Thursday Morning News

DSC04008-980x653Apple CEO Tim Cook has been added to the Robert F Kennedy Human Rights board of directors. It’s a milestone for an organisation that’s focused on human rights and other philanthropy, and Cook has said in a statement that he was honoured to serve on the board to “further Kennedy’s message of justice and equality”.

A review of the iPhone SE from Ars Technica tells us about the smallest, newest iPhone from Apple. They answer a lot of questions about the device, and their conclusions about who should buy it say that most people should be buying an iPhone 6s instead, unless they really prefer the size and form-factor benefits of the iPhone SE.

Similarly, a review of the 9.7-inch iPad Pro from Six Colors tells us about the original iPad form factor that’s now been upgraded in every respect. While you can compare specs and say that the smaller iPad Pro has a lower-clocked processor, or doesn’t have has much RAM, the size of the device and the substantial display upgrades mean those aspects become arguably less important.

Huawei has beat Apple to the dual-camera punch, with both of Huawei’s P9 and P9 Plus handsets featuring dual cameras with lenses from Leica. Huawei’s marketing says the dual cameras are used for producing better quality images than would be possible with a single camera, while also allowing for cool effects like post-capture refocusing.

The first betas of the next round of Apple software updates have been released. The first betas of iOS 9.3.2, watchOS 2.2.1, tvOS 9.2.1, and OS X 10.11.5 have all been released to developers, with a cycle of developer and public beta testers expected to kick off soonish.

We’ve been wanting to hide the stock Apple apps on our iOS devices for years now, and finally, code discovered in iTunes metadata reveals that may be becoming a possibility in the next version of iOS. The Verge has money on the announcement being made at WWDC in June, and they’re probably not too far off the mark with that one.

Yesterday’s exploit that allow passcode-free access to photos and contacts from a locked iPhone via Siri have been patched, with Apple issuing a server-side fix that now requires you to unlock the phone before a search of Twitter or Facebook can be performed.

Macminicolo has always been an interesting company to watch in terms of hosted Mac mini hardware, and founder Brian Stucki says that he’s merging the company with MacStadium.

With the recent Maps upgrades in watchOS 2.2, walking directions on the Apple Watch just got even better. If you haven’t already, you should take a walk, letting the taptic engine guide your turns.

Jean-Louis Gassée takes his second run for Apple’s 40th anniversary, telling us about Apple Retail’s early successes.


Originally published at: http://appletalk.com.au/2016/04/thursday-morning-news070416/

I realise it’s not quite the same thing but HTC had a phone with dual cameras a few years ago, Evo 3D.
Then there’s also the dual camera HTC One M8 - which used the second sensor for depth information, allowing post-capture refocusing.

For many millennia, humans have had two eyes for binocular vision, so there is that… Apple is such a copycat…

You’ll always get the typical Android fanboys exclaiming “But xx phone had this years ago!”. Thing is Apple never claim to be the first with some of these technologies, but they do figure out how to do it best.

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Evo 3D was a pretty crap device.

The dual camera feature of the One M8 was a bit gimmicky. If someone releases a device with dual cameras that actually makes it worthwhile, then that’ll be great. Even better if its Apple.