Enlarge/ The Apple Watch Series 9 released in September 2023.
Apple
Apple will pause sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 starting December 21, it revealed today in a statement to 9to5Mac. The move comes as the products are facing a potential import ban until August 2028, due to rulings that the watches infringe on patents from Masimo.
In October, the US International Trade Commission (ITC) upheld a January ruling that Apple Watches with pulse oximeter features infringe on two Masimo patents. Since then, the case has been under a 60-day Presidential Review Period, which ends December 25. After that date, the watches are subject to an import ban until the patents’ expiration in 2028.
Apple told 9to5Mac:
While the review period will not end until December 25, Apple is preemptively taking steps to comply should the ruling stand. This includes pausing sales of the Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 from Apple.com starting December 21, and from Apple retail locations after December 24.
The Apple Watch SE will remain available since it doesn’t have the blood oxygen sensor technology under dispute, which Apple debuted with the Apple Watch Series 6 in 2020.
Since the ITC’s ruling is still under presidential review, President Biden may decide to veto the ruling, saving the Apple Watch from an import ban. However, we’ve already seen Biden decline to veto an ITC ruling that the Apple Watch infringes on electrocardiogram sensor-related patents owned by AliveCor. (The Apple Watch wasn’t banned related to that because the US Patent and Trademark Office revoked the patents in question, a decision that AliveCor is appealing.)
People can still buy the watches from third-party retailers for now. But if the ITC’s ruling isn’t vetoed, then, come December 25, Apple won’t be able to sell the watch to other retailers, like Best Buy, anymore.
Apple’s statement today noted that it “strongly disagrees” with the ITC’s ruling and is “pursuing a range of legal and technical options to ensure that Apple Watch is available to customers.”
“Should the order stand, Apple will continue to take all measures to return Apple Watch Series 9 and Apple Watch Ultra 2 to customers in the U.S. as soon as possible,” Apple said.
Apple said it would appeal the ITC’s ruling on December 26 if the Presidential Review Period ends without a veto. But the watches would still be subject to the import ban.
A long battle
California-based Masimo has alleged that Apple started engaging in discussions with the company in 2013 under the premise of a potential partnership. However, Masimo claims that Apple ended up poaching some of its workers and tech. Apple previously claimed that Masimo was only “one of many medical-technology companies” that it met with during that time and that it never partnered with Masimo because it wasn’t consumer-focused.
As of this writing, Masimo’s “consumer health” website includes a handful of products. That includes the Masimo W1 health-tracking watch, against which Apple filed a patent infringement case in 2022 [PDF]. And if that’s not enough litigious beef between these two, Masimo also has a case against Apple filed in the US District Court in the Central District of California in early 2020, as noted by 9to5Mac.
While Apple is announcing some preemptive moves today, don’t expect the battle to be over. Apple made $39,845,000 [PDF] in wearables, home, and accessories sales for fiscal year 2023, (which ended September 20). There are numerous stakeholders—from suppliers to third-party retailers—invested in Apple producing flagship smartwatches.
Apple has alluded to numerous paths it can take to keep its watches alive, from more litigation to seeking new technologies. But it’s also possible that Masimo and Apple try to end their battle by working out some sort of licensing agreement.
Stadia might be dead, but the controllers for Google’s cloud-based gaming platform are still out there. With the service permanently offline, the proprietary Stadia Controller threatened to fill up landfills until Google devised a plan to convert them to generic Bluetooth devices that can work on almost anything. The app to open up the controller to other devices is a web service, which previously had a shutdown date of December 2023. That apparently isn’t enough time to convert all these controllers, so the Stadia Controller Salvage operation will run for a whole additional year. X (formerly Twitter) user Wario64 was the first to spot the announcement, which says the online tool will continue running until December 31, 2024.
As a cloud-based gaming service, Stadia had all the game code run on remote servers, with individual video frames streaming live to the user and showing the gameplay. The user would press buttons on their local controller, and every single individual button press had to travel across the Internet to the remote game server to be processed. These services live and die by their latency; in an attempt to reduce latency, the Stadia Controller connected to the Internet directly over Wi-Fi instead of connecting via Bluetooth to your computer and then to the Internet. Google claimed that one less hop on the local network led to shorter latency, especially since the service was originally built around the power-limited Chromecast dongle.
Enlarge/ The official Stadia Controller in “clearly white.”
Google
With the service dead, the Wi-Fi-only controller wouldn’t work wirelessly, leaving old-school USB as the only way to use the controller. However, Stadia Controllers already came with a dormant Bluetooth chip, so Google cooked up a way to convert the orphaned controllers from Wi-Fi communication to Bluetooth, allowing them to wirelessly connect to computers and phones as a generic HID (Human Interface Device). Normally you’d expect a download for some kind of firmware update program, but Google being Google, the Stadia Controller update process happens entirely on a webpage. Google’s controller update page has a very fancy “WebUSB” API setup—you fire up a Chromium browser, plug in your controller, grant the browser access to the device, and the webpage can access the controller directly and update the firmware, without any program to install.
While the web-based updater is very neat, it also means it’s impossible for a third party to archive the updater for future use. Once Google’s website goes down, there are no more controller updates. A desktop app, on the other hand, could be kept around and re-distributed forever.
The early days reports of Stadia sales said the service undershot Google’s estimates by “hundreds of thousands” of users, so there are probably a lot of controllers out there. Even in 2022, it was normal to buy new Stadia Controllers labeled with the original 2019 manufacturing date, giving the impression that these things were just filling up warehouses. With the update plan still running for another year, there’s more time for sales to happen and for these controllers to find a good home.
