iOS 8 to Offer Best iPhone Camera Experience Yet

One of the more attractive features of Nokia’s high-end Lumia smartphones is that they offer near total granular control over the camera. You can tweak the white balance, exposure, shutter speed and focus all with ease. While Apple’s iPhone 5s offers one of the best cameras on the market, one of its weak points is that Apple has so far locked down access to a lot of the manual controls, instead preferring to make the camera experience much easier for Joe Consumer. That changes in iOS 8.

Anandtech recently dug through the iOS 8 code and found that it will “expose just about every manual control possible.” That doesn’t necessarily mean Apple will make them available in its default app – in fact, it doesn’t in the iOS 8 beta – but it does mean third party app developers can create more robust apps that let you tweak those sorts of controls.Apple’s tools allow developers to skirt around camera controls that typically lock access to the shutter speed, exposure values and white balance settings.

This is great news for folks who have otherwise shied away from the iPhone 5s because of the inability to manually control a lot of the camera actions. Also, for folks who don’t care, it appears that Apple’s camera UI will remain as simple as ever, without making things too complicated out of the box. Hit the source for a more detailed look.

Apple Launches New, Cheaper iMac

There was some early speculation that Apple was going to unveil a more affordable iMac computer during WWDC 2014, though the company ultimately did not. Today, however, it finally announced a new cheaper iMac that will set you back $1,099. Apple didn’t simply drop the price on an existing model, this is a completely brand new computer with different components that may help cater the iMac system to consumers who found the other models too expensive.

 

The $1,099 iMac sports  a 21.5-inch display with a 1920 x 1080-pixel resolution, a 1.4GHz dual-core Intel Core i5 processor with Turbo Boost up to 2.7GHz, 8GB of RAM, a 500GB 5400rpm hard drive, Intel HD 5000 graphics, a FaceTime HD camera, two ThunderBolt ports and more. It also ships with an Apple wireless keyboard and Magic Mouse in the box, and is pre-loaded with OS X Mavericks.

 

Amazing New OS X Yosemite Feature Won’t Work on all devices

Handoff, one of OS X Yosemite’s standout features, makes it super simple to create a deeper relationship between your Apple devices. Working on a project on your Mac? You can pick up right where you left off on your iPad, and vice versa. For the sake of productivity, it’s a really convenient feature, and means you can get work done no matter which device is available to you at that moment. Unfortunately, it won’t be quite as accessible to everyone, depending on the devices you own.

As first noted by Apfeleimer, the only way users can take advantage of the continuity/Handoff feature is if they have devices with Bluetooth 4.0 LE support. For most users of newer devices that shouldn’t be a problem, but going back to the 2011 MacBook Air, Mac Mini and before, the feature likely won’t be supported. Besides that, anything before the iPhone 4s and iPad 2 won’t be compatible with iOS 8, so it might finally be time for you to upgrade; the iPad 2 won’t support continuity because it lacks Bluetooth 4.0 LE support, so bear that in mind.

So those who want to take the advantage of continuity should change their older devices to new one.

Apple hasn’t yet confirmed which of its machines will support what is possibly Yosemite’s best feature, and there’s nothing available on the company’s site just yet. For power users, the lack of continuity will be sorely missed, but I imagine many of these users will be upgrading soon anyway. There is, after all, reports of a MacBook Air with Retina screen coming later this year.

Apple Sapphire Plant Reportedly Set to Produce for iPhone 6 and iWatch

Apple’s sapphire glass plant in Mesa, Arizona looks set to begin production this month, and it should have enough capacity to cover both versions of the iPhone 6 and iWatch this year according to one report.

Matt Margolis of Seeking Alpha has done some supply chain checks, and what he found is a sapphire glass facility with an enormous capacity. According to his findings, the facility has over 2,5000 glass furnaces and should have the capacity to produce enough sapphire glass for 200 million screens this year with production even starting halfway through.

As to what Apple will do with all of these screens, Margolis feels it will be enough material to cover the projected production runs of the rumored 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhone 6 models as well as the endlessly speculated upon iWatch.

All of this is of course unconfirmed at this point beyond the fact that Apple is indeed getting into the sapphire glass production business. Exactly how many panels it can produce in a given year and what their final use will be is all still up for grabs. With how much Apple is investing in this venture, however, it does seem safe to speculate that it will be making its way to the company’s products in the near future.

Apple is expected to introduce new products in both September and October of this year, so we only have a few months to wait until we find out for sure what the company’s plan is.

Apple may use Lightning Port for its EarPods

Apple is reportedly paving the road for a new generation of headphones that plug into iOS devices via Lightning cable instead of using the standard 3.5mm jack. The news comes from 9to5Mac, which cites Cupertino’s new specs for its Made-For-iPhone/iPad/iPod (MFI) program ahead of a future software update.

There are a number of advantages to using the Lightning port over a regular jack. The new headphones would be able to receive lossless stereo 48 kHz digital audio while also sending improved audio into your device if you’re using a built-in microphone to talk on the phone. Plugging in certain headphones could even launch a specific app automatically, for example plugging in your “Beats Lightning” headphones might trigger the Beats Music app to open.

Apple’s Lightning port could also transfer power in the same way it does while charging your iPhone. That means it could charge a more complex set of future EarPods or even draw from a reserve of power in your headphones to charge your smartphone on the go.

There are also some obvious disadvantages. Lightning headphones almost certainly won’t work on any other smartphones, meaning you’ll need to buy a separate pair to use with your Android devices or even older Apple products. They probably won’t even work with your MacBook, unless Apple is also planning on adding a Lightning port to its next generation os OS X computers. It’s possible the company could sell a special adapter, though it definitely won’t be cheap.

It’s worth noting that an alleged leak last month pre-empted this week’s rumor, claiming a future EarPod model would plug in via Lightning port and use built-in sensors to measure your heart rate and blood pressure. The poster later admitted to making the entire thing up, but it looks like they might not have been too far off from the truth. If Apple does decide to offer Lightning headphones we could see the first ones unveiled later this year alongside the iPhone 6, though for now this is just another rumor.