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Apple's iPhone 8 should accompany one component that other top of the line contenders couldn't coordinate. Yet, now that is purportedly been retired.
Credit: Benjamin Geskin
The tech monster has rejected plans to incorporate a unique mark sensor into the iPhone 8's show, KGI Securities investigator Ming-Chi Kuo told financial specialists in a note on Monday (July 3), which was prior written about by 9to5Mac. Apple will even now utilize a virtual home catch, however will clearly move the unique finger impression sensor to another area on the gadget.
Apple's iPhone 8 has been reputed for a considerable length of time to be shipping with a Touch ID unique mark sensor prepared into the screen. It would have turned into the main real handset to offer the element, and would have separated the iPhone 8 from Samsung's System S8, which has a unique mark sensor on the back of the gadget appropriate beside the camera.
MORE: iPhone 8 Bits of gossip: What's in store from the tenth Commemoration iPhone
Kuo didn't state in his note to financial specialists why Apple has ruled against the component. In any case, Samsung, which had attempted to package it in the System S8 and clearly in the current year's Cosmic system Note 8, told columnists not long ago that screen-based unique mark sensors still experience the ill effects of specialized and security issues. It's conceivable Apple found the same in its own particular testing.
In any case, Kuo said that Apple is pushing forward with its iPhone 8 configuration designs. The organization's handset will have a screen that almost altogether covers the face and a little zone at the top, which Kuo calls an "indent," that will house the cell phone's earpiece and front-confronting camera. The iPhone 8's screen will gauge 5.8 inches and will have the most astounding screen-to-confront proportion of any cell phone available, as per Kuo.
In any case, it's the handset's absence of a unique finger impression sensor prepared into the screen that could demonstrate generally vexing. Each iPhone hole and rendering demonstrates a gadget that doesn't have a space for a physical unique mark sensor. In the event that Apple has ruled against the virtual sensor, it's conceivable Apple will include a region for it the back of the handset. There's additionally a probability Apple could prepare the element into one of the cell phone's physical catches if a current patent recording is any sign.
Apple is allegedly advancing with a September dispatch occasion, where it will uncover both the iPhone 8 and the iterative updates to the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Or more, as per Kuo. In any case, he said that the iPhone 8 will probably dispatch after alternate models and could experience the ill effects of supply issues into 2018.
Scientist claims to have found hidden image under Mona Lisa
Scientist claims to have found hidden image under Mona Lisa
A French scientist claims to have discovered a hidden image under the Mona Lisa, adding further mystery to the enigmatic Da Vinci masterpiece.
Pascal Cotte has spent 10 years analysing the painting and made the discovery by using a multispectral camera which projects a series of intense lights onto the canvas, BBC News reports.
“We can now analyse exactly what is happening inside the layers of the paint and we can peel like an onion all the layers of the painting. We can reconstruct all the chronology of the creation of the painting,” Mr Cotte said.
He said that an earlier portrait of another woman sitting lies hidden beneath the surface of perhaps the most famous painting in the world.
Unlike the Mona Lisa, with its trademark gaze that appears to follow viewers wherever they move, the new image shows a woman staring off to the side.
Mr Cotte said the woman underneath does not appear to be Lisa Gherardini, the wife of a Florentine silk merchant, who is widely believed to be the woman in the 16th century painting.
The image on the left is a digital reconstruction of what what is claimed to be behind the Mona Lisa. (Photo: Brinkworth Films)
The scientist said his work shatters “many myths” about the Mona Lisa and will change the way the painting is viewed forever.
“When I finished the reconstruction of Lisa Gherardini, I was in front of the portrait and she is totally different to Mona Lisa today,” he said.
“This is not the same woman.”.
However, many art experts reject Mr Cotte’s findings.
The BBC’s Arts Editor Will Gompertz said it was “perfectly common” for artists to paint over an image, often to accommodate client’s requests for changes.
The Mona Lisa. (AAP)
He said Mr Cotte’s work is “open to interpretation” and “needs to be analysed and corroborated by the academic and curatorial community, and not just an individual”.
