MacRumors

Apple's flagship Fifth Avenue store with its iconic glass cube entrance in Manhattan reopens to the public Friday following multi-year renovations, and ahead of time, the media was invited to the store for a preview.

The underground store has been nearly doubled in size with a higher ceiling and more natural light coming in from 62 skylights added to the store's plaza at ground level. The plaza has also been lined with 28 honey locust trees, linear fountains, and benches for the public to gather around.

Visitors enter by walking down a new stainless steel spiral staircase, or by riding a circular elevator. The staircase is designed with 43 cantilevered stair treads that support a floating cylinder of glass, and the backlit ceiling above combines natural and artificial light to match the sunlight throughout the day.

The store is now equipped with a Forum for Today at Apple sessions, which begin Saturday with a special series that "captures the creative spirit of New York." The area dedicated to Geniuses has also doubled, which will "dramatically increase" the store's ability to serve customers and service products.

Steve Jobs personally welcomed the first customers to Apple Fifth Avenue when the store opened in 2006. Since then, Apple says the location has had over 57 million visitors, and more visitors on an annual basis than other New York City landmarks like the Statue of Liberty and Empire State Building.

Apple CEO Tim Cook:

Our customers are at the center of everything we do, and Apple Fifth Avenue is for them, to inspire them, and to provide the very best place to discover our newest products. It's unique among Apple stores, and today it returns even more welcoming, and even more beautiful than ever. We're so proud to be a part of this great city where so much happens every day.

Apple Fifth Avenue reopens Friday at 8 a.m. local time and remains the company's only retail store open 24 hours per day and 365 days per year. Apple says the store will be staffed with 900 employees who speak over 30 languages.

In a feature for WIRED, Om Malik sat down with Apple's marketing chief Phil Schiller and chipmaking engineer Anand Shimpi to discuss the A13 Bionic chip in the new iPhone 11, ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max.

Malik first provides an overview of the A13 chip's specs and performance improvements:

• 8.5 billion transistors, an approximately 23 percent increase over the A12 chip's 6.9 billion transistors
  

• Six-core CPU: two 2.66GHz high-performance cores named Lightning and four efficiency cores named Thunder
  

• Quad-core graphics processor, an Apple-designed image processor, and an octa-core neural engine for machine learning that is capable of one trillion operations per second
  

• Up to 20 percent performance increase across all of the main components, including the CPU, GPU, and neural engine
  

• Up to 30 percent more power efficient than the A12 chip

Schiller told Malik that one of the biggest examples of the performance increase this year is text-to-speech on iPhones.

"We've enhanced our iOS 13 text-to-speech capabilities such that there is much more natural language processing, and that's all done with machine learning and the neural engine," Schiller explained.

Shimpi noted that when designing its A-series chips, Apple focuses on both performance and efficiency. "We talk about performance a lot publicly. But the reality is, we view it as performance per watt. We look at it as energy efficiency, and if you build an efficient design, you also happen to build a performance design."

The article notes that Apple's chipmaking team will study how apps are being used on iOS devices to optimize future chip designs. "For applications that don't need the additional performance, you can run at the performance of last year's and just do it at a much lower power," Shimpi said.

Machine learning also plays a big role in the A13 chip, helping to manage battery life and optimize performance, according to Schiller. "There wasn't machine learning running ten years ago. Now, it's always running, doing stuff."

iPhone owners will now be able to use their Apple Card in T-Mobile stores and receive three percent Daily Cash as a reward. The news was announced today by T-Mobile, and is timed to coincide with the launch of the ‌iPhone‌ 11, ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max tomorrow, September 20.

The carrier specifically said that shoppers will be able to use their ‌Apple Card‌ with Apple Pay and get three percent Daily Cash at any T-Mobile store. This makes T-Mobile the only current wireless provider to support three percent Daily Cash on the ‌Apple Card‌.

“We’re all about giving customers the best value in wireless, and we’re doing it again by offering 3% Daily Cash on Apple Card,” said John Legere, CEO of T-Mobile. “More options. More value. And cash back, including on Apple’s newest products. It’s just the Un-carrier way.”