In our review of the Stadia service, Ars’ Senior Gaming Editor Kyle Orland found the controller was “one of the highlights of the Stadia launch package,” saying it “boasts a solid, well-balanced weight; comfortable, clicky face buttons and analog sticks; quality ergonomic design on the D-pad and shoulder triggers; and strong, distinct rumble motors.” So, assuming you can get the $70 MSRP device at a significant discount, it sounds like a decent buy. The one downside is that audio features like the headphone jack and microphone won’t work after the Bluetooth update.
We’ve all experienced it or heard about it happening: Someone has a conversation about wanting a red jacket, and then suddenly, it seems like they’re seeing ads for red jackets all over the place.
Makers of microphone-equipped electronics sometimes admit to selling voice data to third parties (advertisers). But that’s usually voice data accumulated after a user has prompted their device to start listening to them and after they’ve opted into (preferably not by default) this sort of data collection.
But a marketing company called CMG Local Solutions sparked panic recently by alluding that it has access to people’s private conversations by tapping into data gathered by the microphones on their phones, TVs, and other personal electronics, as first reported by 404 Media on Thursday. The marketing firm had said it uses these personal conversations for ad targeting.
Active Listening
CMG’s Active Listening website starts with a banner promoting an accurate but worrisome statement, “It’s true. Your devices are listening to you.”
Enlarge/ A screenshot from CMG’s Active Listening website.
A November 28 blog post described Active Listening technology as using AI to “detect relevant conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.” As such, CMG claimed that it knows “when and what to tune into.”
The blog also shamelessly highlighted advertisers’ desire to hear every single whisper made that could help them target campaigns:
This is a world where no pre-purchase murmurs go unanalyzed, and the whispers of consumers become a tool for you to target, retarget, and conquer your local market.
The marketing company didn’t thoroughly detail how it backs its claims. An archived version of the Active Listening site provided a vague breakdown of how Active Listening purportedly works.
The website previously pointed to CMG uploading past client data into its platform to make “buyer personas.” Then, the company would identify relevant keywords for the type of person a CMG customer would want to target. CMG also mentioned placing a tracking pixel on its customers’ sites before entering the Listening Stage, which was only described as: “Active Listening begins and is analyzed via AI to detect pertinent conversations via smartphones, smart TVs, and other devices.”
The archived version of the page discussed an AI-based analysis of the data and generating an “encrypted evergreen audience list” used to re-target ads on various platforms, including streaming TV and audio, display ads, paid social media, YouTube, Google, and Bing Search.
That explanation doesn’t appear to be on the Active Listening page anymore, but CMG still says it can target people who are actively saying things like, “A minivan would be perfect for us” or “This AC is on it’s [sic] last leg!” in conversations.
But are they actively listening?
In a statement emailed to Ars Technica, Cox Media Group said that its advertising tools include “third-party vendor products powered by data sets sourced from users by various social media and other applications then packaged and resold to data servicers.” The statement continues:
Advertising data based on voice and other data is collected by these platforms and devices under the terms and conditions provided by those apps and accepted by their users, and can then be sold to third-party companies and converted into anonymized information for advertisers. This anonymized data then is resold by numerous advertising companies.
The company added that it does not “listen to any conversations or have access to anything beyond a third-party aggregated, anonymized and fully encrypted data set that can be used for ad placement” and “regret[s] any confusion.”
Before Cox Media Group sent its statement, though, CMG’s claims of collecting data on “casual conversations in real-time,” as its blog stated, were questionable. CMG never explained how our devices would somehow be able to garner the computing and networking power necessary to record and send every conversation spoken within the device’s range in “real-time,” unbeknownst to the device’s owner. The firm also never explained how it acquired the type of access that requires law enforcement to obtain a warrant. This is despite CMG’s blog claiming that with Active Listening, advertisers would be able to know “the second someone in your area is concerned about mold in their closet,” for example.
CMG’s November blog post pointed to an unnamed technology partner that can “aggregate and analyze voice data during pre-purchase conversations,” as well as a “growing ability to access microphone data on devices.”
Move over Google Assistant, Google is apparently working on a new AI. The Information reports that Google is working on a new “Pixie” AI assistant that will be exclusive to Pixel devices. Pixie will reportedly be powered by Google’s new “Gemini” AI model. The report says Pixie would launch first on the Pixel 9: “Eventually, Google wants to bring the features to its lower-end phones and devices like its watch.”
So far, Google and Amazon reportedly have plans to reboot their voice assistants with the new wave of large language models. Both are only at the rumor stage, so neither company has promoted how a large language model will help a voice assistant. Today, the typical complaints are usually around voice recognition accuracy and response time, which a language model doesn’t seem like it would help with. Presumably, large language models would help allow longer-form, more in-depth responses to questions, but whether consumers want to hear a synthetic robot voice read out a paragraph-long response is something the market will figure out.
Another feature listed in the report is that Google might build “glasses that could make use of the AI’s ability to recognize the objects a wearer is seeing.” Between Google Glass and Project Iris, Google has started and stopped a lot of eyewear projects.
The move shows how Google has changed its thinking around AI assistants over the past decade. It used to view Google Assistant as the future of Google Search, so it wanted Assistant to be available everywhere. Google Assistant was a good product for a time, available on all Android phones, on iOS via the Google app, and via lots of purpose-built hardware like the Google Home/Nest Audio speakers and smart displays. Google Assistant never made any money, though. The hardware was all sold at cost, the software was given away to partners, and the ongoing costs of voice processing piled up. There was never any additional revenue to pay for the Google Assistant in the form of ads. Amazon is in the same boat with its Alexa: No one has figured out how to make voice assistants profitable.