The Louvre Museum has declined to comment on Mr Cotte’s claims
A new material is so black scientists can’t even measure it
A new material is so black scientists can’t even measure it
British company Surrey NanoSystems has outdone itself.
Researchers there made the blackest material ever back in 2014, called Vantablack, and now they’ve made a material that’s even blacker.
In a YouTube video the researchers posted March 4 (and we found via ScienceAlert), they run a red laser across the solid material to show just how black it is.
You can see how the material absorbs almost all of the light, reflecting nothing detectable back to our eyes:
They make Vantablack by tightly packing carbon nanotubes — rods of carbon that are much, much thinner than any human hair — so close together that light gets trapped inside, ScienceAlert reports.
Researchers say their new material is so black that even their spectrometers (machines that record colors and light) can’t measure its darkness. It’s likely higher than the original Vantablack, which could absorbed 99.96% of the light that hit it.
To be clear, Vantablack isn’t paint and is unlikely to be as durable, too. Even a little bit of water can mess up other ultra-black materials made of nanomaterials — though the original Vantablack seems to hold up pretty well to dunking in water as well as liquid nitrogen.
Surrey NanoSystems isn’t just making blacker and blacker materials to set records. They’ve tested Vantablack to see if it could withstand going into space. There, it could be used to calibrate NASA’s powerful cameras to take more accurate photos of our universe. (Artists are also interested in using the black material.)
Maybe the blackest material could help us see through the darkness.
Watch the company’s video below:
Egypt says scan of King Tut’s burial tomb shows hidden rooms
Egypt says scan of King Tut’s burial tomb shows hidden rooms
SCANS of King Tut’s burial chamber have confirmed two hidden rooms, Egypt’s antiquities minister announced overnight — a discovery that could intensify speculation that the chambers contain the remains of the famed Queen Nefertiti.
Mamdouh el-Damaty told reporters that the secret chambers may contain metal or organic material, but he declined to comment on whether royal treasure or mummies could be inside.
Analysis of the ground-penetrating radar scans made by a Japanese team showed chambers that would be scanned again at the end of the month to get a better idea of what may lay inside, he said.
“It means a rediscovery of Tutankhamun … for Egypt it is a very big discovery, it could be the discovery of the century,” el-Damaty said.
“It is very important for Egyptian history and for all of the world.”
The raw data from the scan of the walls in Tutankhamun’s burial chamber, above, with a diagram showing the extrapolated locations of organic and metallic materials. Source: Egypt’s antiquities ministry
El-Damaty said it was too early to tell what the metal and organic material could be, saying only that he thinks the new chambers could contain the tomb of a member of Tutankhamun’s family.
At the Cairo news conference, el-Damaty highlighted radar scans that showed anomalies in the walls of the tomb, indicating a possible hidden door and the chambers, which lay behind walls that were covered up and painted over with hieroglyphics.
“We can say more than 90 percent that the chambers are there,” said Mamdouh Eldamaty, an egyptologist who is the country’s antiquities minister.
“But I never start the next step until I’m 100 percent.”
3D scanning Tut’s tomb
British Egyptologist Nicholas Reeves speculates that Tutankhamun, who died at the age of 19, may have been rushed into an outer chamber of what was originally Nefertiti’s tomb, which archaeologists have yet to find.
Reeves reached his theory after high-resolution images discovered what he said were straight lines in King Tut’s tomb. These lines, previously hidden by colour and the stones’ texture, indicate the presence of a sealed chamber, he said. The images were broadcast live on national television last September.
The golden sarcophagus of King Tutankhamun in his burial chamber at the Valley of the Kings. Radar scans of the tomb have revealed two previously undiscovered chambers, possibly containing organic material.
The discovery could shine new light on one of ancient Egypt’s most turbulent times, and one prominent researcher has theorised that the heretic queen Nefertiti’s remains could be inside.
The tomb lies in Luxor, in southern Egypt, which served as the Pharaonic capital in ancient times, and is home to sprawling temples and several highly decorated ancient tombs in the Valley of the Kings.