As of now, ‌Apple Card‌ supports three percent Daily Cash with Apple itself, Uber, Uber Eats, Walgreens, Duane Reade, and now T-Mobile. Apple announced in August, amid the ‌Apple Card‌ launch, that it would be expanding merchant support for three percent Daily Cash, and it has continued to do so over the past few weeks.

‌Apple Card‌ offers three Daily Cash reward tiers: one percent for all purchases made with the physical ‌Apple Card‌, two percent for ‌Apple Card‌ purchases via ‌Apple Pay‌, and three percent for these select merchants. You can apply for ‌Apple Card‌ in the Wallet app on ‌iPhone‌.

T-Mobile is also highlighting its current offer where you can trade up and get 50 percent off the ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro. If you're interested in the ‌iPhone‌ 11, you can also get 50 percent off with a qualifying ‌iPhone‌ trade in. More information on these offers can be found on T-Mobile's website.

Travel photographer Austin Mann typically goes hands-on with new iPhone models to test their camera performance in real world situations, and to test Apple's new ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro, Mann traveled to China to take pictures.

Mann tested out the new three lens-camera system with telephoto, wide-angle, and ultra wide-angle lenses, the updated Smart HDR, and the new Night mode that's designed for super low light.

The wide-angle lens is the best lens of the bunch with the best shutter range, aperture, autofocus system, and ISO, but Mann says the ultra wide camera still "works really great in normal lighting conditions." It's not the ideal lens for low light, though.

The Ultra Wide works really great in normal lighting conditions and overall I'm thrilled to have it, but you will feel a difference when you move indoors or shoot into the evening. The images are softer than the Wide, and without Night mode you'll be tempted (or forced) to switch back to Wide depending on how limited your light is.

Night mode, says Mann, is "crazy powerful" and easy to use because it activates automatically in situations where lighting is poor. Mann praised Apple's efforts to balance Night mode, preventing night time shots from looking like daytime shots while still preserving detail.

One thing I love about Apple's approach to Night mode is the strategic balance of solving a technical problem while also caring deeply about artistic expression. When you look at the image above, it's clear their team didn't take the let's-make-night-look-like-day approach, as some of their competitors have. Instead, it feels more like an embrace of what it actually is (night) while asking, "How do we capture the feel of this scene in a beautiful way?"

According to Mann, Night mode is the "most dramatic leap forward" we've seen in an ‌iPhone‌ since panorama mode was introduced on the ‌iPhone‌ 5 in 2012. "It's the first time in a long time I've looked at an image and said to myself 'wow, I can't believe I shot this with my ‌iPhone‌,'" he wrote.

The ‌iPhone‌ 11 and 11 Pro have a new "Capture Outside the Frame" feature that allows more of the scene in front of you to be displayed when taking a photo. What hasn't been highlighted is that this mode also captures a photo.

So, for example, if you take a picture using the wide-angle lens of the ‌iPhone‌, it also captures a photo with the ultra wide-angle lens, allowing users to decide later how to frame a photo.

Mann said that while he likes the feature, he didn't love the preview of what's outside the frame because it was sometimes distracting when composing an image. For the most part, though, he called it a "great feature" that invites new editing possibilities.

All in all, Mann said that serious photographers should consider getting an ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro and that the extra cost over the ‌iPhone‌ 11 is worth it.

No matter what iPhone you are using now, if you are serious about shooting photos with your iPhone, this is a year to upgrade. Apple had some serious catching up to do and as a result, this year has brought a tremendous leap in camera capability. Night mode and the Ultra Wide lens will change how we tell stories and express ourselves as artists using our iPhones. Now is a really good time to jump in.

Mann's full ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro, which has additional details on the technical capabilities of the new phone along with a selection of amazing images, can be read over on his website.

Disney CEO and former Apple board member Bob Iger has a new book coming out later this month, and ahead of its release, Vanity Fair has shared some key excerpts about Steve Jobs, who was Iger's close friend.

When Iger first took over as CEO of Disney, the relationship between the two companies was strained due to Jobs' disagreements with Michael Eisner and the end of a deal that had seen Disney releasing Pixar films.

