iPhone SE, iPad Pro 9.7″, and new Apple Watch Bands | Apple Event Wrapup

Written by Joey Peters

Apple realeased a ton of new products at the Apple Event on March 21, 2016. In that event, they released a new robot named Liam which can tear your iPhone apart and recycle it. They also released updates for the iPhone, Mac, Apple Watch, and Apple TV. Now on to the big stuff, the new Apple Watch Bands, iPad Pro 9.7″, and the iPhone SE.

Apple’s new robot named Liam takes recycling seriously. If can completely take apart an iPhone and separate each part to recycle them so they can use the parts in other iPhones. Apple is taking there recycling very seriously lately.

All platforms got a software update that were mostly stability updates but in the iPhone, they got an update called IOS 9.3. In IOS 9.3, there is new awesome feature that completely got stolen from F.Lux which takes out all of the blue light in the display so you can sleep better and also so it dosen’t damage your eyes. They call it NightShift. It basically does the exact same thing except it dosen’t have as many features as F.Lux does. Also, the Apple TV got Folder support if you really needed to kn0w that.

New Apple Watch Bands got released and they are a layered stitch design with lots of colors. The Apple Watch also got a price reduce from $399 to $299 which in my mind it should have been $299 from the beginning.

The iPad Pro 9.7″ got released and it is basically the exact same thing as the iPad Pro except that there is a couple of new features. That new feature is that the camera is upgraded along with a rear facing flash. The new camera can shoot 4K and is a 12 megapixel sensor. A bad thing about upgrading the camera is that it is now protruding which completely sucks so now when you use your Apple Pencil, your iPad will wobble around on the table. One more feature that the the new iPad has that the other one dosen’t is a new screen technology called true tone display where the sensors sense that you are in a warm environment and it changes the screen temperature according to what is going on around you. I am very excited about this new technology and I hope it comes to all of the new Apple products that Apple is going to release.

Finally, the new iPhone 5 SE. This phone has the specks of the iPhone 6s but in a 4″ form factor. This is great for the people that use the iPhone 5s because they can upgrade without getting a bigger screen and they can keep the same design. It has an A9 Apple chip, 12 megapixel 4K camera (no protruding lense), new Rose Gold color, Front flash, Apple Pay, Touch ID, and faster LTE. This new phone is a budget phone and it is the first budget phone from Apple and it only starts at $399 for a 16GB model which sucks because Apple should be starting everything at aleast 32GB. So basically it is an iPhone 6s but smaller.

Header Image Provided by Apple

Apple’s iPad Pro mini will reportedly cost $599

We are now a few days out from the ‘iPhone 5SE’ event. Apple is expected to be unveling a new iPhone, a 9.7 inch iPad Pro, and potentially some new Watch stuffs. This will become the new “base” model. It is expected to baseline at 32GB but is also rumoured to have a 128GB option. This new iPad is not an iPad Air 2 replacement, and you should not expect a price drop in the current one.

Continue reading Apple’s iPad Pro mini will reportedly cost $599

The Nextbit Robin got Discontinued on Verizon and Sprint

Written by Joey Peters

The Nextbit Robin is a flagship smartphone that was released and it has a new technology in it where it backs everything up to the cloud automatically. That means you don’t need any space on the actual device itself. Unfortunately, if you are on the network Verizon or Sprint, you will not be able to use this phone on your network.

What happened is that the Robin was suppose to release a long time ago and was only going to cost Hundreds of thousands of dollars but then it became into a waiting game and didn’t release until a couple of months later which then would cost carriers Millions of dollars and Verizon didn’t think that it really worth it to invest into the phone because they thought it really wouldn’t get across the public and nobody would buy it and then they would loose a ton of money. I think they both made the right decision on not signing with Nextbit because in my mind I didn’t really like the Nextbit Robin.

With this, Verizon and Sprint could loose a small percentage of customers because some people really want to buy the Nextbit Robin. In some ways this was good by saving them money but then they loose customers in the process of it. It is really a win/loose situation here. Do you think they made the right decision in doing this? Leave a comment down below telling my if they made the right decision and do you want a Nextbit Robin?