The discovery of King Tut’s nearly-intact tomb by Howard Carter in 1922 sparked a renewed interest in Egyptology and yielded unprecedented Pharaonic treasures, including the boy king’s sarcophagus and iconic golden burial mask.
Famed for her beauty, Nefertiti was the subject of a famous 3300-year-old bust. She was the chief wife of Tutankhamun’s father, the heretic Pharaoh Akhenaten, who attempted to impose a monotheistic religion upon his kingdom.
Akhenaten was succeeded by a pharaoh referred to as Smenkhare and then Tut, who was proved by genetic testing to have been Akhenaten’s son.
Tut, Nefertiti, and Akhenaten’s family ruled Egypt during one of its most turbulent times, which ended with a military takeover by Egypt’s top general at the time, Horemheb. The family’s names were later erased from official records.
This week, at the 2016 Game Developers Conference, we saw a lot of games. Some we recognized, some felt familiar, and some were unlike anything we'd seen before. Across all consoles and even virtual reality, we found a handful of experiences that we know you haven't heard of, but that we think are cool. Here are our 8 favorites.
CANDLE MAN, BY SPOTLIGHTER
Beijing-based developer Spotlighter's Candle Man isn't just a platformer. It's a beautiful, finely-tuned death trap. You play as a tiny ambulatory candle, running through mazes lighting other candles along the way. As you light each candle and burn away wax, you become increasingly smaller--but the smaller you are, the higher you can jump, granting you access to more harder-to-reach places. Every level begins in total darkness and will frequently revert back to it; lighting others candles illuminates pathways hidden in the gloom--as well as potential traps, like poisonous flowers, spikes, and bottomless pits.
Some levels are straightforward: run and jump through a mix of deadly flowers or wooden beams, lighting candles and searching for the exit. Others require you to briefly flash your candle at the right moments to make bridges appear over a dark abyss. Some require you to watch carefully for the shadows of invisible bricks and trust you won't fall as you run across bottomless spaces. Sometimes flickering, sluggish white ghosts chase the little Candle Man, their touch an instant game over.
But according to producer Gao Ming, there's more to Candle Man than just platforming. Candle Man is a game about knowing your limitations, and being at peace with them. The limited range of movement--running and jumping--and the finite amount of energy from your ever-melting wax castle are a metaphor for learning to work with what you have, powering through and achieving your goals without straining yourself irreparably. With this message in the back of your mind, Candle Man becomes an intriguing little game indeed.
TO AZIMUTH, BY BRACKET GAMES
Developer Zach Sanford is working on his point-and-click inspired adventure To Azimuth on his own, with his brother composing the somber music. The overall tone is exceedingly somber: colors are muted and lean towards warm, dark reds, browns and black. The music is soft and melancholy, a scatter of notes that lull you into an uneasy calm. And the premise is also black, as you explore the tiny world of a family who have lost one of their own--possibly to alien abduction.
Sanford says the game is somewhat inspired by five-act adventure game Kentucky Route Zero, but a majority of it comes from his upbringing in rural Alabama. To Azimuth explores his own childhood obsession with the search for aliens--he recalls clicking through Yahoo Geocities pages at all hours of the night, following conspiracy theories--as well as themes of crippling anxiety and PTSD. The characters in To Azimuth are harshly drawn, the angles sharp on their long limbs and their faces featureless, and speak harshly to one another, bickering about better times and events out of their control. It's a sobering experience, with a tense emotional uncurrent that you can't help but want to follow.
PERCEPTION, BY THE DEEP END GAMES
Developed by former Bioshock and Bioshock Infinite lead designer Bill Gardner, Perception takes horror games' tendency to fray one's nerves and goes a step further. You play as a blind woman who has accidentally stumbled into a time-traveling adventure, guiding her through a mystery to unravel a series of odd events. She navigates by echolocation; tapping her cane on the ground produces a sound that bounces off the walls and objects in the room, illuminating the area immediately surrounding you.