Iger broke the ice with Jobs and rekindled a relationship by praising the iPod and discussing iTunes as a television platform.

I'd been thinking about the future of television, and believed it was only a matter of time before we would be accessing TV shows and movies on our computers. I didn't know how fast mobile technology was going to evolve (the iPhone was still two years away), so what I was imagining was an iTunes platform for television, "iTV," as I described it. Steve was silent for a while, and then finally said, "I'm going to come back to you on this. I'm working on something I want to show you."

Jobs went on to tell Iger about the video iPod, and asked Iger to put Disney TV shows on it, which Iger agreed to, leading to a solid friendship between the two and ultimately, a new Disney/Pixar deal.

According to Iger, in 2006 just ahead of when Disney was set to announce its acquisition of Pixar, Jobs told Iger that his cancer had returned and spread to his liver, giving Iger time to back out of the deal.

He told me the cancer was now in his liver and he talked about the odds of beating it. He was going to do whatever it took to be at his son Reed's high school graduation, he said. When he told me that was four years away, I felt devastated. It was impossible to be having these two conversations--about Steve facing his impending death and about the deal we were supposed to be closing in minutes--at the same time.

After the acquisition, Jobs underwent cancer treatment and served on Disney's board as Disney's largest shareholder. He weighed in on important Disney decisions like the acquisition of Marvel, and even vacationed with Iger on occasion. "Our connection was much more than a business relationship," wrote Iger.

Iger says that with each Disney success, there's always a moment where he wishes Jobs was there, and further, he believes that if Jobs were still alive, the two companies may have merged.

With every success the company has had since Steve's death, there's always a moment in the midst of my excitement when I think, I wish Steve could be here for this. It's impossible not to have the conversation with him in my head that I wish I could be having in real life. More than that, I believe that if Steve were still alive, we would have combined our companies, or at least discussed the possibility very seriously.

"The Ride of a Lifetime: Lessons Learned from 15 Years as CEO of the Walt Disney Company" is set to be released on September 23, 2019. It can be pre-ordered from Amazon for $19.60.

The full excerpt, which has a lot more on the history of the deal between Disney and Pixar, can be read over at Vanity Fair.

Apple's vice president of communications, Steve Dowling, is leaving the company after 16 years, reports Recode.

Dowling in 2014 took over from Katie Cotton, Apple's former PR lead who left the company. Since then, he's been running Apple's PR team.

Dowling first joined Apple in 2003, serving as Apple's head of corporate public relations under Katie Cotton until assuming the vice president position after Cotton's departure.

In a memo to staff, Dowling this week said that "it's time" and that he plans to take time off from working.

After 16 years at Apple, countless keynotes, product launches and the occasional PR crisis, I've decided that the time is right for me to step away from our remarkable company. This is something that has been on my mind for a while, and it came into sharp focus during the latest -- and for me, last -- launch cycle. Your plans are set and the team is executing brilliantly as ever. So, it's time.

Phil will be managing the team on an interim basis starting today, and I'll be available through the end of October to help with the transition. After that, I plan to take a good, long stretch of time off before trying something new. At home I have a supportive, patient spouse in Petra and two beautiful children blossoming into their teen years. I'm looking forward to creating more memories with the three of them while I have the chance.

My loyalty to Apple and its people knows no bounds. Working with Tim and this team, accomplishing all we have done together, has been the highlight of my career. I want to thank you for your hard work, your patience and your friendship. And I wish you every success.

I will always bleed six colors.

Dowling

In a statement on Dowling's departure, Apple said that it's grateful for all that Dowling has done for the company.

"Steve Dowling has been dedicated to Apple for more than 16 years and has contributed to the company at every level through many of its most significant moments. From the first iPhone and App Store to Apple Watch and AirPods, he has helped tell Apple's story and share our values with the world. Following another successful product launch, he has decided to leave Apple to spend some much deserved time with his family. He leaves behind a tremendous legacy that will serve the company well into the future. We're grateful to him for all that he's given to Apple and wish him the best."

