Lisa Bettany:

I present an eight iPhone comparison (with) all iPhone versions taken with Camera+ including the original iPhone, iPhone 3G, iPhone 3GS, iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5, iPhone 5S, and the new iPhone 6 in a variety of situations to test the camera’s capabilities.

I taught a beginner digital photography seminar this past weekend and got lots of questions from students about how good the camera was in the new iPhone 6. This articles shows that, in many cases, the increase in quality is very noticeable.

Vanity Fair:

Airline pilots were once the heroes of the skies. Today, in the quest for safety, airplanes are meant to largely fly themselves. Which is why the 2009 crash of Air France Flight 447, which killed 228 people, remains so perplexing and significant. William Langewiesche explores how a series of small errors turned a state-of-the-art cockpit into a death trap.

I waited to post this article until after The Publisher had arrived safely in London, England.

Spend a few minutes browsing Apple’s privacy pages. Privacy is a big issue and Apple has clearly made protecting user privacy a primary design pillar in its products. That’s great for consumers, but privacy also offers a significant competitive advantage against competitors like Google and Facebook.

As an example, take a look at this excerpt from the Privacy Built In page:

Some companies mine your email for personal information to serve you targeted ads. We don’t. To protect your privacy even more, all traffic between any email application and our iCloud mail servers is encrypted. We’ve also updated our mail servers to support encryption in transit with other email providers that also support it.

From Seeking Alpha (free reg wall):

Apple takes pains to highlight how its business does not depend on datamining its users because it sells no advertising.

What if Facebook and Google adopted similar policies with regard to datamining their users? What happens to the value of their advertising business model if the data used to target those ads is no longer captured?

Companies like Google and Facebook have built their business models on mining user data. They can’t simply pivot away from this dependence to follow Apple’s lead.

Protecting user privacy is good for consumers and offers Apple a strong competitive advantage.

MIT’s experimental THAW UI project lets you overlay your iPhone over your computer screen, capturing data from your computer and interacting with objects, creating a single, fluid environment. To get a sense of it, watch the video below. The real fun starts about 45 seconds in.

When Apple announced the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, I wrestled with the question of how big the new models were with respect to my existing iPhone 5s. Will the 6 Plus fit in my pockets? Obviously, a trip to the Apple Store is one solution, but not everyone has access to one.

My poor man’s attempt at a solution was to create a printable document with all three phones, side-by-side. Not a perfect solution, since many printers scale before they print.

Apple is clearly aware of this issue and has responded in a number of ways. As people lined up outside Apple Stores nationwide on launch day, reps walked the lines with the new phones to give folks a chance to hold them, to get a sense of the size so they could make up their minds before they went in store. Smart.

Now Apple is rolling out a national ad campaign showing actual size images of the 6 and 6 Plus. The linked ad appeared on the back cover of Rolling Store magazine. I think this idea is terrific and has legs.

Why not create some iPhone 6 “actual size” coasters and distribute them to bars and restaurants? Spreads the word, offers an unusual advertising approach, people can take them for a spin in their pockets, see how they fit.

Yes, this is a real thing.

The Suitsy is a jacket connected to a shirt connected to pants. A zipper is hidden behind the shirt-button placket (with false buttons) and pants zipper. Fake shirt-cuff material extends from the end of the jacket sleeves to give the impression of a complete dress shirt worn underneath. It’s as if a jumpsuit and a business suit had a lovechild.

I love innovation, novel product ideas, just not sure I could cross the line and wear one.

Steven Levy:

How can an app displace 135 years of telephony?

The first step is by being an app and not a facsimile of a desk phone. Unlike the “dialer” on your mobile, or even the call button on your contact list, Talko presents the opportunity to begin a conversation by simply touching on the image of the person or team you want to talk to, whether they are ready to join right now or sometime in the future.

Going to be very interesting to see if this takes off in any appreciable way.

Steven Soderbergh:

I’ve removed all sound and color from the film, apart from a score designed to aid you in your quest to just study the visual staging aspect.

I am usually vehemently against “messing with” someone else’s movie but Soderbergh’s experiment really enhances (but doesn’t replace) the classic “Raiders of the Lost Ark”.

One of the huge advantages DSLRs and many point and shoots have over the iPhone or other smartphones is the ability to adjust, manipulate and control Shutter, ISO, White Balance, Focus and Exposure Bracketing.

