MacRumors

With the Apple Watch 2 expected to launch in the second half of 2016, supply chain informant DigiTimes reports that Samsung and other overseas manufacturers have secured component orders for the next-generation device.

Taiwan-based Advanced Semiconductor Engineering will fulfill the majority of system-on-a-chip production, while Amkor Technology and STATS ChipPAC will share a portion of remaining orders, according to the report.

Meanwhile, additional Taiwanese supplier Kinsus Interconnect Technology is said to have secured Apple Watch 2 substrate orders, and Samsung Electronics will reportedly fabricate the Apple Watch 2's processor, consisting of mobile DRAM, NAND flash, and other chips. Both Kinsus and Samsung provide components for the original Apple Watch, which is powered by Apple's custom-designed S1 chip.

Previous reports indicated that Quanta Computer will likely remain the key Apple Watch 2 manufacturer. The supplier reportedly began trial production of the second-generation watch in January, in time for a purported late-second-quarter launch around June. Volume shipments were said to begin in the third quarter, which could be any point between early July and late September.

Opportunities for Apple to introduce a second-generation Apple Watch include its annual Worldwide Developers Conference (WWDC) in June, or its annual iPhone introduction event in September. The original Apple Watch was announced in early September 2014 and released in late April 2015, suggesting an elongated 14 to 19 month release cycle between models that may help avoid consumer exhaustion.

Apple analyst Brian White recently speculated that a 20% to 40% thinner Apple Watch 2 could be unveiled by June, possibly at WWDC, but his track record at reporting on Apple's upcoming plans is far from perfect. More reliable KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo believes that the Apple Watch 2 will enter mass production in the third quarter of 2016, in line with a fall launch alongside the iPhone 7.

Few details are known about the Apple Watch 2 beyond a June 2015 report that said it will feature a FaceTime video camera and expanded Wi-Fi capabilities, while new bands and finishes are always a possibility. Kuo believes the Apple Watch 2 will feature mostly internal improvements, and possibly minor form factor changes, with a more complete redesign of the device not arriving until 2017.

Though the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus aren't coming out until the fall of 2016, rumors and alleged part leaks have already divulged many details about the prospective features of the device. In March, a photo of a device said to be the iPhone 7 Plus surfaced on a Chinese website, and a rendering supposedly sourced from Apple manufacturer Catcher Technology featured the design of the iPhone 7.

There's no way to confirm whether these images are legitimate depictions of Apple's upcoming devices, but this morning, Japanese site Mac Otakara shared a report that corroborates many of the rumors we've heard and shares some new details on the features we might see in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus.

Mac Otakara says "the possibility is great" that both the image of the iPhone 7 Plus housing and the design sourced from Catcher are "the real thing." The iPhone 7 Plus model featured a dual camera as has been rumored, along with a Smart Connector that Mac Otakara suggests could be used to accommodate a Smart Keyboard for the iPhone.

Much of the rest of Mac Otakara's report focuses on speculation about the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus based on the supposition that the photos are actual depictions of the two devices, along with a few new tidbits of information thrown in.

Both the iPhone 7 Plus model and the rendering from Catcher show a design that's similar to the design of the iPhone 6s and the 6s Plus, and while previous rumors (including a rumor from Mac Otakara itself) have said the device could be thinner, even approaching the thinness of the 6.1mm iPod touch, Mac Otakara says the device photos suggest there will be little difference in size between the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 6s.

Apple is expected to eliminate the headphone jack in the iPhone 7 and the iPhone 7 Plus, and while some rumors have indicated Apple could use the space to introduce dual stereo speakers, Mac Otakara now believes Apple will continue to use a single speaker in the device. The report also includes a mention of Bluetooth-enabled EarPods that connect to the iPhone to charge much like the Apple Pencil.

The larger lens of the rear-facing camera on the iPhone 7 image indicates it will perhaps use a larger sensor, giving it improved camera capabilities despite the fact that it will not include the dual camera layout rumored for the iPhone 7 Plus. Multiple rumors have said dual cameras will be a feature limited to the iPhone 7 Plus.

