Apple, in a new support document about the USB-C ports on the iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro:
USB-C is a universally accepted standard that enables charging, syncing data, and playing audio and video. iPhone 15 models have a USB-C connector, which allows you to charge and connect to a variety of devices, including Mac, iPad, AirPods Pro (2nd generation), external storage devices, and displays.
A lot of folks’ initial impressions of Apple’s new FineWoven iPhone cases have been pretty bad. The new fabric back doesn’t feel premium enough for the price Apple is charging, and is already failing to hold up to real-world use, as Federico Viticci has discovered.
I immediately discovered that the hole cut out in the bottom of the case isn’t big enough to accommodate any of my third-party USB-C cables. Upon closer inspection, I realized one reason why:
The cutout for the USB-C port on my $60 iPhone case isn’t centered. As you can see, the tiny screw to one side of the port is partially visible, while on the other side, it is completely covered. Likewise, the openings for the speakers and microphones are also misaligned.
It’s one thing for these cases to be a letdown in terms of material, but this is a level of sloppiness that genuinely surprises me from Apple. I know not every example out there is as bad as mine, but the vibes around this case aren’t good.
Federico’s iOS and iPadOS 17 review is out. The guys talk through it this week before Myke puts Stephen on blast for his Mac setup.
I was personally attacked on my podcast in my own studio by Michael Hurley.
With iOS 17 out, Apple has released its revised iCloud+ plans:
Of course, these prices are all in dollars, and earlier this year, Apple raised prices on plans in many parts of the world.
That free tier is still criminal, despite Apple temporarily giving folks space when transferring their data to a new phone.
Robert Leedham, writing at GQ:
“When you design an analogue watch with Snoopy, he’s a static character right?” says Paige Braddock, chief creative officer at Charles M Schulz Creative Associates. “So all you’re really focusing on is the hands and the arms. You wouldn’t believe the minutiae we go into to make them work at every angle, but going into this first meeting with Apple I was going I don’t even know if I’m smart enough to wear this watch.”
The lengths Apple went to make this work are wild.
Some supervised iOS 6 devices may no longer be supervised after updating to iOS 7.
For devices that have not yet been updated to iOS 7, upgrade from iOS 6 to iOS 7.0.3 or later. The devices remain supervised using this upgrade path.
To celebrate, there’s a lot of great stuff out there to read.
Federico’s iOS and iPadOS 17 review is out and it’s great. I read through it this weekend and learned a lot, even though I’ve been running the betas most of the summer. Grab your iPad, kick back and enjoy this one.
D. Griffin Jones has rounded up 50 of the best iOS 17 features for an article on Cult of Mac.
Over on Six Colors, Dan reviewed iOS 17 while Jason took a look at iPadOS 17. They’ve also published a piece looking at all the cross-platform features coming to Apple’s ecosystem with these updates.
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Jennifer Pattison Tuohy has run through all the possible reasons the iPhone 15 Pro and Pro Max come with a Thread radio. Like the U1 chip a few years ago, I assume Apple has a story to tell her in the coming year or two.
This week’s Connected, edited in the San Jose Airport, is live:
Myke, Federico and Stephen grade their picks for Apple’s Wonderlust event and talk about the iPhone 15 line, the new Apple Watches and more.
Dr. Drang, writing about the new iPhone 15 Pro:
The titanium alloy used in the phone was revealed by Isabel Yang about 57 minutes into the presentation. She called it Grade 5 titanium, which is an ASTM designation. It’s also known as Ti-6Al-4V, because its major alloying elements are aluminum at 6% and vanadium at 4%. Allison Sheridan talked about its properties earlier this month, and I’ve been assuming that it would be the alloy Apple would choose ever since I heard they were switching to titanium for the band.
I guessed it would be Ti-6Al-4V because it’s the garden-variety alloy for titanium. A great material, but not exotic in any way. Apart from many aerospace applications, it’s also used in medical implants, so you know that skin contact won’t be a problem.
He goes on to describe the “thermo-mechanical process” used to build these new phones. This is a great read, as you’d expect.
Apple’s event wrapped up several hours ago, and I really enjoyed my first iPhone event. The vibe was really different from the WWDCs I’ve attended, with a much broader selection of media folks there.
The Steve Jobs Theater is exactly as nice as you’d think it would be. Everything is beautiful and perfect. The audio and visual systems are incredible. From my seat, I could see into the sound booth, and I wanted to chat with those folks about all the cool gear they had.
As things opened, the real-life Tim Cook greeted us with several of his trademark “Good Morning!” cries and then a giant Tim Cook started in on the announcements.
Back in 2020, Apple committed to being 100 percent carbon neutral for its supply chain and products by the year 2030, and today’s event provided the company a chance to update everyone — including Mother Nature in that video — on how things are going.
As detailed throughout the keynote, Apple is using recycled material in more and more of its products. For example, the original Apple Watch Ultra used all new material in its Titanium case, and now the Ultra 2 is using recycled titanium. Moreover, these products are now carbon neutral:
I look forward to seeing what other products Apple can move to this new era. The sooner they get there, the better.