Manual from Little Pixels is just such an app. It has the advantage of having a funny video to go along with it.

ACSI:

Customer satisfaction with computing devices continues to slide but desktop computers do better than laptops and tablets, according to a new report from the American Customer Satisfaction Index (ACSI). The annual measure of personal computers falls 1.3 percent to an ACSI score of 78 (on a 0-100 point scale). Laptops deteriorate the most (-4% to 76), while tablets dip slightly (-1% to 80), but desktops gain 3 percent to take the lead at 81.

Even though Apple “dropped 3% to 84” it continues to “maintain a sizable lead over its major competitors”. It would be interesting to understand the reasons for the overall increased in desktop PC satisfaction. Perhaps people who have switched to laptops and tablets have discovered they are not as powerful as they need or want.

AnandTech:

Some basic performance data and battery life, which include browser benchmarks, game-type benchmarks, and our standard web browsing battery life test. There’s definitely a lot more to talk about for this phone, but this should give an idea of what to expect in the full review.

AnandTech’s prelim results are interesting. I look forward to their full detailed review.

Silicon Valley is slowly drifting into the pay model used by sports franchises, with extraordinary salaries for franchise level talent.

Take Instagram, which entered into tech folklore when its 13 employees — only half of whom were developers — created a simple photo-sharing app that wound up getting bought by Facebook for a $1 billion in 2012. WhatsApp took that dynamic even further. With just 32 engineers, the company built a messaging tool that Facebook — once again digging into its considerable coffers — bought for $19 billion in February.

This kind of reward is exactly the kind of incentive that drives companies to compete for the engineering talent that can make a difference in hitting that IPO jackpot.

So it is that one Silicon Valley startup is trying out its own version of shock and awe to grab the attention of the best of the best engineers. Weeby.co, led by a CEO whose technical work is used on more than 2 billion devices worldwide and who has advised more than 100 companies on fundraising, is building an innovative development platform for social games and is offering to pay its engineers an average salary well above market rate: $250,000 a year, or a million dollars over four years, plus equity.

Foolish? Prescient? Let’s see what impact this has on VC-funded startup salaries over the coming year.

Apple’s posted this graphic (h/t Robert Davey) in a public page of its developer portal:

iOS 8 was released on September 17th and the chart was last updated on Sunday, Sept 21st, so the data represents the first 4 days of release.

This compares favorably with ad network Chitika’s report of tepid iOS 8 adoption posted within a day of the release, showing a 24 hour adoption number of 7.3% for iOS 8 as opposed to 18.2% for the first 24 hours of iOS 7.

BusinessWeek:

Tim Cook was jubilant. It was Sept. 10, a day after the introduction of the iPhone 6 and Apple Watch at the Flint Center in Cupertino, Calif., and Apple’s chief executive officer couldn’t have been happier about reactions from the audience and the media. Cook sat down for an hour-long chat with Bloomberg Businessweek’s Josh Tyrangiel and Brad Stone.

I love how the interview ended.

It’s just incredible to see how many people are buying iPhones. Every year analysts say sales are slowing and every year Apple proves them wrong.

Casey Neistat is a long time self-professed Apple nerd and documentary filmmaker. His latest effort involves the cultural change in the lines of people waiting overnight for new Apple product, a sea change from the early days of Apple fanatics, to the current lineups populated (at least in the case of these Manhattan Apple Stores) by people trying to make a buck.

At first blush, this was a little hard to take. It seemed like victimization, pure and simple. But then I read this piece by Dave Aiello.

I think what’s important to note about this film is that the issue is not Apple’s worldwide product release method at all. At most, the resale activity Neistat depicts represents a side-effect of the failure of the Chinese state regulatory agencies to approve the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus in a timely manner. These regulatory agencies include agencies like the Ministry of Industry and Information Technology, and collectively function as the equivalent of our Federal Communications Commission (FCC) and perhaps our Federal Trade Commission (FTC).

I would argue that, in an effort to show that they control the Chinese smartphone market and Apple does not, these agencies delayed approval of the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus beyond Apple’s planned worldwide release date. By doing so, they created a situation where a graymarket of epic proportions could redevelop overnight. This graymarket may now be exploited in the fashion described in the film.

