Month: December 2016

iPhone 7 Plus Cameras having issues – Apple replacing them

Dan Uff December 23, 2016 0

“Apple is reportedly replacing or repairing iPhone 7 Plus units that have developed camera faults,” Killian Bell reports for Cult of Mac. “Some users on Reddit and around the web have complained of black and purple screens and error messages when opening the camera app, supposedly due to a dodgy iSight sensor.”

“When the viewfinder does work and a preview image appears, it has a black, green, or purple tint, users report,” Bell reports. “This is sometimes accompanied by an error message that warns ‘iPhone needs to cool down,’ even though the device doesn’t feel warm.”

“The good news is, those who are experiencing this problem are getting help from Apple,” Bell reports. “Some users report that their handsets were repaired under warranty without any issues, while others received complete replacement units.”

Read more in the full article here.

Consumer Reports has a “NO BUY” on New MacBook Pro due to Battery Issues

Dan Uff December 23, 2016 0

“Apple launched a new series of MacBook Pro laptops this fall, and Consumer Reports’ labs have just finished evaluating them. The laptops did very well in measures of display quality and performance, but in terms of battery life, we found that the models varied dramatically from one trial to another,” Jerry Beilinson writes for Consumer Reports. “As a result, these laptops are the first MacBooks not to receive recommended ratings from Consumer Reports.”

“The MacBook Pro battery life results were highly inconsistent from one trial to the next,” Beilinson writes. “For instance, in a series of three consecutive tests, the 13-inch model with the Touch Bar ran for 16 hours in the first trial, 12.75 hours in the second, and just 3.75 hours in the third. The 13-inch model without the Touch Bar worked for 19.5 hours in one trial but only 4.5 hours in the next. And the numbers for the 15-inch laptop ranged from 18.5 down to 8 hours. Those were just a few of the results; we tested battery life on these laptops repeatedly.”

“For the battery test, we download a series of 10 web pages sequentially, starting with the battery fully charged, and ending when the laptop shuts down,” Beilinson writes. “The web pages are stored on a server in our lab, and transmitted over a WiFi network set up specifically for this purpose. We conduct our battery tests using the computer’s default browser—Safari, in the case of the MacBook Pro laptops… Once our official testing was done, we experimented by conducting the same battery tests using a Chrome browser, rather than Safari. For this exercise, we ran two trials on each of the laptops, and found battery life to be consistently high on all six runs.”

Full article here.

New Apple Watch 2 TV Commercial: Go Swim

Dan Uff December 23, 2016 0

[youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5ziig5GbRrc&w=560&h=315]

Apple asked for help in unlocking iPhone involving Russian Assassination

Dan Uff December 22, 2016 0

(9to5Mac.com): After an off-duty police officer shot dead the Russian ambassador to Turkey, Apple has been asked to help unlock an iPhone 4s recovered from the killer.

MacReports and other local media say that Apple is expected to refuse the request from Turkish authorities, but report that the Russian government has said it will help …

Russia is planning to send a special technical team to Turkey to unlock the iPhone, a senior Turkish official told us.

The case of course echoes that of the San Bernardino shooting, where Apple refused to help the FBI unlock a work phone used by one of the killers on the basis that any backdoor it created would inevitably end up falling into the wrong hands. The FBI subsequently got outside help to unlock the phone, where nothing of interest was found.

Andrei Karlov, the Russian ambassador to Turkey, was killed in Ankara on Monday by a man later identified as 22-year-old Mevlut Mert Altıntas, an off-duty riot police officer who used his police ID to gain access to the art gallery where Karlov was speaking. The killer shouted ‘Don’t forget Aleppo’ during the attack. Altıntas was subsequently killed in a shoot-out with Turkish special forces.

Both Russia and Turkey have described the killing as an assassination designed to destabilize the relationship between the two countries as they attempt to address their differing positions over the conflict in Syria.

Photo: Getty Images