Since Google Assistant is a money pit, The Information previously reported that Google plans to “invest less in developing its Google Assistant voice-assisted search for cars and for devices not made by Google, including TVs, headphones, smart-home speakers, smart glasses and smartwatches that use Google’s Wear.” The idea is for Google to double down on its own hardware, which, according to the previous report, is what Google thinks will provide the best protection against regulators threatening the company’s search deals on the iPhone and Android partner devices. “We’re going to take on the iPhone” is apparently the hard-to-believe mindset at Google right now, according to this report.
Making the next-gen Assistant exclusive to the Pixel 9 would fall into this category. Presumably, the ongoing money problem would then be solved, or at least accounted for, in the sales of phone hardware. The current Google Assistant was originally exclusive to the first Pixel and spread out to Google’s partners, but The Information’s reporting makes it seem like that isn’t the plan this time (though that could always change). No one knows what will happen to Google AI assistant No. 1 (Google Assistant) when AI assistant No. 2 launches, but killing it off sounds like a likely outcome. It would also be a way to cut costs and get Google Assistant off people’s devices.
The problem with doubling down on hardware is that Google Hardware is a small division that has previously been unable to support this kind of ambition. Going back to that quote about third-party devices, there are no Google cars, TVs, or smart glasses (the report says smart glasses are being worked on, though). Some years, Google’s existing hardware isn’t necessarily very good. In other years, long times will go by when Google doesn’t update some product lines, leaving them for dead (laptops, tablets). Google Hardware is also usually only available in about 13 countries, which is a tiny sliver of the world. Being on third-party devices protects you from all this. Previously, Google’s strength was the availability of its ecosystem, and you give that up if you make everything exclusive to your hardware.
But even with all that background, startup Channel 1‘s vision of a near-future where AI-generated avatars read you the news was a bit of a shock to the system. The company’s recent proof-of-concept “showcase” newscast reveals just how far AI-generated videos of humans have come in a short time and how those realistic avatars could shake up a lot more than just the job market for talking heads.
“…the newscasters have been changed to protect the innocent”
See the highest quality AI footage in the world.
🤯 – Our generated anchors deliver stories that are informative, heartfelt and entertaining.
To be clear, Channel 1 isn’t trying to fool people with “deepfakes” of existing news anchors or anything like that. In the first few seconds of its sample newscast, it identifies its talking heads as a “team of AI-generated reporters.” A few seconds later, one of those talking heads explains further: “You can hear us and see our lips moving, but no one was recorded saying what we’re all saying. I’m powered by sophisticated systems behind the scenes.”
Even with those kinds of warnings, I found I had to constantly remind myself that the “people” I was watching deliver the news here were only “based on real people who have been compensated for use of their likeness,” as Deadline reports (how much they were compensated will probably be of great concern to actors who recently went on strike in part over the issue of AI likenesses). Everything from the lip-syncing to the intonations to subtle gestures and body movements of these Channel 1 anchors gives an eerily convincing presentation of a real newscaster talking into the camera.
Sure, if you look closely, there are a few telltale anomalies that expose these reporters as computer creations—slight video distortions around the mouth, say, or overly repetitive hand gestures, or a nonsensical word emphasis choice. But those signs are so small that they would be easy to miss at a casual glance or on a small screen like that on a phone.
In other words, human-looking AI avatars now seem well on their way to climbing out of the uncanny valley, at least when it comes to news anchors who sit at a desk or stand still in front of a green screen. Channel 1 investor Adam Mosam told Deadline it “has gotten to a place where it’s comfortable to watch,” and I have to say I agree.
A Channel 1 clip shows how its system can make video sources appear to speak a different language.
The same technology can be applied to on-the-scene news videos as well. About eight minutes into the sample newscast, Channel 1 shows a video of a European tropical storm victim describing the wreckage in French. Then it shows an AI-generated version of the same footage with the source speaking perfect English, using a facsimile of his original voice and artificial lipsync placed over his mouth.
Without the on-screen warning that this was “AI generated Language: Translated from French,” it would be easy to believe that the video was of an American expatriate rather than a native French speaker. And the effect is much more dramatic than the usual TV news practice of having an unseen interpreter speak over the footage.
Chrome has finally announced plans to kill third-party cookies. It’s been almost four years since third-party cookies have been disabled in Firefox and Safari, but Google, one of the world’s largest ad companies, has been slow-rolling the death of the tracking cookie. Ad companies use third-party cookies to track users across the web, and that web activity is used to show users relevant ads. Now that Google’s alternative user-tracking ad system, the “Privacy Sandbox,” has launched in Chrome, it’s finally ready to do away with the previous form of ad tracking. The new timeline to kill third-party cookies is the second half of 2024.
Google’s blog post calls the rollout “Tracking Protection” and says the first tests will begin on January 4, where 1 percent of Chrome users will get the feature. By the second half of 2024, the rollout should hit everyone on desktop Chrome and Android (Chrome on iOS is just a reskinned Safari and is not applicable). The rollout comes with some new UI bits for Chrome, with Google saying, “If a site doesn’t work without third-party cookies and Chrome notices you’re having issues—like if you refresh a page multiple times—we’ll prompt you with an option to temporarily re-enable third-party cookies for that website from the eye icon on the right side of your address bar.” Since other browsers have been doing this for four years, it’s hard to imagine many web admins not being ready for it.