The only thing I’m really sorry about with respect to this film is that the filmmaker chose to highlight the Chinese people standing in line in New York as if they’re victims being exploited by criminals from China who are referred to as “Chinese mafia”. (Some people also call use of the term “Chinese mafia” racist.) I imagine that the people who waited in line made enough of a profit on resale of the iPhones they purchased to justify their time standing in line.

In this case, one person’s criminal is another person’s street-level entrepreneur.

Watch the video, embedded below. Some good food for thought. [via Seth Weintraub of 9to5mac]

From the Apple Press Release:

Apple® today announced it has sold over 10 million new iPhone® 6 and iPhone 6 Plus models, a new record, just three days after the launch on September 19. iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus are available in the US, Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Hong Kong, Japan, Puerto Rico, Singapore and the UK and will be available in more than 20 additional countries on September 26. The new iPhones will be available in 115 countries by the end of the year.

“Sales for iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus exceeded our expectations for the launch weekend, and we couldn’t be happier,” said Tim Cook, Apple’s CEO. “We would like to thank all of our customers for making this our best launch ever, shattering all previous sell-through records by a large margin. While our team managed the manufacturing ramp better than ever before, we could have sold many more iPhones with greater supply and we are working hard to fill orders as quickly as possible.”

The release did not break down sales numbers between the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus.

Looks like Apple Pay is still targeted for October rollout. This was one of the footnotes in the release:

Apple Pay will be available to iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus customers in the US as a free update to iOS 8 this October.

Seeking Alpha [free reg wall]:

Western media reporting from the streets of China, paint an astounding picture of Chinese consumers thronging around outside Apple stores with signs desperately requesting iPhone 6 smartphones.

The research agency Counterpoint Research has estimated that as many as 5 million units may be smuggled into China before it is possible for consumers to purchase officially from Apple.

Brecorder:

On the eve of the launch, Chinese authorities said Apple had won two necessary approvals, one to certify the phone for the Chinese market and another for wireless devices.

“But iPhone 6 still needs to obtain a key network access licence before it can enter the Chinese mainland market,” the Xinhua news agency said.

The delay has led to the emergence of a lucrative secondary market, especially in Hong Kong, where dealers are paying well over the retail price for new iPhones in the expectation of getting even more in turn from mainland Chinese buyers.

“If we are talking about the 128 gigabyte version we would buy it for as much as HK$18,000 ($2,322),” said Gary Yiu, the manager of the iGeneration phone reseller store.

Even if Chinese approval is close, the black market won’t wait for it. Fascinating.

TechCrunch:

For instance, iMessage in iOS 8 now lets you send voice memos and videos that expire unless you choose to keep them. These features are built into the new keyboard, with an icon on the right that you can hold down to record audio, and a familiar camera button on the left that is slightly more tricky.

If you tap this camera button, you are given the same options that you’ve always been given: Choose from Camera Roll or Take Photo or Video. If you hold the button down, however, two second buttons emerge: the top button is a camera and the button to the right is a red, circular record button. As The Verge points out, this behavior of holding down your thumb to send a photo or video is highly reminiscent of Snapchat.

Once you hold the button, you can release and press the camera or record button or simply slide your finger over to those buttons to take a pic or video.

But here’s the rub.

With both videos and voice memos, iMessage lets you review the content before sending it. You can play it back and then choose to delete or send it off into the world for other peoples’ viewing and judging pleasure.

With still pictures, however, the photo is automatically sent the second your finger releases the camera button.

This instant send mode also occurs when you select an existing photo to send in Messages. When you tap a photo in your library, Messages reveals a “Send 1 Photo” button which will send the photo instantly.

There’s a slippery slope between ease of use and unintended consequences. The instant selfie is a great idea. Rather than implement it with a gesture that lies along the path in a typical use case, better to tie it to a unique gesture. Allow people to discover it, perhaps by reading about it in a tips and tricks post, rather than stumble on it accidentally.

Quartz:

Call it the Church of Apple. Steve Jobs once called big phones Hummers (like the cars) and said that no-one was going to buy them. (He was sitting next to the current CEO, Tim Cook, when he said that.) Only a year after the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 was released with a 4-inch display and it sold like hotcakes. The Apple fans bought it and loved it. And the same thing is happening again. So what gives?