A final detail in Mac Otakara's report focuses on the potential inclusion of two new sensors at the top of the device, the purpose of which remains unclear. There is a possibility that the two sensors could be related to the display of the device, based on recent speculation from DisplayMate suggesting features included in the 9.7-inch iPad Pro could be a logical inclusion for the iPhone 7.

According to DisplayMate, True Tone display support, which adjusts the display to match the temperature of the ambient lighting in a room, could be added to the iPhone if Apple "upgrades the ambient light sensors so they measure color in addition to brightness."

Many of the details Mac Otakara mentions in its report line up with previous rumors that we've heard. Both the iPhone 7 and the 7 Plus are expected to look a lot like the iPhone 6s, but with redesigned antenna bands that don't span the back of the device. Rumors disagree about the potential thickness of the device, but there could be some improvements made by introducing a thinner display, new chip packing technology, and a slimmed-down Lightning port.

Dual cameras for the iPhone 7 Plus and the elimination of the headphone jack are the most concrete rumors we've heard yet, corroborated multiple times by a variety of sources. As we creep closer to the fall launch date of the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus, we should begin to get a clearer picture of exactly what features and design changes we can expect to see in the two devices.

Security researchers Patrick Kelley and Matt Harrigan have uncovered a new way to exploit the infamous January 1, 1970 bug that was found to be the cause of bricked iPhones in February. Despite Apple's patch of the original issue in iOS 9.3, Kelley and Harrigan discovered the way in which an iPhone constantly looks for trusted Wi-Fi networks could lend itself to the malicious bricking of a Wi-Fi enabled Apple device, without the user even knowing it was happening.

In a hypothetical example described by Krebs on Security, if a user confirms that a network called "attwifi" is a trusted connection, any subsequent network they come into contact with boasting the same name will connect with their iPhone. That way, when users revisit the same location frequently, they never have to fiddle with going through the Wi-Fi set-up process again. But the feature could be used to silently weaponize the 1970 bug, connecting users to similarly-named networks they've never encountered and altering the date and time stamps of their iOS devices.

In their research, Kelley and Harrigan used this feature of iPhones and iPads to build a nefarious Wi-Fi network, harnessing the requirement of iOS devices to occasionally connect to a network time protocol (NTP) server to keep date and time in sync. Once a user connected to their thought-to-be trusted network, the iPhone would reconfigure its software to update the date and time information from Kelley and Harrigan's own NTP date, which they specified as January 1, 1970.

Harrigan, president and CEO of San Diego-based security firm PacketSled, described the meltdown thusly:

“One thing we noticed was when we set the date on the iPad to 1970, the iPad display clock started counting backwards. While we were plugging in the second test iPad 15 minutes later, the first iPad said it was Dec. 15, 1968. I looked at Patrick and was like, ‘Did you mess with that thing?’ He hadn’t. It finally stopped at 1965, and by that time [the iPad] was about the temperature I like my steak served at.”

Harrigan and Kelley coordinated with Apple when they discovered their findings to avoid preempting the company's promise of a fix for the bug, and possibly encouraging its malicious use in the wild. As such, the company has fixed the issue and anyone running iOS 9.3.1 will be protected from the new iteration of the 1970 bug. Older iOS releases, including the original iOS 9.3 update, are still susceptible, however.

With the release of their research, the two security experts are understandably encouraging users to update their iPhones and iPads as soon as possible, and have created a video to better explain the issue.

Adobe has announced major updates to Premiere Pro CC and its other video apps, with VR workflows spearheading a new focus on immersive VR and 360 video experiences.

Set for an "early summer" release, the CC platform updates bring new VR capabilities to Adobe's flagship video editor, in the form of a "field of view" mode that allows editors to work with imported spherical stitched video and see what a viewer would see when looking in a given direction.

The new mode will allow users to dynamically switch between monoscopic, stereoscopic and anaglyph frame layouts, freely reposition the viewing angle across 360 degrees while editing, and export video with VR tags so that video players like YouTube automatically recognize it.

Adobe also announced a new workflow that enables editors to begin editing during "ingest" while importing video and audio in the background, as well as new proxy workflows for working with high resolution formats including 8K, HDR and HFR media.

