Longer battery life

Apple touts that this year’s iPhone should last an extra 2 hours over last year’s version. That’s a pretty big jump, especially if you’re like me where you’re always on the lookout for a ligntning cable, even for just a few minutes, to get you through the next hump of the day. That extra 2 hours will be a godsend. I’m often running near empty when 5pm rolls around so this will be a welcomed change. Sure I carry around a small battery pack and lightning cable, but as Murphy’s Law would dictate, I often find being busy throughout the day, forgetting to charge, just when I realize I’m not heading home after the office and am left with a dead phone.

Stereo sound

Over the past year I’ve found myself using the iPhone’s speaker to listen to music and podcasts more often. Whether I’m cleaning up in the kitchen, doing some chores around the house, I’d rather listen through the speaker than have something in my ears. The improvements to the sound due to two speakers will certainly increase the experience for anyone who’s in the same boat. I’ll take the removal of the headphone jack for stereo sound anytime, bring it!

Better camera

At this point it’s a given that every year Apple will improve the camera. While I’m disappointed the 7 didn’t get the dual-lens of the 7 Plus, the 7 does have features that most people who have refused to move up to the Plus series will welcome.

First, the 7 includes the optical image stabilization that the 6 Plus and 6S Plus have included for the past two years. Second, the newer camera sports better low-light performance, lower f/1.8 aperature and overall better image quality.

I find myself carrying less and less my Olympus E-M10 mirrorless camera system. Instead I favour of the portability of the iPhone and it’s ability to quickly capture the moment when it arises. With these additions to the 7 and some of the features from the 6/6S Plus coming along for the ride, this will only make my pictures on the iPhone even better, further reducing the need for that mirrorless camera.

Better screen

While we didn’t quite get the iPad Pro’s true-tone display, we did get a new screen with a wide color display (P3) that’s also brighter. Pictures, videos, apps will pop with the new screen. Here’s to hoping next year’s iPhone brings true-tone.

Water resistence

The new iPhone is now water-resistence at IP67. It should be noted that this is great for iPhone-lovers everywhere but isn’t a breakthrough on the market; make note that Samsung’s Galaxy S5 sported the same water-resistence rating of IP67.

This shouldn’t be confused with water proofing which Apple has not yet bestowed the iPhone (maybe in 2017?). However, this will make the new iPhone more resistent if accidentally dropped in certain pools of water that shall remain nameless, or just getting caught in a downpour.

Our family has a pool and this will be a welcomed addition. Earlier this summer, a certain family member dropped their iPhone 6S into the pool (about 3 feet). The iPhone was still on when it was taken out, but even after turning the phone off and letting it stand for 4 days, the iPhone would not power back on. Oh, and for our Canadian winters, the water resistence will certain be a boon for the times your phone may take a tumble in the snow.

Double the storage, same price

The iPhone 7 in Canada starts at $899 for the 32GB version, $1029 for the 128GB and $1159 for the 256GB version. If you’re a moderate user who requires more than 32GB, you’re getting 64GB (or 128GB) more memory than last year for the same price, and who doesn’t want (need) more space?

New case / color combinations

Ok, so this may be more of a personal taste, but I can’t say I disklike how I can now match my iPhone and case with the theme of this site (at least for this year).

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These recent ads must be bringing in a number of frustrated iPhone customers over to Google Photos. While iOS 10’s Photos upgrade certainly narrows the gap with Google Photos, Apple still has a lot of work to do. First, they should be axing those 16GB iPhones (which is rumored to come true this fall with the next iPhone) and also provide more iCloud storage for customers beyond the palsy 5GB.

The goal is to build a vehicle to the SAE Level 4 standard of automation. This would give the car the ability to handle all aspects of driving, although limited to certain approved areas or regions. A car could be restricted to only the island of Manhattan, or to take certain approved routes outside of Manhattan to get to the airport or Yankee Stadium.

2021 is five years away. While Ford has multiple vehicles that have smart features such as cruise control, automatic breaking, lane departure, etc. They do not yet have a production vehicle with any sort of autonomous driving. Five years isn’t a long time for such an ambitious goal of removing the steering wheel and pedals. One of the biggest hurdles will certainly be a regulatory one.

The presentation was reportedly prepared in response to Volkswagen’s realization that it couldn’t meet the US’s more stringent diesel emissions standards without wearing out filtering equipment too quickly. In lieu of fitting better, cleaner systems that would’ve increased sticker prices, the presentation showed how VW could use embedded software to detect when an emissions test was underway and change engine parameters in response, making the cars appear cleaner than they actually were.