Enlarge/ Chrome’s new third-party cookies controls.
Google
Google says the rollout is “subject to addressing any remaining competition concerns from the UK’s Competition and Markets Authority.” Chrome’s Privacy Sandbox switch represents the world’s most popular browser (Google Chrome) integrating with the web’s biggest advertising platform (Google Ads) and shutting down alternative tracking methods used by competing ad companies. So, some regulators are naturally interested in the whole process.
Google says its choice to offer this privacy feature four years after its competitors is a “responsible approach” to phasing out third-party cookies. That responsibility seems to primarily be about responsibility to Google’s shareholders since turning off tracking cookies was previously seen as an attack on Google’s business model. Google’s position as the world’s biggest browser vendor allowed it to delay the death of tracking cookies long enough to create an alternative tracking system, which launched earlier this year in Chrome. With the ad business secured, it’s now acceptable to phase out cookies. So far, everything is going to plan.
What stung her wasn’t the return to being the Android interloper in the chats again. It wasn’t the resulting lower-quality images, loss of encryption, and strange “Emphasized your message” reaction texts. It was losing messages during the outage and never being entirely certain they had been sent or received. There was a gathering on Saturday, and she had to double-check with a couple people about the details after showing up inadvertently early at the wrong spot.
That kind of grievance is why, after Apple on Wednesday appeared to have blocked what Beeper described as “~5% of Beeper Mini users” from accessing iMessages, both co-founder Eric Migicovksy and the app told users they understood if people wanted out. The app had already suspended its plans to charge customers $1.99 per month, following the first major outage. But this was something more about “how ridiculously annoying this uncertainty is for our users,” Migicovsky posted.
Fighting on two fronts
But Beeper would keep working to ensure access and keep fighting on other fronts. Migicovsky pointed to Epic’s victory at trial against Google’s Play Store (“big tech”) as motivation. “We have a chance. We’re not giving up.” Over the weekend, Migicovsky reposted shows of support from Senators Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Amy Klobuchar (D-Minn.), who have focused on reigning in and regulating large technology company’s powers.
Apple previously issued a (somewhat uncommon) statement about Beeper’s iMessage access, stating that it “took steps to protect our users by blocking techniques that exploit fake credentials in order to gain access to iMessage.” Citing privacy, security, and spam concerns, Apple stated it would “continue to make updates in the future” to protect users. Migicovsky previously denied to Ars that Beeper used “fake credentials” or in any way made iMessages less secure.
I asked Migicovsky by direct message if, given Apple’s stated plan to continually block it, there could ever be a point at which Beeper’s access was “settled,” or “back up and running,” as he put it in his post on X (formerly Twitter). He wrote that it was up to the press and the community. “If there’s enough pressure on Apple, they will have to quit messing with us.” “Us,” he clarified, meant both Apple’s customers using iMessage and Android users trying to chat securely with iPhone friends.
“That’s who they’re penalizing,” he wrote. “It’s not a Beeper vs. Apple fight, it’s Apple versus customers.”
Over the past couple of years of reviewing the iPhone, we’ve often jokingly called them “smartcameras” rather than smartphones, as the camera features are really what sell people on upgrading to new models.
So, for our final Apple gift guide, we’ll revisit some of what we explored in our iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro review with a special focus on the cameras. If you’re looking to grab a new iPhone for yourself or someone in your family, which camera is best?
The idea here is to provide a top-level, quick summary of the features of each iPhone camera as they pertain to specific uses to make for an easy buying guide for last-minute holiday shoppers who want a quick answer. We’ll go over each phone and survey its features, detailing their relevant uses and noting some recommendations and considerations along the way.
If you’re already deeply familiar with this topic, this is a cheat sheet for would-be buyers, not an in-depth analysis.
If you aren’t familiar with these topics and you’re interested in going deeper, our iPhone reviews from the past few years are the place to go; we’ve covered the iteration of SmartHDR, the additions of new lenses and features, and so on as those things have been introduced or tweaked.
But as for today’s quick summary, let’s dive in!
Ars Technica may earn compensation for sales from links on this post through affiliate programs.
A note on computational photography and SmartHDR
The camera lens bump on the back of each iPhone has been getting bigger with time, but it’s software that has been driving better picture quality. Apple uses a few techniques to improve the pictures you take with your iPhone, and foremost among those is what the company calls SmartHDR.
Introduced in the iPhone XS (though some competing Android flagships did this beforehand and just called it something else), SmartHDR is a complex beast. But the simple description is that when you take a photo with your iPhone with SmartHDR enabled, it will take not one but several shots. It will then use a trained algorithm to combine all the photos’ best aspects into one picture.
The specifics of that algorithm have evolved with time, and Apple has identified a few specific versions of SmartHDR over the past few years. But all that matters when we’re looking at the latest iPhones is well, the latest version of SmartHDR. And here’s what you can expect: Most of the time, SmartHDR produces drastically better photos, with fewer unwanted artifacts and abnormalities, a clearer picture, better lighting, and so on.
Once in a while, though, it makes a weird call, and you’ll see something anomalous because of SmartHDR. It also sometimes (let’s be real: usually) gives photos a doctored, unreal quality.
The same goes for Night Mode, a feature Apple essentially copied from Google’s Pixel phones. Introduced in iPhones in 2019, Night Mode also takes a lot of photos in a short period (albeit a longer one than SmartHDR; you have to hold the phone still for a few seconds). In this case, the goal is to battle the low-light shortcomings of smartphone cameras, bring out lost detail, and reduce graininess.