Additionally, Adobe is expanding Premier Pro's Lumetri color correction toolkit, which should give editors finer control when isolating and adjusting specific colors using HSL secondaries. New navigational keyboard shortcuts, an added Twitter export option, and extra captioning and titling features are also part of the forthcoming update.

Many other apps in Adobe's Creative Cloud suite are also set to benefit from the new release. Other feature highlights coming to Adobe CC include:

Media Encoder: A clearer media browser panel is coming to Adobe's standalone encoding app, as well as support for Audition and Character Animator apps.

After Effects CC: The motion graphics and special effects editor is being given a new audio and video preview engine for smoother playback for cached frames, new GPU-accelerated Gaussian Blur and Lumetri Color effects for faster rendering, and new 3D media export options.

Audition CC: A new Essential Sound panel boasts simpler sound mixing and preset saving, while a quick export option lets editors send video projects with finished audio directly to Adobe Media Encoder.

Character Animator CC: A new puppet tag panel enables users to apply multiple motion trigger behaviors to video, track puppets in the field of view and quickly switch between facial profiles.

Adobe Stock CC: Tighter integration with Adobe's suite of apps and a new filtered and tagged search system for quick access to over 50 million images and video clips from within Premiere Pro and After Effects.

The new features were announced by Adobe ahead of the National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) Show next week, where it will be previewing the updates to Creative Cloud, which are expected to be made available to subscribers in the coming months.

Adobe offers subscriptions to Creative Cloud for $49.99 a month, while non-subscribers have the option of a free 30-day trial. More information about Adobe video apps and Creative Cloud is available on Adobe's website.

Rumors have suggested the FBI employed Israeli mobile forensics firm Cellebrite to hack into the iPhone 5c used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, but new information from The Washington Post suggests it was instead done with the help of "professional hackers" at least one of which is a "gray hat" researcher that sells flaws to governments, black market groups, or companies that create surveillance tools.

According to sources who spoke to The Washington Post, the hackers told the FBI about a previously unknown software flaw, which was used to "create a piece of hardware" the FBI used to access the phone via its passcode. The hardware in question allowed the FBI to guess the passcode through multiple attempts without erasing the iPhone.

The new information was then used to create a piece of hardware that helped the FBI to crack the iPhone's four-digit personal identification number without triggering a security feature that would have erased all the data, the individuals said.

The researchers, who typically keep a low profile, specialize in hunting for vulnerabilities in software and then in some cases selling them to the U.S. government. They were paid a one-time flat fee for the solution.

The method the FBI allegedly used to break into the iPhone is similar in description to the tool that it had requested from Apple. Before finding an alternate way into the iPhone, the FBI had demanded Apple create a new version of iOS that would disable the passcode security features built into the operating system.

Apple was ordered to give the FBI software to disable the erase feature that would have wiped the iPhone after 10 incorrect guesses, eliminate the time added between entry attempts after the wrong passcode was entered, and create a way for the FBI to enter passcodes into the device electronically instead of manually.

The FBI did not need the services of Cellebrite "in this case," according to The Washington Post's sources, despite evidence the FBI signed a $15,000 contract with Cellebrite on March 21, the same day the Justice Department asked the court to postpone its imminent hearing with Apple. The tool acquired from the hackers did end up letting the FBI access the phone, leading the case against Apple to be dropped.

The U.S. government has not decided whether the method used to break into the iPhone will be shared with Apple, but FBI director James Comey has said the tool used to access the iPhone only works on a "narrow slice of phones" that does not include the iPhone 5s and later. Apple does not plan to sue to obtain the information.

Note: Due to the political nature of the discussion regarding this topic, the discussion thread is located in our Politics, Religion, Social Issues forum. All forum members and site visitors are welcome to read and follow the thread, but posting is limited to forum members with at least 100 posts.

Teen interest in Apple's iPhone continues to grow, according to data gathered by Piper Jaffray analyst Gene Munster in the latest semiannual teen survey. 69 percent of teens surveyed own iPhones, up from 67 percent in the Fall 2015 survey. 75 percent of teens queried expect their next device to be an iPhone, up one percent from the previous survey.