Dowling will remain at Apple until the end of October. Marketing chief Phil Schiller will take over for Dowling in the interim while Apple looks to fill its lead PR role. Apple is said to be considering both internal and external candidates.

There was some mixed information about the RAM in the new 2019 iPhone models, which has led to confusion over the course of the last week.

Benchmarks of the new iPhones have continually listed 4GB of RAM in all ‌iPhone‌ 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max devices, but a rumor sourced from a certification database suggested there was 6GB RAM in the ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro and Pro Max.

That led to speculation that perhaps some higher-end capacities might have had 6GB RAM, but it's now been made clear, both through regulatory filings in China and info discovered this morning by Steve Troughton-Smith in Xcode, that every ‌iPhone‌ 11, 11 Pro, and 11 Pro Max model has 4GB RAM.

For the ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro and Pro Max, that's identical to the amount of RAM available in the prior-generation ‌iPhone‌ XS and XS Max, and for the ‌iPhone‌ 11, that's up 1GB from the 3GB RAM in the ‌iPhone‌ XR.

Also of note, Troughton-Smith has confirmed that the S5 processor in the Apple Watch Series 5 is identical to the S4 processor in the Apple Watch Series 4, with no performance improvements.

That's not a surprise as Apple mentioned no changes to the chip during its September 10 event and there's no mention of speed or performance increases in the Apple Watch marketing materials, but it's useful to have confirmation.

Internally, the Apple Watch Series 5 is using an updated display that allows for always-on functionality, there's a new compass feature, and 32GB storage, but otherwise, the Apple Watch Series 5 appears to use the same internal components as the Series 4.

Troughton-Smith's Xcode digging has also uncovered new information about the updated 10.2-inch seventh-generation iPad. It is equipped with 3GB RAM, up from 2GB in the previous-generation version.

Apple's new ‌iPhone‌ and Apple Watch models are set to officially launch on Friday, September 20, and teardowns will soon unveil even more information about the new devices. The new seventh-generation ‌iPad‌ will be available on September 30.

Update: Troughton-Smith now says that he's hearing conflicting information about the RAM in the iPhones and is going to look into it further in the firmware.

Apple today seeded the fourth beta of an upcoming iPadOS and iOS 13.1 update to developers and public beta testers, one week after seeding the third beta and a few weeks after seeding the initial iOS 13.1 beta.

iOS 13.1 and iPadOS 13.1 can be downloaded from the Apple Developer Center or over-the-air after the proper profiles have been installed.

Apple in late August released the first iOS 13.1 beta, which came as a surprise because Apple has never released a point update for software that's not out yet. Apple is planning to release iOS 13.1 two weeks after the September 19 launch of iOS 13.

The iOS 13.1 update includes several features that were announced at WWDC but were ultimately removed from iOS 13 over the beta testing period. Shortcuts Automations, for example, is back in iOS 13.1. Shortcuts Automations allows Shortcuts users to create personal and home automations from the Shortcuts app to have actions performed automatically when specific conditions occur.

Share ETA, a major maps feature, is also available in iOS 13.1. With Share ETA, you can share your estimated time of arrival to a location with a friend or family member.

Other new features include new icons on the volume indicator when headphones or speakers are connected (with icons for AirPods, Beats headphones, and HomePod), more detailed HomeKit icons in the Home app, and updates to Dynamic Wallpapers.

Mouse support, an accessibility option in iOS 13, has been improved in iOS 13.1 allowing a long press or 3D Touch to be mapped to the right click function of the mouse. Reading goals now include PDFs, Nike+ is now just Nike, and iOS 13.1 supports HEVC video encoding with alpha channels.

There are some other smaller changes in iOS 13.1, which are outlined in our first iOS 13.1 article. If we find new features in the fourth beta of iOS 13.1, we'll update this post. iOS 13.1 will be released to the public on Monday, September 30.

One of the new features of the iPhone 11 and ‌iPhone‌ 11 Pro models is an upgraded 12-megapixel front-facing TrueDepth camera system, which, for the first time, is able to take slow motion 120fps videos.