But Perception dissuades you from continuously tapping by adding an ever-watching predator who is hypersensitive to your noise: The Presence. The Presence lives in the house she is exploring, haunting rooms and at first manifesting as a roaring fire in a fireplace or a string of electricity blocking a stairwell. At times you'll round a corner, tap the cane, and run smack into a spider. Other times the reverberating sound of a ticking clock or music box will guide you into another room. And sometimes you're totally out of luck, and The Presence--we won't spoil what it is here--will come after you.
There are no traditional jump scares in Perception, but you'll find yourself expecting one because of its atmosphere. Tension mounts as you tap away, trying to find your way through the pitch darkness. A low, seething soundtrack adds to the intense journey through the house, and you're always nervous something is waiting to jump out at you. It's a horror game that drags out the anxiety in terrible, smart ways, making it something horror fans will want to try--as well as maybe players who aren't quite ready to dive into something more illuminated.
HER MAJESTY'S SPIFFING: THE EMPIRE STAGGERS BACK, BY BILLYGOAT ENTERTAINMENT
Those who love narrative-based adventures like Telltale Games' fare will feel at home with Her Majesty's Spiffing. The premise: the Queen of England wants to expand the British Empire--again--but the world isn't interested in joining and the once-affected nations are not keen on seeing it happen again. So the Queen looks in the only direction she can: space.
In this comedic tale--with some very cheeky writing loaded with British-isms--you control Captain Frank Lee English on his quest to the stars alongside his young assistant, Aled. On his quest for a galactic British Empire, English will have to solve problems you encounter in most 3D point-and-click adventures: repairing broken things, finding batteries for a controller, and engaging in personable banter with those around you. It plays like what we've come to expect from a Telltale game, but the art style is more cartoony. Light and dark throw sheen and shade over English and Aled and the rooms in their spaceship, making it look like something pulled right out of a Pixar film. While we've only seen a brief bit of the game, the dialogue we did run through was clever, with a jovial tone overall. In a market someone lacking in variation for these adventures, a space-faring conquest sounds like a great new twist.
EVERSPACE, BY ROCKFISH GAMES
Permadeath and procedurally generated levels have enjoyed a powerful resurgence in recent years, but not many Rogue-likes look or play like Everspace. Pitched as a cross between Freelancer and Faster Than Light, Everspace drops you in the cockpit of an upgradeable, spacefaring fighter vessel and directs you through a series of randomly assembled “sectors.” It’s unclear what awaits you at the end, but along the way, you’ll need to acquire fuel and fend off attackers. To that end, you actually have a few options: you can locate and mine specific asteroids for resources, trade with various named characters for fuel and components, or just blow up any bases you discover and steal what’s left.
Regardless of which approach you utilize most, you’ll inevitably engage in fast-paced, flight sim-esque dogfights, using missiles, guns, and upgrades like cloaking devices and shields to dominate opposing ships. Unfortunately, if you fail, it’s back to sector one--though you will retain any upgrade blueprints you’ve found up that point. You’ll also be armed with some additional knowledge. Every time you die, you’ll see a new flashback that reveals another slice of your character’s backstory, which (somewhat sadistically) turns death into a storytelling mechanic. And even though each sector’s composition changes on subsequent playthroughs, characters remain consistent. If a trader turned out to be a traitor last time, you know better than to trust them again.
Everspace faces stiff competition from the likes of EVE Valkyrie, No Man’s Sky, and Elite: Dangerous, but its Rogue-like structure might allow the game to carve out a space of its own when it launches this winter.
THE TURING TEST, BY BULKHEAD INTERACTIVE
GLaDOS was a real jerk. Just flat-out mean. So imagine if her soothing voice had been a source of comfort rather than ridicule. This is, in part, the approach first-person puzzler The Turing Test takes. Like Portal, it challenges you to make your way through a series of rooms by solving deceptively simple puzzles using a gun-like device while a seemingly omniscient AI comments on your progress. Unlike GLaDOS, though, Turing Test’s AI Tom seems...friendly. At least for now. His commentary guides International Space Agency engineer Ava as she reactives a dormant base on Jupiter’s frigid moon Europa.