Repulsive and disgusting.

Slowly but surely this addiction has been killing my sanity and sapping our productivity as we simply used Slack for too many things. We decided it was time to try a new approach for communication at AgileBits … With Slack we were more connected than we ever were before. We had 81 channels where anyone could talk to anybody in the company, and if the person you needed wasn’t in that channel, no worries, you could simply @ mention them and they would be added instantly.

Wonderful essay by Dave. Slack is the industry’s love child these days but it’s nice to see a dissenting view demonstrating some of the bad habits people can acquire using it. I can certainly see where Dave is coming from and have experienced some of the same pain points in my teams using Slack.

But lord, 81 channels for a 60 person team? That’s just bananas.

“I was going to ask you to explain quantum computing,” he said, as the crowd chuckled with delight. The reporter then tried to move on, asking something serious about how Canada is dealing with terrorism, but Trudeau saw an opportunity to answer a way more fun question for a change. He launched into the explanation about computing, drawing applause from the crowd. “No, no, don’t interrupt me,” the prime minister said over the claps. “When you walk out of here, you will know more — no, some of you will know far less about quantum computing — but most of you.”

Priceless. Looks like Trudeau may be smarter than his critics make him out to be.

The files include references to at least 37 players, only eight of whom are Italian and 29 of whom have ranked in the top 50. Prosecutors are still combing through thousands of pages of evidence and say it is not yet clear how many of those named were actually approached or whether some rebuffed the fixers’ offers to throw matches.

Has yet to be corroborated, but if true, completely shocking that more than half of the top 50 ranked in the world are on this list.

Out of most professional sports, tennis lends itself better to cheating due to the individual nature of the sport (same for golf).

Some of these statistics are even news to me, a home-grown Canadian boy.

One thing this does get right: for the most part, Canada is pretty empty, with most of the population being around the US/Canada border. Why? We also hate the damn cold so the border is about as far south as we can get without invading our US friends (although some of us try).

I am a simple 15-year-old who has loved to doodle for as long as she can remember. I adored my first generation iPad mini, so when the iPad Pro came out I decided I could use an upgrade. What an upgrade!!

Such a great story which caught the attention of Apple’s CEO. His reply is included at the end of the post.

But that’s changing. Because of the endless chain of spectacular security failures and the Snowden news that the NSA is grabbing everything it can, the tech industry is finally ramping up its security. American companies are worried that foreign customers might regard their products as direct conduits to American authorities. So they have changed their practices for moving information between their data centers. Now, confirming government’s biggest nightmare, Apple has planted a flag in the ground for privacy — endeavoring to scramble data on its iPhones so only customers can access them.

There’s a wind of change happening in our society right now that will impact future generations of Internet users. Lines have been drawn and each side’s resolve appears absolute. Go read Steven Levy’s post and ask yourself, where do you stand?

The study, published in _The New England Journal of Medicine, looked at the survival rates for 1,025 patients receiving incompatible kidneys from live donors, comparing them with other kidney transplant patients. After eight years, 76.5 percent of the individuals receiving incompatible kidneys from live donors were still alive — a better outlook than for patients who stayed on the waiting list or got an incompatible kidney from a deceased donor (62.9 percent survival rate), or for patients who never received a transplant at all (43.9 percent). An accompanying editorial in the New England journal described the findings as “revolutionary.”

Being the recipient of a kidney transplant in 2004 and knowing full well that it won’t last my entire life, this is great news. Nobody should have to die when all of us are capable of donating organs.

If you haven’t signed your donor card, make sure to do so.

Say hello to Ulysses 2.5! This is our biggest release yet, spanning every current device and system, from iPhone 5 to iPad Pro to MacBook Air and the big guys, adding device- and system specific features such as 3D Touch and iOS 9 Multitasking.

One of the most professional writing apps available for the Mac / iPad is now available for the iPhone. What’s amazing is that the Soulmen have managed to cram almost every feature from the Mac into the iPhone version. Have a look at their feature comparison table to see just what the iOS versions can do.

To use this feature, go to the settings page and find your secret Feedbin email address. Use this email address whenever you sign up for an email newsletter. Anything sent to it will show up as a feed in Feedbin, grouped by sender.

Such a great idea. I’ll definitely use this feature and start moving my subscriptions to use this method.

Welcome to the blog on Swift.org! Today we launched the open source Swift project along with the Swift.org website. We couldn’t be more excited to work together in an open community to find and fix issues, add enhancements, and bring Swift to new platforms.

Important day for Apple.