It’s very effective but almost too effective in many cases; photos taken in the dark end up with a bright, glowing quality. It’s great if you want to ensure you can see how much you and your friends or family are smiling in a group photo; it’s not so great if your goal is capturing reality accurately.
Below: Shots taken in a very dark room with the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max, from our iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro review.
iPhone 15.
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iPhone 15 Pro.
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iPhone 15 Pro Max.
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iPhone 14 Pro Max
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iPhone 14.
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iPhone 13 Pro.
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Competing flagship phones do much of this, too, so it’s just the state of smartphone camera tech. Mostly, it’s worth the downsides because the laws of optics essentially cap how good these cameras can be without these sorts of computational photography features.
Anyway, when we make the recommendations below, we assume you are all-in on this computational photography stuff. Otherwise, you’ll want to look at alternatives to taking photos with an iPhone if quality matters to you.
iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Plus
We’ll start with the cheapest phone in Apple’s iPhone 15 lineup because the other two phones (iPhone 15 Pro and iPhone 15 Pro Max) build on what’s seen here. The iPhone 15 Plus is getting lumped in here because its camera system is identical to its smaller variant.
The iPhone 15 has a 48-megapixel main camera with a quad-pixel sensor and an ƒ/1.6 aperture. By default, this camera takes 24-megapixel images, using a computational process to combine low-light 12 MP images with large quad pixels and a 48 MP image.
You can take full 48 MP photos too by going into the Settings app, tapping Camera, tapping Formats, and turning on Resolution Control. When this is enabled, you can tap a toggle in the top-right corner when taking a photo to take one at full resolution.
The 48 MP lens is also used to enable 2x zoom at a quality comparable to the 2x optical zoom seen on prior Pro-model iPhones. Apple does this by cropping the image and applying machine learning techniques to produce the final result. (I told you it’s all about the computational features!)
This is why we don’t recommend the iPhone 14, iPhone 13, or iPhone SE (all of which are still in Apple’s lineup) for would-be buyers who prioritize the camera abilities. That 2x zoom is a must-have, and those other phones don’t offer it. They offer a digital zoom option, but you see a real hit to quality when you use it.
That covers 1x and 2x zoom with the rear camera. There’s another lens back there, though: a 12MP ultra-wide camera (ƒ/2.4 aperture). This one enables what Apple labels as 0.5x zoom, allowing you to capture more stuff in tight spaces, like a group of people posing for a selfie in a car or a very small room, for example.
On the front of the phone, you’ll find a 12 MP camera with a ƒ/1.9 aperture; this is the selfie camera. Like the rear camera, it supports several of Apple’s computational photography buzzwords like SmartHDR 5, the Photonic Engine, and Deep Fusion.
The front and rear cameras can record 4K video with Dolby Vision HDR at up to 60 fps. The rear camera system supports Cinematic Video, which adds a depth-of-field effect behind human subjects. It also has Action Mode, which takes lower-than-4K resolution video but has a strong stabilization effect for situations where your hands move a lot.
Altogether, these features make the iPhone 15 an excellent all-around camera system. It has all the features you’d need to take photos of your kids at home or take selfies with friends while on the town—including Night Mode for low-light shots.
It will be enough for most people. This is a particularly good time for the non-Pro iPhone, as Apple introduced a bunch of formerly Pro-only features (like the 48 MP main camera) to the non-Pro phone for the first time during this cycle.
That said, there are still some situations where you might want to spring for the iPhone Pro or even the iPhone Pro Max.
iPhone 15 Pro
Now that we’ve covered the basics of the iPhone 15’s camera system, we can focus on what’s different if you spend extra on the iPhone 15 Pro.
The iPhone 15 Pro has a more powerful sensor (2.44 µm quad pixel to the iPhone 15’s 2 µm quad pixel) in the main camera, which goes from a ƒ/1.6 aperture in the iPhone 15 to ƒ/1.78 in the Pro. Whereas the iPhone 15 had a 26 mm main lens focal length, you’re looking at 24, 28, and 35mm for the Pro.
Apple says the iPhone 15 Pro has improved optical image stabilization and a flash that produces more natural colors, too. Meanwhile, the Ultra-Wide lens goes from a ƒ/2.4 aperture to ƒ/2.2.
The Pro phone adds a third lens, too: a 12 MP, ƒ/2.8 aperture telephoto lens for 3x zoom. That means that the iPhone 15 Pro’s zoom levels are 0.5x, 1x, 2x, and 3x to the iPhone 15’s 0.5x, 1x, and 2x.
There are no substantial differences between the front-facing camera in the iPhone 15 and the iPhone 15 Pro.
There are a few Pro-specific features, too, specs aside. The iPhone 15 Pro can use Night Mode for portrait photos (a shooting mode that adds a depth-of-field effect to still images), whereas with the iPhone 15, you have to choose one or the other. It’s an edge case, but there you have it.
The iPhone 15 Pro also supports the ProRAW format, which provides high-quality images with minimal doctoring so that photographers can tweak or enhance the image to their own spec in software later.
Finally, the iPhone 15 Pro supports Macro photography mode. This automatically switches the camera settings when you’re taking an ultra-close-up shot of something detailed, which results in substantially better macro photography in many situations.
On the video side of things, the differences in quality aren’t huge. But there are some Pro-specific features here. The iPhone 15 Pro supports log video recording, macro videos, and a 3D “spatial video” format to be viewed later on Apple’s upcoming Vision Pro headset. When I tried the Vision Pro earlier this year, I wasn’t impressed with these spatial photos, but it’s possible Apple will have improved them by the time the device reaches the public.