When introducing the 2019 iPhones, Apple invented a new word for the function, combining slo-mo (the name long used for the 120fps feature on the rear-facing camera) and selfie into the word "Slofie."

Slofies didn't sound like a serious word when Apple first mentioned the feature at the ‌iPhone‌ event, but the company is promoting Slofies in multiple places on its website, and as The Verge points out, Apple last Friday filed a trademark on "Slofie" in the United States.

Slow motion videos taken with the front-facing camera are identical to the slow motion videos that have previously been available through the rear-facing camera, slowing down motion for a unique super slow effect. "Slofie" isn't used to describe the feature in the camera app, where it's just referred to as "Slo-mo."

It's not clear if Slofies are going to take off and become a popular feature, but Apple is certainly aiming to make that happen. Prior to when Apple used the word on stage on September 10, the Slofie term doesn't appear to have been widely used, so it's likely Apple will be granted the trademark.

Apple's move to trademark the term will prevent other smartphone makers from marketing their devices with a similar feature name, ensuring the "Slofie" term is associated exclusively with iPhones.

Korean website The Elec continues to believe that the iPad Pro lineup will be refreshed in March 2020 with 3D sensing rear cameras, noting in a report today that LG will supply time-of-flight sensors for the devices.

However, there is still debate as to whether the ‌iPad Pro‌ will be refreshed this October, next March, or in both months.

Early this year, Bloomberg's oft-reliable Mark Gurman claimed a laser-powered 3D camera could debut on an ‌iPad Pro‌ as early as spring 2020, but he more recently reported that Apple plans to refresh the ‌iPad Pro‌ lineup by the end of 2019, so Apple's roadmap for its high-end tablet is not entirely clear.

Japanese blog Mac Otakara and Sonny Dickson also expect the ‌iPad Pro‌ to receive a triple-lens rear camera system in October.

Meanwhile, TF International Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo has said there is an over 50 percent probability that the ‌iPad Pro‌ adopts time-of-flight technology in the fourth quarter of 2019 or first quarter of 2020, adding to the uncertainty.

On a purely speculative basis, we can think of three possible scenarios: the March refresh with 3D sensing ends up being an October affair instead, or the ‌iPad Pro‌ receives a minor refresh in October and a bigger update with 3D sensing in March, or the ‌iPad Pro‌ is simply not refreshed until March.

Apple would be breaking precedent by refreshing the ‌iPad Pro‌ in October, as the tablet has gone roughly 18 months between hardware updates since first launching in November 2015 — the second-generation 12.9-inch model was released in June 2017, followed by third-generation models in November 2018.

The Elec also expects LG to supply 3D sensing rear camera sensors for 2020 iPhones, slated to launch next September, although it appears to mistakenly refer to the iPhones as iPads in one section of its report.

The Elec has established a small track record after accurately claiming the iPhone 11 would have a 3,110 mAh battery.

In a production information sheet, Apple has confirmed the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max all feature single-cell batteries.

Last year, only the iPhone XS had a single-cell, L-shaped battery, with an iFixit teardown of the device revealing that Apple "notched" the internal corners of the battery to prevent undue stress from thermal expansion. iPhone XS Max and iPhone XR models are equipped with multi-cell L-shaped batteries.

Vietnamese website Di Động Việt today shared a seemingly legitimate teardown of the iPhone 11 Pro Max, revealing its single-cell, L-shaped battery. Consistent with Chinese regulatory filings, the battery has a capacity of 3,969 mAh, making it around 25 percent larger than the iPhone XS Max's battery.

The iPhone 11 Pro Max's battery is also noticeably thicker than the iPhone XS Max's battery to accomodate the increased capacity.

With the added thickness comes added weight. Apple's production information sheet says the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max batteries weigh 47, 48, and 65 grams, respectively, while the iPhone XR, iPhone XS, and iPhone XS Max batteries measure in at 46, 41, and 50 grams, respectively.

The teardown also provides a first look at the iPhone 11 Pro Max's triple-lens rear camera lenses and other components. iFixit should have more comprehensive teardowns of all three new iPhones in the coming days.