Apple’s iCloud reported to be partially powered by Google’s Cloud Platform

Written by Lance Nickel

According to a few sources, iCloud will be partially powered by Google Cloud. Apple seems to be cutting their spending costs with Amazon. A move on this level is a huge achievement for Google’s flourishing cloud enterprise.

It has never been made official, but it is reported that iCloud is currently powered by Amazon Web Services and Microsoft’s Azure. Apple is reportedly paying Google between $400 and $600 million for this deal. Apple is not planning on dropping Amazon completely, but they are starting to cut back on that service to save money. (Because of all companies… Apple is the one that needs to save money).

At the writing of this article, Google is #3 when it comes to enterprise cloud services. They recently hired VMWare co-founder Dianne Greene to lead their cloud services. They are planning on making the service more affordable in the years to come.

Google is often more affordable because of their extensive fibre networks that connects their data centers at high bandwidth, and low costs. A while ago, Spotify made the announcement that they will be using Google’s Cloud Platform for their music.

It will take just about a year for iCloud to be completely running on Google’s servers, but it will eventually happen.

header image thanks go globaldots

Material Design guidelines now include “Bottom Nav” guidelines

Written by Lance Nickel

Google has added some things to their Material Design guidelines. These guidelines are rules and tips for designers looking to design apps on Android, to make the ecosystem consistent. The design is based of off “quantum paper”, which means that many elements use life-like shadows, physics, and other things, while still being smart like a computer.

As you know, Google Photos received an update, which added a bottom bar. Google Plus has had this for a while (Android versions), and they seem to be different. Maybe Google will update them?

The thing that kind of annoys me about Material Design is that Google themselves do not adhere to these rules as much. As nice as this system is, it could be a lot more consistent across Android, let alone Google’s own suite of Apps.

Here are some guidelines for the bottom navs:

  • It should only be used if there are 3-5 top level views
  • Less than 3 views? Use a tab bar.
  • More than 5? Use a slide-out nav.
  • It should be fixed and not scrollable.
  • Web based apps can use them as a sidebar, rather than a large bottom bar.
header image thanks to Google

Apple March 21st Event Confirmed

Written by Joey Peters

Apple has confirmed that there will be an event on March 21st with the tagline being, “Let Us Loop You In” which is referring to the new Apple Watch bands they will most likely be releasing. We have known for awhile what they are going to release and it will feature a new 4-inch iPhone which will be called the iPhone SE, new Apple Watch bands, and a new iPad Pro Mini. There is a slight chance that there will be a refresh to the Macbook Pro but that is unlikely because Intel is behind on releasing there Skylake processors.

iPhone SE – The iPhone SE will bring back the 4-inch display and will look almost identical to the iPhone 5s. The iPhone SE is expected to bring an Apple A9 Chip with 1 GB on RAM. On this phone, expect to see Touch ID as it was on the iPhone 5s but where not sure if it will be the first generation Touch ID or second generation Touch ID. Also on this phone there will be Apple Pay so you can go up to supported credit card swipers and use your thumbprint to pay for something. For the camera, it is going to be a 8-megapixel. Live Photos will be supported but there will be no 3D Touch so it will probably just be a long press to activate the Live Photo as seen before in a jailbreak tweak. To its looks, there will probably be a new color which will be Rose Gold (pink) and a full metal casing just like the iPhone 6/6s/6 Plus/6s Plus.

Apple Watch bands – We are expected to see some new Apple Watch bands that already exist but in different colors and also a new nylon and Space Black Milanese Loop bands.

iPad Pro Mini – We are also expecting to see a new iPad that will have the iPad Pro like features but smaller in a 9.7-inch form factor. There will be a four speaker design, Smart Connector for keyboards, and Apple Pencil Support. On this iPad, you should expect to see the very first iPad with a rear flash for the camera. Basically, it’s going to be a smaller iPad Pro most likely called the iPad Pro Mini.

Image Header Credit: Apple