You’ll want to go with the Pro if you’re taking close-ups of flowers. You might prefer the Pro to the regular 15 if you want to take ProRAW photos to edit the image to professional standards later. And 3x zoom makes a big difference in situations like concerts where you want to take pictures of something far away.
In general, this makes the iPhone 15 Pro a better fit for content creators of various types, and it offers more options for some unique edge cases. You’ll also see marginally better low-light photography—sometimes.
If you’re not seeing those edge cases often and are not producing professional-quality content, though, the iPhone 15’s camera will serve you just fine. In our experience, the only thing you’ll miss frequently is that 3x zoom.
iPhone 15 Pro Max
Speaking of zoom features, that’s the main thing differentiating the iPhone 15 Pro Max from the smaller iPhone 15 Pro.
The Max replaces the 3x telephoto lens with a 5x one—same megapixels, same aperture. You lose the 3x option, but you can still take advantage of the main camera’s 48MP lens to take 2x zoom photos, and 5x is more differentiated and arguably better for many situations.
Below: Daytime shots at 2x, 3x, or 5x zoom (as applicable) on the iPhone 15, iPhone 15 Pro, and iPhone 15 Pro Max from our iPhone 15 and iPhone 15 Pro review.
The iPhone 15 Pro Max at 5x zoom.
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The iPhone 15 Pro at 3x zoom.
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The iPhone 15 at 2x zoom.
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The iPhone 15 Pro at 2x zoom.
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The iPhone 15 Pro Max at 2x zoom.
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That’s the only difference between the iPhone 15 Pro Max and the iPhone 15—but it’s significant.
In general, we’d recommend picking between these two Pro models based on screen size, not camera features, but if you find yourself in situations like concerts where you want more powerful zoom, it could be worth the upgrade on that basis.
A quick recap
The iPhone 15 is a good all-around camera, and it will be enough for most use cases. We don’t recommend springing for the more expensive phones for the camera alone unless you have a very specific need in your daily life.
Jump to the iPhone 15 Pro or Pro Max if you are a professional content creator who needs the best raw image files, the ability to record 4K 60 fps HDR video to external storage, if you like to do macro photography, or if you are an avid user of Apple’s AI-driven Portrait Mode.
Go for the Max if powerful optical zoom is a top priority. Otherwise, stick with the 15.
Enlarge/ The iPhone 15 is part of Apple’s self-repair program now.
Samuel Axon
Apple today expanded the Self Service Repair program it launched in April to include access to Apple’s diagnostics tool online and the iPhone 15 series and M2 Macs.
The online tool, Apple said in today’s announcement, provides “the same ability as Apple Authorized Service Providers and Independent Repair Providers to test devices for optimal part functionality and performance, as well as identify which parts may need repair.” The troubleshooting tool is only available in the US and will hit Europe in 2024, according to Apple.
Upon visiting the tool’s website, you’ll be prompted to put your device in diagnostic mode before entering the device’s serial number. Then, you’ll have access to a diagnostic suite, including things like a mobile resource inspector for checking software and validating components’ presence, testing for audio output and “display pixel anomalies,” and tests for cameras and Face ID.
Apple’s support page says the tests may “help isolate issues, investigate whether a part needs to be replaced, or verify that a repair has been successfully completed.”
The tool requires iOS 17.0 or macOS Sonoma 14.1 and later.
Apple’s Self Service Repair program relies on parts pairing, though, and critics say this limits the tools’ effectiveness. Self-repair activist iFixit has been vocal about its disagreement with Apple’s use of the practice since the tech giant launched its self-repair program. iFixit has argued that parts serialization limits the usage of third-party parts. In September, iFixit CEO Kyle Wiens called parts pairing “a serious threat to our ability to fix the things we own,” noting that Apple may be seeking to strong-arm a favorable customer experience but that it’s costing us the environment and “ownership rights.”
In a statement to Ars Technica today, Wiens expressed further disappointment with Apple’s parts serialization:
Apple still has a long way to go to create a robust repair ecosystem, including ending their repair-hostile parts pairing system. This software tool clearly illuminates the problems we’ve identified with parts pairing, where the diagnostic tool fails to recognize the ambient light sensor in a new part we’ve installed.
Users of Apple M2-based MacBook Pro and MacBook Air laptops, as well as the Mac Mini, Pro, and Studio, are now all included in the program, which gives customers access to tools, parts, and manuals previously only accessible by Apple and authorized repair partners. Customers can also rent tool repair kits, although they, too, have been criticized for their bulkiness and limited rental period.
Since launching its repair program, though, Apple has made a turnabout with user repairability, even if it’s still flawed. With the latest additions, Apple’s program now supports 35 products. The company has also become an unexpected proponent for state and national right-to-repair bills. And it’s simplified repairs via its Self Service Repair program— somewhat—by no longer requiring fixers to call Apple upon repair completions. People can instead verify repairs and update firmware with the System Configuration post-repair software tool. Today, Apple also announced bringing the program to 24 new European countries, bringing the program’s total to 33 countries.
Apple still says its repair program is best reserved for people who are experienced with electronics repairs.
Google announced big changes to its most legally fraught set of user settings: your location data. Google’s misleading Location History descriptions in Google Maps have earned it several lawsuits in the US and worldwide. A quick count involves individual lawsuits in California, Arizona, Washington, a joint lawsuit in Texas, Indiana, and the District of Columbia, and another joint lawsuit across 40 additional US states. Internationally, Google has also been sued in Australia over its location settings. The point is that any change to Google’s location settings must have some motive behind it, so bear with us while we try to decode everything.