There’s no real way around this, but both the Series 9 and Ultra 2 are a bit boring, visually speaking. We didn’t get the rumored darker Ultra 2! But inside, there are some interesting things worth talking about.
The first is the S9 that powers these new watches. The silicon in the Apple Watch has been stagnant for a few updates in a row, but this year, performance should be notably better, as Apple shared:
Apple Watch Series 9 is powered by custom Apple silicon in the all-new S9 SiP. Apple’s most powerful watch chip yet delivers systemwide improvements and brand-new features, including a new double tap gesture and on-device Siri with the ability to access and log health data privately and securely. Apple Watch Series 9 also has a new 4-core Neural Engine that can process machine learning tasks up to twice as fast, when compared with Apple Watch Series 8. The power efficiency of the S9 SiP allows Apple Watch Series 9 to maintain all-day 18-hour battery life.
The new double tap gesture is really neat, and it builds upon AssistiveTouch, which showed up a few years ago. In my demos, it worked perfectly every time.
Tapping your index finger and thumb together will trigger whatever is the default button on the screen at any given time, assuming you are looking at a first-party watchOS app. I was told directly that there is not an API for third-party developers to integrate this into their app beyond use with notifications. Once you’re in a third-party app, there’s no double tap support, at least for now.
This year is another round of Apple taking Pro phone features and moving them down into the mainstream devices later, such as the A16 Bionic, which makes its appearance here after being in the 14 Pro and 14 Pro Max last year. Likewise, the Dynamic Island comes to the 15 and 15 Plus, letting the Notch start its journey into the history books. The screen is also brighter this year, reaching 2,000 nits when used in sunlight.
One thing I didn’t expect to see was Apple’s 48 megapixel sensor pop up in the mainstream phones so soon. But it is here, and in addition to being able to produce “2x” photos by cropping that big sensor, photos can now be saved as 24 MP images, as outlined in Apple’s press release:
A 48MP Main camera shoots sharp photos and videos while capturing fine details, with a quad-pixel sensor and 100 percent Focus Pixels for fast autofocus. Using the power of computational photography, the Main camera gives users a new 24MP super-high-resolution default, offering incredible image quality at a practical file size ideal for storing and sharing. By intelligently integrating hardware and software, an additional 2x Telephoto option gives users three optical-quality zoom levels — 0.5x, 1x, 2x — for the first time on an iPhone dual-camera system.
Physically, the 15 and 15 Plus are very similar to the 14 before them, but now the aluminum rails around the phone curve to meet the front and back glass. The sides are still flat, but this rounding at the edges makes it even more comfortable in the hand. The change also makes the new iPhones look a hair thinner, to my eye at least.
The camera bump mesa is still big, but Apple has infused the glass in a new way that I do not understand, but looks great.
On the other hand, the 15’s colors are all too muted for my taste.
My word, I love how these phones look:
I got a lot of questions from folks about these finishes, and here are some thoughts:
Ditching stainless steel for titanium would make these devices lighter on its own, but Apple did more than that when rebuilding the pro iPhones:
Using an industry-first thermo-mechanical process, the titanium bands encase a new substructure made from 100 percent recycled aluminum, bonding these two metals with incredible strength through solid-state diffusion. The aluminum frame helps with thermal dissipation and allows the back glass to be easily replaced.
Who doesn’t love a good thermo-mechanical process and better repairability?
The new design also uses THE SMALLEST BEZELS ever, meaning the 15 Pro and Pro Max are slightly smaller than the 14 line, which you can see on Apple’s website or in these amazing illustrations by Kate (the Official Relay FM Historian) on Mastodon:
As always, the new Pro phones pack nice camera updates. The updated 48 MP sensor on the Main camera gets the same high-resolution 24MP default file format trick that the 15 and 15 Plus get. There was also a lot of talk about improved low-light performance, updates coming to Portraits and a lot more. I lost track of some of the specs in the middle of the presentation, but I’m excited to see what these things can do.
The biggest news today is the iPhone’s move to USB-C, which is overdue but welcome nonetheless. Lightning was a great connector, but it’s time had come:
The real question is how long it will take Apple to remove Lightning from all of its devices, but the clock is ticking.
As expected, Apple downplayed the change, promoting USB-C as a universal standard and in use across the rest of the Apple ecosystem. While the European Union may have pushed Apple into this and while many people will complain that Apple “just” changed their ports around, USB-C is a win.
It’s a huge win if you spring for a 15 Pro or Pro Max, as the USB-C ports in those models are capable of USB 3 speeds up to 10 GBps.
Oh, but USB-C ports in the 15 and 15 Plus are clocked at the same measly 480 MBps.
Oh, and a 10 GBps USB-C cable is not included with the purchase of an iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max.
Oh, and you can’t buy a USB-C case for your AirPods Pro; the only way to upgrade to the new charger is to replace your AirPods Pro entirely.
All of these things are bad.
Being at this event on 512 Pixels’ 15th birthday was amazing. Getting asked about our work with St. Jude was even more special. In all the excitement today, I got some time to reflect on what the last decade and a half has meant.
As I said yesterday, thank you.