Smart watches are not as popular among teens as smartphones, and only 12 percent of those surveyed owned a smart watch. With teen smart watch owners, the Apple Watch was the model most often chosen -- of the 12 percent of teens who own a smart watch, 71 percent are Apple Watches. Just 10 percent of teens say they're interested in purchasing a smart watch, a number that's grown just two percent since fall of 2015.

We would expect the Apple Watch to maintain market share close to that of iPhone, but don't expect major changes in interest until stronger use cases emerge. We continue to view CY17 as the potential breakout year for Apple Watch.

When considering the full range of wearables, the Fitbit was the most preferred brand among teens, with 72 percent surveyed choosing the Fitbit. Nike came in second at 12 percent, and interest in the Apple Watch was at six percent. Wearables are growing in popularity, with 22 percent of females and 18 percent of males surveyed owning a fitness tracker, up from 14 and 12 percent, respectively, in the previous survey.

Tablet interest and ownership among teens in Munster's annual survey has been steadily declining. 59 percent of teens own a tablet, down from 61 percent, and just 13 percent of teens who do not own a tablet plan to buy one in the next six months. Still, the iPad remains the most popular tablet among teens. Of those who own a tablet, 64 percent have an iPad.

Interest in the iPad has grown among teens who plan to buy a tablet, however, which may be attributed to the launch of Apple's 9.7-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pros. When surveyed, 63 percent of the 13 percent of non-tablet owners planning to buy one said they would choose an iPad, up from 58 percent in the fall.

iPhone adoption among teens may see growth in the fall, with the release of the iPhone 7, a major upgrade that's expected to bring significant new features like a dual camera on the Plus model and minor design refinements. Apple Watch growth may remain stagnant, as recent rumors have suggested the second-generation update will be relatively minor in scale. Interest in the iPad may see a continuing decline as Apple does not have any significant product changes in the works, having just released the iPad Pro models in late 2015 and early 2016.

As was rumored last week, Facebook today announced plans to bring chatbot support to its Messenger platform. At the Facebook F8 Developer Conference, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg demonstrated a Messenger chatbot on stage, using the Messenger platform to order flowers from 1-800-Flowers through a text conversation.

"To order from 1-800-Flowers, you never have to call 1-800-Flowers again," said Zuckerberg, explaining that Facebook chatbots are designed to allow users and businesses to connect together in new ways. "You don't have to install an app or enter your credit card."

Developers will be able to build chat programs to interface with users. These will range from product-based companies like 1-800-Flowers to news companies like CNN, another one of Facebook's partners.

Facebook also plans to expand its Live Video feature, which has proven popular with users and public figures. According to Zuckerberg, Live Videos on Facebook garner 10 times more comments than standard videos, which is one of the reasons Facebook recently began rolling out a prominent video tab in the Facebook app to allow users to quickly access live videos from friends and other people.

Starting today, Facebook is opening up its Live Video API, allowing the feature to be built into any device. One of Facebook's early launch partners is drone company DJI, and drone live streaming video was shown on stage.

Over the next five years, Zuckerberg says Messenger Platform and Live Video will be built up over the next five years, and over the next 10 years, Facebook will focus on connectivity, artificial intelligence, and augmented reality.

Other features announced today include Facebook Accounts and a Save button for developers. Facebook Accounts will allow users to use Facebook's sign in feature for apps and services with just a phone number, eliminating the need to remember a username and password. With Accounts, a sign in code is texted to a user, with the code replacing a password. The Save feature will let users save content on websites with a built-in Facebook Save button to their Facebook feeds for accessing it later.

DisplayMate has performed in-depth testing of the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro and determined that its IPS LCD display is a "truly impressive top performing display" and a "major upgrade" over the iPad Air 2.

While both tablets have similar tech specs, including matching 4:3 aspect ratios, 2,048×1536 pixel resolutions, and 264 PPI, Apple has made several underlying improvements to the 9.7-inch iPad Pro that qualified it as DisplayMate's "best performing mobile LCD display" it has ever tested.

Specifically, the exhaustive display shootout found the 9.7-inch iPad Pro to have two color gamuts that deliver "color accuracy that is visually indistinguishable from perfect" and "very likely considerably better than any mobile display, monitor, TV or UHD TV" that most people own.