Google’s big new location data change is a new, duplicate data store that will live exclusively on your device. Google’s new blog post says data for the long-running Google Maps Timeline feature will now “be saved right on your device—giving you even more control over your data.” That’s right, one of the world’s biggest Internet data companies advocates for local storage of your location data.
The company continues, “If you’re getting a new phone or are worried about losing your existing one, you can always choose to back up your data to the cloud so it doesn’t get lost. We’ll automatically encrypt your backed-up data so no one can read it, including Google.” Users will apparently have lots of control over this new locally stored data, with Google saying, “Soon, you’ll be able to see all your recent activity on Maps… in one central place, and easily delete your searches, directions, visits, and shares with just a few taps. The ability to delete place-related activity from Maps starts rolling out on Android and iOS in the coming weeks.”
Some companies pitch the “on-device storage” of data as a security feature. The idea is that on-device data isn’t in the cloud, and instead is encrypted on your device, and therefore is more secure since you must have physical access to the device to get the data. This is usually how biometrics are stored, for instance. That’s not happening here, though. Google’s post says, “The Timeline feature in Maps helps you remember places you’ve been and is powered by a setting called Location History.” Location History is all the location data collected by Google, and the Google Maps Timeline is only a subset of that data. So, with on-device storage, Google Maps Timeline will now be a second copy of a subset of your location data. Cloud-based Location History will still exist and still be collected. Instead of the additional security of encrypted on-device storage, this is less secure since your data will now be in two places, or maybe multiple places, if you have multiple devices.
Google was sued in nearly every US state because of its misleading communication about where your location data is stored and what the controls do. Before all the lawsuits, Google had a checkbox for “Location History” that you could turn on and off, but at the time, “Location History” didn’t mean “all the stored location history across your Google account.” Back then, “Location History” was the name of a specific page in Google Maps, and turning off the Location History checkbox just hid the Location History interface—it didn’t reduce Google’s location data collection and storage. Today, that has changed, and in the wake of all those lawsuits, Google says Location History actually controls the storage and collection of location data across your entire account.
Promoting controls for the “Google Maps Timeline” feels like Google is pulling the same old “Location History” trick. Data controls for the Maps Timeline don’t control the data for your entire account, but instead only control data for this specific interface in Google Maps. Google says you’ll get “the ability to delete place-related activity from Maps,” but that’s from Maps only. Let’s not fall for Google’s app-specific settings trick again: You don’t want the ability to delete location data “from Maps”; you want the ability to delete location data from “your entire account.”
Google’s new delete button doesn’t seem like it delete’s much.
Google
My interpretation of the strategy is that Google’s going to make two different copies of your location data, a cloud-based one that it has access to (Location History) and a locally stored one that it does not have access to (Google Maps Timeline), and it’s going to dangle a bunch of controls in front of users that control the local data store only. A pop-up (shown above) briefly shown in one of the blog post videos seems to confirm this, with the “Delete Maps Activity?” pop-up saying it won’t delete data from Location History or Web & App Activity. I guess the hope is that interested users will be distracted by the upfront controls for the unimportant, private, local data store and then forget about the more hidden controls for the cloud-based one that Google has access to.
Any justification for why the company is creating more complicated and confusing location controls is absent from Google’s blog post. What is the benefit of having an extra copy of locally stored location data? Why would you want two different copies of location data to manage? The only new feature you’re getting is the ability to delete data from the new local data store, but you wouldn’t need those controls if the data store didn’t exist in the first place. Why would users want to delete data from their local location history but not the cloud? A local copy of location data only makes sense if Google stops collecting and storing location data in the cloud; I can promise you that it’s not doing that.
Broadcom has moved forward with plans to transition VMware, a virtualization and cloud computing company, into a subscription-based business. As of December 11, it no longer sells perpetual licenses with VMware products. VMware, whose $61 billion acquisition by Broadcom closed in November, also announced on Monday that it will no longer sell support and subscription (SnS) for VMware products with perpetual licenses. Moving forward, VMware will only offer term licenses or subscriptions, according to its VMware blog post.
VMware customers with perpetual licenses and active support contracts can continue using them. VMware “will continue to provide support as defined in contractual commitments,” Krish Prasad, senior vice president and general manager for VMware’s Cloud Foundation Division, wrote. But when customers’ SnS terms end, they won’t have any support.
Broadcom hopes this will force customers into subscriptions, and it’s offering “upgrade pricing incentives” that weren’t detailed in the blog for customers who switch from perpetual licensing to a subscription.
These are the products affected, per Prasad’s blog:
VMware Aria Automation
VMware Aria Suite
VMware Aria Operations
VMware Aria Operations for Logs
VMware Aria Operations for Networks
VMware Aria Universal
VMware Cloud Foundation
VMware HCX
VMware NSX
VMware Site Recovery Manager
VMware vCloud Suite
VMware vSAN
VMware vSphere
Subscription-based future
Broadcom is looking to grow VMware’s EBITDA (earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation, and amortization) from about $4.7 billion to about $8.5 billion in three years, largely through shifting the company’s business model to subscriptions, Tom Krause, president of the Broadcom Software Group, said during a December 7 earnings call, per Forbes.
“This shift is the natural next step in our multi-year strategy to make it easier for customers to consume both our existing offerings and new innovations. VMware believes that a subscription model supports our customers with the innovation and flexibility they need as they undertake their digital transformations,” VMware’s blog said.
