Apple unveils the 4-inch iPhone SE!

At today’s invite-only media event at the Town Hall on its Cupertino, California headquarters, Apple has officially unveiled its latest four-inch smartphone, the iPhone SE. With one-third of iPhone buyers still preferring four inch phones and two and a half years having passed since the introduction of the iPhone 5s, its last four-inch phone and the world’s first smartphone with a 64-bit processor, the iPhone SE picks up right where its predecessor left off.

The rumors were true: the iPhone SE takes Apple’s latest and greatest technology like a third-generation 64-bit A9 processor with an embedded M9 motion coprocessor, upgraded cameras, faster wireless, NFC for Apple Pay and more (but without 3D Touch), and packs it inside a four-inch form factor.

The iPhone SE has has a twelve-megapixel camera on the back, just like the iPhone 6S. The front-facing camera has gained Retina Flash function from the iPhone 6s, which flashes the display three times the normal to illuminate your face as you take selfies.

The iSight camera includes the latest features like Focus Pixels and True Tone Flash, while the A9 chip’s image single processor allows for panoramas up to 63 megapixels, improvements to video, Slo-Mo and other features.

LTE speeds on the iPhone SE are fifty percent faster than the iPhone 5s and there’s three times faster 802.11ac Wi-Fi.

And because it has the power-efficient M9 motion coprocessor that can monitor mic input, the iPhone SE include a tetherless ‘Hey Siri’ function. And last but not least, the iPhone SE has Apple’s latest-generation Touch ID fingerprint sensor.

By the way, Apple sold over thirty million four-inch iPhones in 2015 and for a lot of customers it’s their first iPhone, said Apple’s SVP of iPhone marketing, Greg Joswiak.

Apple unveils smaller iPad Pro, new Watch Bands, iOS 9.3 and TvOS updates arriving Today!

Availability

It starts at only $399 for a contract-free version, making it the most affordable iPhone. There’s also a higher-priced $499 iPhone SE with 64 gigabytes of storage

Apple will begin taking pre-orders for the iPhone SE this Thursday, March 24 ahead of its release the following Friday, March 31. The new phone will be in about 110 countries by the end of May, said Apple.

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iPhone 7 Leaked with Dual-Lens Camera and a Smart Connector!

The iPhone 7 may come with a Smart Connector if photos of what appears to be an early iPhone 7 Plus unit can be believed.

Photos of the alleged iPhone 7, leaked by a Chinese website, show Apple integrating a dual-lens camera into the design of the rear case. If the case is accurate, it looks like Apple won’t be ditching its protruding camera lens this year.

It’s unclear if Apple will use the dual-lens camera on the iPhone 7 as well as the 7 Plus. Early rumors have suggested Apple will make the feature exclusive to the iPhone 7 Plus due to supply constraints in late 2016.

Russian design firm Feld & Volk — famous for its gaudy iPhone modifications — has already created renderings of what the iPhone 7 Plus would look like if the leaked case above is genuine. Feld & Volk also has a reputation for getting its hands on iPhone parts before launch, but their sources haven’t confirmed whether the leaked iPhone 7 case is authentic.

iPhone 7 leak shows Smart Connector

The addition of a Smart Connector on the iPhone 7 hasn’t been mentioned by previous rumors. Apple debuted the new connector, which can power devices and transmit data, on the iPad Pro. (The upcoming 9.7-inch iPad Pro is also expected to get the feature.)

Adding a Smart Connector to the iPhone 7 could alleviate some fans’ concerns about charging and listening to headphones at the same time if Apple kills the headphone jack as expected.

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iPhone 6s Plus crushes Galaxy S7 edge in side-by-side speed test

The Galaxy S7 is Samsung’s best smartphone to date and it’s performed well in stress tests, including water resistance tests and extensive drop tests. Now for the first time, someone has done a side-by-side speed test of the Galaxy S7 and the iPhone 6s and it shows that Apple’s flagship phone is still king when it comes to real-world performance.

Specifically, YouTube user Jerome Ortega ran a performance test across various top devices, including the Moto X Pure Edition, the Nexus 6P, the Galaxy S7 edge, and the iPhone 6s Plus.

All devices are running freshly installed operating systems, have no SIM cards, and all have the same apps installed. The point of the test is to see how fast each phone runs a sequence of apps. We’ve seen this sort of comparison done before between iPhones and other Samsung phones and the iPhone has traditionally come out on top despite having inferior hardware specifications.