The tablet uses a "new DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut that is used in 4K UHD TVs and Digital Cinema," in addition to the sRGB/Rec.709 gamut, described as "the color standard for most content" that is "needed for accurate color reproduction," that all previous iPhones and iPads have used.

DisplayMate also determined that the 9.7-inch iPad Pro display is "more than 20 percent brighter than the other current iPads" and the "brightest full size production tablet" that it has ever tested. The tablet's brightness measures 511 cd/m2 (nits), compared to 415 nits for the iPad Air 2.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro also has "by far the lowest low screen reflectance of any mobile display," meaning that its image colors and contrast in high ambient light -- such as sunlight -- will "appear considerably better than any other mobile display." The tablet uses a new anti-reflectance coating that reduces its reflectance to just 1.7 percent, compared to the iPad Air 2's reflectance of 2.5 percent. The difference can amount to longer battery life in real-life usage.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro earned high marks for its contrast ratio of 1,022, described as "very good" for a mobile display, and almost identical to the iPad Air 2. However, its ratio was slightly lower than the record 1,631 for the larger 12.9-inch iPad Pro. Similarly, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro's contrast rating in high ambient light is 301, by far the highest that DisplayMate has ever measured, and topping the iPad Air 2's rating of 166.

The tablet was found to have "excellent viewing angle performance" with "no visually noticeable color shifts," recording a 47 to 55 percent decrease in brightness at a "modest 30 degree viewing angle," which DisplayMate said is slightly better than the iPad Air 2 and all other iPads. Meanwhile, the 9.7-inch iPad Pro and iPad Air 2 had the same overall power efficiency.

The 9.7-inch iPad Pro's display also outperformed its larger 12.9-inch sibling in virtually every category:

The display on the new iPad Pro 9.7 outperforms the iPad Pro 12.9 in every single display performance category except (obviously) size, and then just its Black Luminance, which results in a higher Contrast Ratio in the dark. The iPad Pro 12.9 is still a very good display, it’s just that the iPad Pro 9.7 is so much better than anything else.

DisplayMate speculates that Apple could adopt several of these improved display technologies on the iPhone 7:

Since Apple likes to expand new technology across its product lines, an educated guess for the upcoming iPhone 7 is that its display could be a small version of the iPad Pro 9.7. Improvements could include adding the new DCI-P3 Wide Color Gamut and also adding an Anti-Reflection coating that could lower the screen Reflectance from the current iPhone 4.6 percent down to 1.7 percent (a factor of almost 3 improvement). Both of these would also improve the iPhone screen performance and readability in high ambient light. True Tone could be added if Apple upgrades the Ambient Light sensors so they measure Color in addition to Brightness.

Read the full-length 9.7-inch iPad Pro vs. iPad Air 2 display shootout for detailed analysis and in-depth comparison charts.

Earlier this morning, HTC announced its new smartphone, the HTC 10, revealing that the Android device will have the ability to wirelessly play audio through devices and speakers that support streaming via Apple's AirPlay feature (via SlashGear). In addition to AirPlay support, the basic specs of the phone include a 5.2-inch display, Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor, 4GB of RAM, 3,000 mAh battery for two full days of charge, and a USB Type-C port.

The move is a deliberate one by HTC, according to Darren Sng, vice president of product marketing for the company, as it plans to make its smartphones as feature rich as possible, even if it means support for third-party software. The company would even be open to including Apple Pay in its devices, if Apple ever opened up the mobile payments service to other manufacturers.

"We are platform agnostic," Darren Sng, vice president of product marketing, says of the company's ambitions. That extends beyond just streaming standards, too: if Apple made Apple Pay available to third-party manufacturers, or Samsung did the same with Samsung Pay, the exec says, HTC would jump at the opportunity.

"You wouldn't want credit card companies to determine what you can put in your wallet," Sng points out, "so why would you want a particular vendor to decide what payment you put in your phone?"

The HTC 10 is the company's flagship smartphone for 2016, coming on the heels of last year's HTC One M9 device. Anyone interested will be able to purchase the HTC 10 in May for an unlocked price of $699, and various, undisclosed carrier prices. The phone can be pre-ordered from HTC's website today, and in the United States users will be able to choose from black and silver color options, while other markets will include a third alternative of gold.

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