With changes effective immediately upon announcement, the news might sound abrupt. However, in May, soon after announcing its plans to acquire VMware, Broadcom CEO Hock Tan signaled a “rapid transition” to subscriptions.
At the time, Tan pointed to the importance of maintaining current VMware customers’ happiness, as well as leveraging the VMware sales team already in place. However, after less than a month of the deal’s close, reports point to concern among VMWare customers and partners.
Customer and partner concerns
VMware’s blog said “the industry has already embraced subscription as the standard for cloud consumption.” For years, software and even hardware vendors and investors have been pushing IT solution provider partners and customers toward recurring revenue models. However, VMware built much of its business on the perpetual license model. As noted by The Stack, VMware in February noted that perpetual licensing was the company’s “most renowned model.”
VMware’s blog this week listed “continuous innovation” and “faster time to value” as customer benefits for subscription models but didn’t detail how it came to those conclusions.
“Predictable investments” is also listed, but it’s hard to imagine a more predictable expense than paying for something once and having supported access to it indefinitely (assuming you continue paying any support costs). Now, VMware and its partners will be left convincing customers that their finances can afford a new monthly expense for something they thought was paid for. For Broadcom, though, it’s easier to see the benefits of turning VMware into more of a reliable and recurring revenue stream.
Additionally, Broadcom’s layoffs of at least 2,837 VMware employees have brought uncertainty to the VMware brand. A CRN report in late November pointed to VMware partners hearing customer concern about potential price raises and a lack of support. C.R. Howdyshell, CEO of Advizex, which reportedly made $30 million in VMware-tied revenue in 2022, told the publication that partners and customers were experiencing “significant concern and chaos” around VMware sales. Another channel partner noted to CRN the layoff of a close VMware sales contact.
But Broadcom has made it clear that it wants to “complete the transition of all VMware by Broadcom solutions to subscription licenses,” per Prasad’s blog.
The company hopes to convince skeptical channel partners that they’ll see the way, too. VMware, like many tech companies urging subscription models, pointed to “many partners” having success with subscription models already and “opportunity for partners to engage more strategically with customers and deliver higher-value services that drive customer success.”
However, because there’s no immediate customer benefit to the end of perpetual licenses, those impacted by VMware’s change in business strategy have to assess how much they’re willing to pay to access VMware products moving forward.
Enlarge/ The New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen is made to be pointed at, rapidly, in a crowded environment.
Machinery Enchantress / Crowd Supply
“Hong Kong has better food, Shanghai has better nightlife. But when it comes to making things—no one can beat Shenzen.”
Many things about the Hua Qiang market in Shenzen, China, are different than they were in 2016, when Andrew “bunnie” Huang’s Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen was first published. But the importance of the world’s premiere electronics market, and the need for help navigating it, are a constant. That’s why the book is getting an authorized, crowdfunded revision, the New Essential Guide, written by noted maker and Shenzen native Naomi Wu and due to ship in April 2024.
Naomi Wu’s narrated introduction to the New Essential Guide to Electronics in Shenzen.
Huang notes on the crowdfunding page that Wu’s “strengths round out my weaknesses.” Wu speaks Mandarin, lives in Shenzen, and is more familiar with Shenzen, and China, as it is today. Shenzen has grown by more than 2 million people, the central Huaqiangbei Road has been replaced by a car-free boulevard, and the city’s metro system has more than 100 new kilometers with dozens of new stations. As happens anywhere, market vendors have also changed locations, payment and communications systems have modernized, and customs have shifted.
The updated guide’s contents are set to include typical visitor guide items, like “Taxis,” “Tipping,” and, new to this edition, “LGBTQ+ Visitors.” Then there are the more Shenzen-specific guides: “Is It Fake?,” “Do Not Burn Your Contacts,” and “Type It, Don’t Say It.” The original guide had plastic business card pockets, but “They are anachronistic now,” Wu writes; removing them has allowed the 2023 guide to be sold for the same price as the original.
Machinery Enchantress / Crowd Supply
Both the original and updated guide are ring-bound and focus on quick-flipping and “Point to Translate” guides, with clearly defined boxes of English and Mandarin characters for things like “RGB,” “Common anode,” and “LED tape.” “When sourcing components, speed is critical, and it’s quicker to flip through physical pages,” Wu writes. “The market is full of visitors struggling to navigate mobile interfaces in order to make their needs known to busy vendors. It simply doesn’t work as well as walking up and pointing to large, clearly written Chinese of exactly what you want.”
Then there is the other notable thing that’s different about the two guides. Wu, a Chinese national, accomplished hardware maker, and former tech influencer, has gone quiet since the summer of 2023, following interactions with state security actors. The guide’s crowdfunding page notes that “offering an app or download specifically for English-speaking hardware engineers to install on their phones would be… iffy.” Wu adds, “If at some point ‘I’ do offer you such a thing, I’d suggest you not use it.”
Huang, who previously helped sue the government over DRM rules, designed and sold the Chumby, and was one of the first major Xbox hackers, released the original Essential Guide on the rights-friendly Crowd Supply under a Creative Commons license (BY-NC-SA 4.0) that restricted commercial derivatives without explicit permission, which he granted to Wu. The book costs $30, with roughly $8 shipping costs to the US. It is dedicated to Gavin Zhao, whom Huang considered a mentor and who furthered his ambition to print the original guide.
Listing image by Machinery Enchantress/Crowd Supply