To me, it’s about acclimation. The move from the iPhone 4 to the iPhone 5 form factor was an easy adjustment. The iPhone 5 was lighter and longer, but still easy to use with one hand. The move from the iPhone 5 to the iPhone 6 is a bit more of a leap, and the move to the iPhone 6 Plus form factor is truly dramatic, challenging our preconceived notions about the aesthetics of phone size.

The time for calling the iPhone 6 a “sleek, sophisticated rounded rectangle” compared to the Galaxy S5’s “bulky, hideous rounded rectangle,” as The Onion put it, has passed.

As Apple releases their sales figures, we’ll get a true sense of how people really feel about the iPhone 6 Plus. No matter what the short term sales figures reveal, I think people will get used to the larger size.

Walt Mossberg said this back in 2012:

As a mobile phone, the Galaxy Note is positively gargantuan. It’s almost 6 inches long and over 3 inches wide. When you hold it up to your ear, it pretty much covers the entire side of your face. You look like you’re talking into a piece of toast.

That toast reference is now being thrown back at the Apple community in commercials and countless blog posts. I completely understand the impulse. Enjoy the moment.

How do you make a can of Coke?

The Vons grocery store two miles from my home in Los Angeles, California sells 12 cans of Coca-Cola for $6.59 — 54 cents each. The tool chain that created this simple product is incomprehensibly complex.

Each can originated in a small town of 4,000 people on the Murray River in Western Australia called Pinjarra. Pinjarra is the site of the world’s largest bauxite mine. Bauxite is surface mined — basically scraped and dug from the top of the ground. The bauxite is crushed and washed with hot sodium hydroxide, which separates it into aluminum hydroxide and waste material called red mud. The aluminum hydroxide is cooled, then heated to over a thousand degrees celsius in a kiln, where it becomes aluminum oxide, or alumina. The alumina is dissolved in a molten substance called cryolite, a rare mineral first discovered in Greenland, and turned into pure aluminum using electricity in a process called electrolysis. The pure aluminum sinks to the bottom of the molten cryolite, is drained off and placed in a mold. It cools into the shape of a long cylindrical bar. The bar is transported west again, to the Port of Bunbury, and loaded onto a container ship bound for — in the case of Coke for sale in Los Angeles — Long Beach.

And that’s just the beginning. Great read.

TechCrunch:

As of 4 PM Pacific, the iPhone 6 accounts for about 2.45% of the devices MixPanel is seeing in use. The iPhone 6 Plus, meanwhile, makes up just 0.31%. Everything else (that is, every previous generation of iPhone MixPanel still sees in the wild) makes up the other 97.24%.

This data is pulled from mobile analytics firm MixPanel (subscription).

It’ll be interesting to watch this graph over the next few days; on day one, at least, the margin between the two devices seems to just be getting bigger and bigger. Given that both devices are widely sold out, this could also imply that Apple made way more 6s than 6 Plus. If that’s the case, will the gap close as Apple becomes able to meet demand… or will most would-be 6 Plus owners have given in and bought a 6?

Or is it simply that the much larger size is still emerging as an acquired taste, that the iPhone 6 is already a step in a new direction for most buyers? It’s interesting to note that we no longer have a smaller form factor as an option. When the iPhone 5 was introduced, the shorter iPhone 4 form factor no longer sold through the traditional channels.

When the iPhone 6 was released, the iPhone 5s was not updated. Presumably, over time, the iPhone 5s form factor will disappear and the iPhone 6 will become the new normal. As users acclimate to this new standard size, and as more and more Android users make their way across the divide, I suspect the iPhone 6 Plus will gather momentum.

iOS 8 allows you to select a third party keyboard to replace Apple’s built-in keyboard. The linked article takes a look at three of these, SwiftKey, Swype, and Fleksy, comparing them to the default iOS 8 keyboard.

Before you adopt one of these alternatives, be sure to read this discussion of third party keyboards and the security risks they bring to the table.

A walk down memory lane for the Apple home page. Amazing how much has changed over the years and how much has stayed the same. Remember iCards? iTools? [via iOS Dev Weekly]

Visual Supply Co:

Advanced camera controls are now available for iOS 8. New features include:
– Manual focus
– Shutter speed
– White balance
– Exposure compensation

VSCO Cam is the first app I’ve seen that takes advantage of the new capabilities of iOS 8 in letting photographers take more control over the camera in the iPhone. Even better, it’s a free app.