The base has clearly been abandoned for some time, leaving Ava to restore power by, well, solving puzzles. The game gives you a simple tool--in this case, the aptly named Energy Manipulation Tool--and challenges you with increasingly complex tasks. The simplest room requires you to transfer power from one node to another by grabbing the energy source with your gun and firing it into the appropriate slot, but as you progress, you’ll have to figure out how to, for example, grab some glowing blue energy without trapping yourself in a room when the automated door loses power.
While these puzzles comprise the bulk of the gameplay, Turing Test also contains deep, ambient storytelling in the style of Gone Home. As Ava dives deeper into the base, she’ll discover emails, audio logs, and personal effects left behind by the previous crew. According to the developers, these items and the sometimes tragic tale they tell create a somber atmosphere that compliments Ava’s loneliness while also driving the experience forward. Perhaps we’ll find out if her isolation is part of the titular test when the game launches this August.
DELIVER US THE MOON, BY KEOKEN INTERACTIVE
Although it involves wandering through the corridors of a space station with a floating robot companion, Deliver Us the Moon is not a light-hearted action game. From the opening moments where you fire up a realistic launch sequence for your shuttle to the moon to your race for an oxygen tank refill buried in the remains of a shattered walkway, Deliver Us the Moon feels like a game that's trying to channel the solitude, glory, and horror of being trapped in space.
The early in development build we played at a GDC Xbox One event only showed a small portion of what the game has in store, but it's an experience that channels Interstellar, 2001: A Space Odyssey, and Moon. Quiet, deliberate, and focused on promoting the science of space over the thrills of blowing up aliens, we can't wait to get lost (and hopefully found) on this Moon.
MANUAL SAMUEL, BY CURVE DIGITAL/PERFECTLY PARANORMAL
Manual Samuel is weird. It's not just that the plot revolves around making a deal with a skateboarding, foul-mouthed personification of Death, it's that the controls are a mix of QWOP, Octodad: Dadliest Catch, and Weekend at Bernie's.
In Manual Samuel, you play a recently dead character who now has to manually control every aspect of being a normal-looking human. If you can make it through one day, Death will bring you back to life as a regular person; if you fail, Death gets your soul. Putting one foot in front of the other is performed with the trigger buttons, alternating X and B keeps Samuel breathing, and hitting Y will force the muscles in your back to keep your spine erect--Manuel Samuel is frustrating, silly fun. If the developers can keep the game short and focused on its bizarre humor, it'll be worth seeing just how long you can Samuel shambling along as a totally not-dead being
These 3 Shouldn’t Have Won the Lottery (But They Did!)
Anyone can play the lottery – all you need to do is buy a ticket. Playing the $80 million Powerball draw this Saturday is easy – just get your ticket in a kiosk, or play US Powerball online from anywhere in the world!
If you end up winning the $80 million, you’ll join a long list of eccentric characters. Take the three lottery players below for example. They scooped up millions, but they also experienced incredible events leading up to their lottery wins.
Lottery Winner with Seven Lives
The man with seven lives is none other than an ordinary Croatian music teacher who has lived through some extra-ordinary events. Frane Selak survived a derailed train crash, has been sucked from an airplane, survived a bus crash into a river, escaped his flame-ridden car (twice!), has been hit by a bus, and survived accidently driving off a cliff. Then, in 2003, he was the lucky winner of $1 million in the Croatian lottery!
American Won Two Mega Mega Millions Jackpots
In 2003, Stephen Cooke won a $13.3 million Mega Millions lottery jackpot – twice! When he went to claim his prize, he suddenly remembered that he had bought another ticket with the same numbers!
Luckily it worked out for Stephen, but billions in prizes go unclaimed. This doesn’t, however, happen to online players, as they are paid out automatically!
