, and the small retractable lip goes over the top of the screen. It’s intended to be used with the rear-facing cameras facing toward you — in fact, without that in place, you may have trouble firing up the feature at all. That big metal ring that looks like a soda can pop-top, on the other hand, isn’t actually connected to the feature. Instead, it’s intended for the rest of the time. The idea is you can keep it on the back of the phone and stick your finger through the loop for a better grip. The magnet certainly seems strong enough. There are two versions of the accessory, including a larger one designed specifically for desktops – that one is currently listed as “coming soon.” The difference owes to the thick of the larger displays. Unfortunately that means you won’t be able to use the models interchangeably. Image Credits: Brian Heater Belkin sent me a demo unit around the time of my first macOS Ventura writeup and the final model arrived just as I was leaving for Disrupt, so I plan to put it through its paces this week with all of the conference calls I’m going to have to jump on in the greenroom (sorry everyone else). The iPhone 14 Pro’s camera beats the latest Mac Air’s by a mile. Honestly, it isn’t even close. Obviously, best case scenario is just better webcams built into the systems themselves, but this certainly works in a pinch, especially when on the road. My biggest issue at the moment has less to do with accessory than the implementation of Continuity Camera. Specifically, the iPhone 14 Pro is heavy — and the Pro Plus even more so. The new MacBook Air’s hinge, meanwhile, doesn’t appear to have been specifically developed with this capability in mind. That means that, unless the lid is at or near a 90-degree angle, the screen has a tendency to start lowering under the weight. Something to keep in mind.

Living with Apple’s iPhone 14 Plus • ZebethMedia

By zebethcontrolPosted on October 10, 2022Posted in Apple, Gadgets, Hardware, iPhone, iphone 14, iPhone 14 PlusNo Comments

What constitutes a big phone in 2022? It’s been a moving target for a number of years now — albeit a target that has been steadily moving in a single direction. It’s tough to determine the exact average display size, but most flagship smartphone screens generally fall somewhere between six and seven inches. In 2010, Steve Jobs famously touted four inches as the ideal screen size. “You can’t get your hand around it,” he noted as Android phones were slowly creeping up in size. “No one’s going to buy that.” The following year, Samsung released the first Galaxy Note. The 5.3-inch display elicited downright disgust from some. The first phablet of note was simply too big for pockets and hands. The intervening decade has rendered those comments quaint. Technology has a way of doing that. Fast-forward to 2022, and the four new versions of the iPhone 14 come in two sizes: 6.1- and 6.7 inches. Plenty of things have transpired to get us here, not the least of which is a dramatic gain in the screen-to-body ratio. As displays have gotten larger, the overall footprint required to support them has shrunk. I’ve been using the regular iPhone 14 as my primary device for the last few weeks. I can’t quite wrap my hand completely around it, but close enough. More important is the fact that it’s easy to use with one hand. We’ve come a long way since the days of a 5.3-inch phone seeming almost impossibly large. Image Credits: Brian Heater For my own daily use, I’ve come to really appreciate 6.1 inches as a sweet spot. It’s a good size screen in a hardware footprint that isn’t overwhelming. As ever, your mileage may vary. Some folks were understandably disappointed when the iPhone 14 lineup effectively marked the death of the Mini. Wanting a smaller phone is perfectly reasonable, and for now the SE will have to fill that role. As you’ve no doubt surmised from reading this, I’ve since switched to the 14 Plus for daily use. Right off the bat I will say that I cannot, in fact, wrap my hand around it. Using it in one hand is a bit more of a mixed bag. With face unlock enabled, there are certain actions that are perfectly possible to execute in this manner: checking emails, doomscrolling through social media — basically the things many of us spend most of our time doing on our phones. If you want to, say, respond to an email, on the other hand, things get more complicated. I can generally contort to select the specific message, but hitting Replay in Gmail and typing are going to require both hands. If you’re deep into the world of voice computing, perhaps you’ve got a workaround that works for you. As with all things in life, there’s a trade-off here. I do quite like the 6.7-inch size for things like video. It’s also nice having all that screen as a viewfinder while taking pictures. I ended up moderating a panel at a Brooklyn bookstore earlier this week, and it’s a great size to serve as a kind of makeshift teleprompter. Granted, that’s a fairly niche need, but moving from 6.1 to 6.7 inches, those sorts of advantages start to make themselves known fairly quickly. Beyond screen size, the biggest advantage to opting for the Plus over the standard 14 is battery. The Plus is rated at 26 hours of video playback versus the 14’s 20 hours. In practical terms for me, that meant I went to bed at around 50% battery and woke up around 37%. You should be able to make it through a full 24 hours without an issue. There’s a nice peace of mind in not having to worry about finding a charger during the day. We’re not talking an Apple Watch Series 8 to Ultra-sized jump here, but there’s a lot to be said for not having to worry about having a phone die on you when you’re out in the world. The 14 Plus sits in an interesting kind of liminal space in the iPhone line. It’s the entry-level model, and it’s not the most premium. It’s closer to the former, and similar in practically every respect aside from size. Interestingly, it’s actually lighter than the smaller 14 Pro. That’s something I noticed almost immediately, having been using the Pro a bit, as well. That’s certainly of note for a large phone like this. At $899, it’s also $100 cheaper than the Pro and $200 less than the Pro Max. Image Credits: Brian Heater The 14 is the device you get when you want a new iPhone, but don’t need all the latest bells and whistles. The 14 Pro sits on the bleeding edge of iPhone technology. The 14 Pro Max is a kitchen sink device. The Plus is for the person who prefers the larger screen, but doesn’t require all of the aforementioned frills. The surefire way to figure out which is right for you is to try them on for size at a local brick and mortar. I’d say the regular 14 makes the most sense for the most users. Upgrade to the Pro if you want better photos and a faster chip (and/or are generally dazzled by everything the Dynamic Island has to offer). If screen size is your chief concern, however, that 0.6 inches makes a lot of difference.