In this case, the iPhone 6S Plus has 2GB of RAM and a dual-core A9 chip, while the Galaxy S7 edge has 4GB of RAM and an octa-core Qualcomm Snapdragon 820 processor. Recent tests have shown that the new Snapdragon 820 CPU barely outperforms the A9.

Those of you expecting the Galaxy S7 edge to come out the faster device will be surprised to see the iPhone beating its new rival quite easily, as you can see in the scores in the image above. The iPhone 6s Plus ran through the test cycle with 17 seconds to spare compared to the Galaxy S7 edge.

The iPhone 6s is snappier than the Galaxy S7 edge, which is impressive. For the sake of the argument, we’ll note that the Nexus 6P almost matches the Galaxy S7 edge in speed, with the Moto X Pure coming in the last spot.

Check out the full video below

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Music Memos: anyone with an iPhone will sound like a rockstar!

Apple today released Music Memos, an all-new iPhone and iPad app that is essentially an enhanced version of the stock Voice Memos app for songwriters.

Music Memos is designed for musicians and songwriters to quickly and easily capture their impromptu song ideas on the fly, whenever inspiration strikes.

The app has a simple user interface at first glance, with nothing but a small recording button, but tucked away behind tiny icons are several useful features.

Recording

To begin recording, simply open the Music Memos app and tap on the blue circle button. The user interface will turn red while recording. Alternatively, you can tap on the “Auto” label in the top-left corner and the app will automatically start and stop the recording based on your voice.

As you are recording, the circle will pulsate to your voice, or musical instruments, and there is a waveform at the bottom of the screen. To finish recording, simply tap the red circle button and the snippet will appear at the bottom with a title, playback button, pitch notation, and other options.

Tapping on the guitar or drum set icons overlays the music recording with drums and a bass line to provide a virtual, customizable backing band. Moreover, your snippet can be renamed, deleted, tagged, or rated on a five-star scale. The app also provides visual warnings if it detects your recording is too quiet or too loud.

Editing

Music Memos saves a list of your recordings, accessible by tapping the tray button at the top of the app. Tapping on a snippet’s waveform brings up various editing options for tempo, time signature, downbeat, tuning and length.

The app automatically analyzes your recording and displays musical measures and suggested chord names. Any chord names throughout your song can be renamed or provided further detail by tapping on them.

There are also the options to trim the beginning and end of your recording, adjust the tempo, time signature and downbeat, and keep track of comments, lyric ideas, alternate guitar tunings, or capo position.

Tuning

Music Memos includes a built-in tuner for chromatic pitch notation, accessible by tapping the tuning fork button in the top-right corner. The tuner automatically shows a letter note once it detects sound.

There are already several existing tuner apps on the App Store, including Guitar Tuna andCleartune, but this is a convenient, all-in-one option that songwriters can use to both record musical ideas and tune their guitars.

Exporting and Sharing

Music Memos snippets, which are 24-bit 44.1kHz audio files, can be saved to iCloud Drive, exported to Logic Pro X and GarageBand for iOS or Mac, or shared directly on Apple Music Connect, SoundCloud, and YouTube. Simply tap on the tray button at the top, expand a recording from the list and tap the share button.

Music Memos is free on the App Store for iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch.

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Dual-core iPhone 6s named top performer of 2015, crushing octa-core Android rivals

Raw hardware specs aren’t everything. What’s far more important is how well a phone’s software works with its hardware, as AnTuTu’s new hardware performance rankings demonstrate. The popular benchmarking site has posted its list of the ten best performing smartphones of 2015 and the iPhone 6s absolutely crushes everything in its path despite “only” having a dual-core processor and 2GB of RAM.

Just look at this chart:

As you can see, the iPhone 6s destroys devices that have octacore processors and 4GB of RAM in AnTuTu’s performance benchmarks. All told, the iPhone 6s’s score is 59% higher than the Galaxy Note 5 and 69% higher than the Nexus 6P. The Huawei Mate 8 comes the closest to matching the iPhone 6s’s performance but even that device is a long way off from Apple’s 2015 flagship phone. In fact, the rankings show that even 2014’s iPhone 6 still performs better than some 2015 Android devices including the OnePlus 2 and the Nexus 6P.

What’s particularly intriguing here is the comparatively poor performance of the Nexus 6P. Unlike other Android devices on the market, the Nexus 6P uses the stock version of Android and features hardware that was designed with Google’s input. It seems strange that it would perform worse than devices that are encumbered by carrier and OEM bloatware like the Galaxy Note 5.

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