Cut in Line and Won $590.2 Million
Gloria Mackenzie from Florida won a mind-blowing $590.2 million U.S. Powerball jackpot in 2013. A kind woman let the old lady ahead of her in the Quick Pick line and (unintentionally) let her purchase the winning Powerball ticket! Call it fate or just pure good luck, the result is the same - Gloria Mackenzie is now one wealthy woman!
Are you Crazy Enough to Win $80 million this Saturday?
They say fact is crazier than fiction, and most of us have crazy-but-true stories to share. Wouldn’t you like to add a $80 million jackpot-winning story to your autobiography? You don't need to have seven lives, to have two winning tickets, or even to cut in line to win - simply buy a lottery ticket at your local store or purchase Powerball tickets online and wait for the numbers to be drawn on Saturday night.
Regardless of whether you play Powerball online or the old-fashioned way, we wish you lots of fun and luck!
The wait is over. After months of hype, Apple has formally announced the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus and – as usual – the new handsets are polarising opinion. Fans are excited by some potentially game changing changes, while critics bemoan the stylistic similarities to the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
What does this mean for you? Let’s break down the differences and find out…
Design – Familiar But Intelligently Improved
Yes, the new iPhones look much like the old iPhones. This is the number one area where many will complain, but look more closely and there are key differences.
The iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus look familiar – but there are a lot of differences. Image credit Apple
Size and Weight Increases
In a first for Apple, the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are actually ever so slightly larger and noticeably heavier than their predecessors. The good news, while you are likely to notice the difference holding new and old models side-by-side, in isolation this will be pretty similar:
iPhone 6S: 138.3 x 67.1 x 7.1mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.28in) and 143g (5.04oz)
iPhone 6S Plus: 158.2 x 77.9 x 7.3mm (6.23 x 3.07 x 0.29in) and 192g (6.77oz)
iPhone 6: 138.1 x 67 x 6.9mm (5.44 x 2.64 x 0.27in) and 129g (4.55oz)
iPhone 6 Plus: 158.1 x 77.8 x 7.1mm (6.22 x 3.06 x 0.28in) and 172g (6.07oz)
In fact, for me, the worst aspect about this design similarity has nothing to do with size, but the fact the new phones maintain the same ludicrously slippy finish as the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. That’s bad news for both models.
Of course I appreciate covers are a must for most owners, but it would be nice for Apple to at least try and make a phone which doesn’t act like a bar of soap and offers some ergonomics for the human hand.
The new iPhones use stronger aluminium than the iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus. Image credit Apple
Strength Improvements
More positively, the other key takeaway is that structurally both the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are significantly stronger. Apple openly mocked the so-called ‘Bendgate’ scandal last year when the iPhone 6 and, notably, iPhone 6 Plus were found to warp under relatively meagre pressures.
But privately changes have been made and internal thickening is thought to (at least partially) account for some of the weight increases. Consequently the new iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus have switched from Series 6000 to Series 7000 aluminium. Series 7000 is over twice as strong and a video pressure test has already shown you’ll be highly unlikely to bend either model under any force you’d encounter in everyday life.
In addition Apple has improved the durability of the new iPhones’ glass displays, but it hasn’t given any details regarding how much stronger we can expect them to be.
Read more – iPhone 6S And iPhone 6S Plus: Best And Worst Features
Winner: iPhone 6S
It gets less of a weight bump while the iPhone 6S Plus is now a genuinely heavy phone, a problem when both remain so slippery
Displays – Ingenious Or Falling Behind?
Another area where the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus are receiving criticism is their screens as, despite late rumours to the contrary, the resolutions remain unchanged:
iPhone 6S: 4.7-inch, 1334 x 750 pixels, 326 pixels per inch (ppi)
iPhone 6S Plus: 5/5-inch, 1920 x 1080 pixels, 401 pixels per inch (ppi)
Should this matter? For me no. By comparison the iPhone 6S still has a pixel density similar to a 4K ‘Ultra HD’ resolution on a 13-inch laptop while the iPhone 6S Plus has a pixel density higher than a 4K display on an 11-inch laptop. Smartphones just live in a crazy specifications war where Apple refuses to fight.
Yes, I would be very surprised if the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus panels can top what Samsung delivered with the 2K Galaxy S6 and Galaxy S6 Edge, but few owners are likely to be disappointed when using either iPhone in real world scenarios.
Winner: iPhone 6S Plus
It continues to have a noticeably higher pixel density than the smaller iPhone 6S and with most rivals now sporting 2K displays, 6S owners in particular may feel a little shortchanged
3D Touch and its pressure sensitive feedback could revolutionise iOS – Image credit: Apple
3D Touch – Initially Interesting, Potentially Amazing
While lack of a resolution bump will have disappointed many, there is compensation in the form of a new Apple party trick…
Like the Apple Watch, MacBook and MacBook Pro lines, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus now sport a variant of Force Touch called ‘3D Touch’. This uses the same pressure sensitive panel as these devices to distinguish between different types of touch and gives vibration feedback to the user to confirm when force touches are recognised.
This isn’t new – BlackBerry offered something similar with its failed Storm smartphone in 2008 – but what Apple seeks to do differently is make 3D Touch an intuitive part of the iOS 9 experience. Doing this means starting slowly to avoid bamboozling users and off the bat initial user examples are fairly straightforward:
Apple Maps – deep press on a destination to jump to turn-by-turn directions
Apple Music – deep press on a track to automatically add it to a playlist
Safari – deep press a link to preview the website
Messages – deep press on a message to preview the conversation
Mail – deep press on an email to preview its contents
Apps – deep press on their icon to launch to a specific area of the app or deep press in the app to bring up the multitasking mode
A deep press with 3D Touch in Mail gives a preview of an email. Image credit Apple
Inevitably, however, gaming is perhaps the area with greatest potential for 3D Touch. Unlike 3D Touch in the Apple Watch and MacBooks, 3D Touch senses a range of pressures so, for example, the screen could be used like an accelerator in racing games.
How developers react will be crucial. 3D Touch requires dedicated hardware so it will not come to older iPhones so the level of motivation to implement it in apps will make or break it.
As such, while 3D Touch may not initially be the main reason users want to buy an iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus, its ability to fundamentally change how iOS works (for the first time since 2007) means long term it is the most important addition to these new iPhones.
Finally Apple has increased sensor size to capture greater detail. Image credit Apple
Cameras – A New Force To Be Reckoned With
While 3D Touch is what has techies enthralled, for end users perhaps the biggest pull of the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus is their new camera technology:
iPhone 6S and 6S Plus – 12 megapixel sensor, F2.0 lens, Focus Pixels, dual-LED flash – 4p video recording. Front: 5 megapixel sensor, F2.0 lens, 1080p video recording
iPhone 6 and 6 Plus – 8 megapixel sensor, F2.2 lens, Focus Pixels, dual-LED flash – 1080p video recording. Front: 1.2 megapixel sensor, F2.2 lens, 720p video recording
While on paper these changes don’t appear to be world changing, they drag the new iPhones back into a camera battle where both LG and Samsung had usurped earlier this year.
Yes, the megapixels and apertures on the back still don’t quite match what LG offers with the G4 or Samsung with the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5 (all use the same sensor) but 5MP front cameras run them close. More to the point their combination with Apple’s legendary image processing software, may just mean the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S come close to delivering the best phone camera experience once again.
4K video should look amazing, but it will eat up storage space (more later) – Image credit Apple
Apple has also added a nice gimmick: ‘Live Photos’ records 1.5 seconds of video around a photo so it can be made to move, if a user prefers. This is something Nokia users have had for several years, but it makes a nice addition to iOS.
The big caveat: shockingly Apple has again snubbed the smaller iPhone with the 6S not receiving Optical Image Stabilisation (OIS) like the 6S Plus. Instead it will have to put up with Digital Image Stabilisation (DIS) which should again give the iPhone phablet a noticeable advantage.
Winner: iPhone 6S Plus
The very disappointing absence of OIS from the iPhone 6S makes this an easy win
