Welcome to my live blog of the 9/7/16 Apple Keynote that will include the unveiling of the iPhone 7 among other things. Feel free to comment, follow us on Facebook or Twitter as i post pictures and review some of the cooler things that Apple decides to show us! From features to dimensions and price-points, you can get it all here from Computer Geeks.
Keynote will start at 1pm EST, just click refresh on this blog and new content will be coming in every 1-2 minutes!
Growth rates are over 106%, makes you wonder how many of those downloads were Pokemon Go? Apple also announces that the iPhone and iPad are the #1 Gaming devices on the planet.
AND GUESS WHO IS COMING TO THE APP STORE?!?!?!?
MARIO!!
They are announcing the new game Mario Run. A side scrolling run game that you will only need 1 hand to play! From the gameplay it looks pretty cool, but doesn’t look like you can go backwards to get items you have missed. But at least its not just another “run” game like “Minion Rush”
The Next Mario Game to be announced is Toad Rally! Which is a Battle Mode version of the game! This will allow you to battle your friends in Mario Bro’s and compete for a high score. I was honestly hoping for it to be the classic Mario Bros games, but alas, it is not…
The game will be released at a set price which they will not announce today, but it will release before the holidays.
Education
They are giving a Mac and iPad to 4500 teachers, Apple TV in every classroom and donating iPads to more than 50,000 students
“Everyone Can Code” is an extension of the Swift Playground app, teaching coding. Already since June, more than 100 schools and school districts around the world already plan to teach Swift Playgrounds this fall.
Nothing yet about any new products….
Announcing real-time collaboration, as multiple people can collaborate and edit a keynote presentation real time, which would work wonders for group projects when you cannot be in the same place at the same time with several people.
New Products
Apple Watch
There is lots of gloating about how awesome Apple Watch is. #2 watch brand in the world behind only Rolex.
Watch OS3, new deck, tap back to send replies, confetti backgrounds and writing messages with your finger, this thing seems to be awesome so far.
And now for all of you fans of the sensation known as Pokemon Go….
POKEMON GO IS COMING TO THE APPLE WATCH!!
Over 500,000,000 downloads of Pokemon go and walked over 4.6 billion KM
Pokemon Go on Apple Watch Demo
Shows how far you have walked, heart rate and help you see what is near by. You will still have to take out your phone to catch wild Pokemon, but you can hit Pokestops, hatch your eggs and find Pokemon with the watch!
Apple Watch Series 2
You can wear this watch in the pool, at the beach up to 50 meters of depth! No more having to take off your watch to go into the pool!
the speaker in the watch will be able to eject any water that gets inside
You will now be able to track a swim workout!
Apple has added a dual core processor that’s up to 50 percent faster. We’ve added an entirely new GPU that delivers 2X the graphics performance
Series 2 also features a new second generation display more than 2X brighter than before. It’s the brightest display Apple has shipped on any product. at 1,000 nits
They have also added in built in GPS! That will even sync with your iPhone
Viewranger hiking app demo
Showing GPS functions on hiking trail, and via notifications
Gives you Fun facts of landmarks..
Comes in a wide variety of styles. Cases in aluminum and stainless steel as well as a new material we’ve been working on for quite some time. Ceramic
Summary of Series 2 Apple Watch
Apple Watch Nike +
Nike and Apple have developed “your perfect running partner” There is an option for a quick run, but hitting start run, or just ask Siri to start a run.
The watch will send out custom motivation to get out and run..
$369 for Apple Watch Series 2. But Apple Watch being upgraded w dual-core processor, called Series 1, for $269
Pre-Orders are on 9/9/16, OS3 9/13/16
iPhone 7
Starting with iOS 10, which i have personally been demoing for the past month, and it is amazing!
Better quick typing
Maps app is redesigned and works great as a gps
With iOs 10 you can manage your home right from the control center and with Siri as well,
100 devices coming to market this year.
All you have to look for is this label: works with Apple HomeKit
Now for the iPhone 7!!!
?
They are going over how they make the shiny Aluminum body. Oooooooooooh Sounds…….expensive
10 major new features
First is the Finish called “Jet Black” It’s a high gloss finish so it’s a seamless surface between the glass
Second is The Home Button
Third item is that the phone is now Water and Dust resistant!
The Fourth Item is the Camera
the first thing ISP does is read the scene and checks for objects/bodies. automatically sets exposure, focus, white balance, … noise reduction. can take multiple photos and fuse into one to take the perfect images. New ISP chip, improved throughput by 2x. Improved face and body detection, exposure, white balance, wide color, local tone mapping and noise reduction. Will even fuse multiple photos into one via machine learning. 100 billion operations every time we take a picture. Does it in just 25 millseconds
Up from 5MP on the iPhone 6s!
Summary of the Camera
And one more thing! Double Cameras on the iPhone 7Plus!
This will allow us to magnify pictures without losing the quality of the picture, up to 10X zoom!!
In camera app, where normally select style, there’s a new style that says “Portrait.” Automatically jumps to using a telephoto lens. Automatically you see the depth effect. Being generated in real time as you look at your screen
Fifth item on the docket is Retina HD Display
Sixth item is Audio
Built in speakers are a huge jump forward. For the first time ever they will be STEREO SPEAKERS which will give out double the sound!
7th one is the headphones
Headphones will now be plugged in through the lightning cable!
also giving away a free adapter so you can use your old headphones!!
The reason they did this is for 3 reasons
First reason is courage
Second, this is really important, our smartphones are packed with technologies and we always want more. Brighter displays,etc. .. it’s all fighting for space within that same enclosure. Maintaining an ancient connector doesn’t make sense
Third, most important, when you have a vision of how the audio experience can be, you want to get there as fast as you can
Which brings us to #8 WIRELESS
These look legit, wireless headphones!
Sensors trigger play w proximity. Motion triggers, accelerometers. Beam-forming microphones reduce noise. 5hrs battery. Charge case offers 24 hours life. Intelligent switcher to things to Apple Watch. (AirPods) The new wireless AirPods deliver incredible sound. Sexy video with porno music in the background… I need a cigarette
Easily connect the AirPods
Can listen in stereo or if want to use one for Siri or phone call, automatically routes audio. No pairing or unpairing. Those things are of the past
Beats has their own version of wireless headphones to take advantage of the new Apple w1 chip!
New Beats Solo 3 Wireless. 40 hours of listening time
Ninth is Apple Pay
No. 10. Honestly I’m almost embarrassed we held this one til the last. It is performance
40% faster than the A9 Chip
When doing something like checking email. .. can get longer battery life. Graphics are 240X faster than in the original iPhone
CONSOLE LEVEL GAMING ON THE IPHONE 7!
Pro apps benefit as well. Adobe Lightroom. 90% of the features for raw editing as in the desktop version.
Video of the Gameplay is stunning with no lag! Nothing proves performance like 400 flying monkeys.
Final Summary
Thank you for joining me today on this live blog! Feel free to share and leave comments!!
Last month, I reported on the cyber trolling woes of Saturday Night Live and Ghostbusters star Leslie Jones. Now, those woes worsen. Leslie Jones is cyber trolled again.
This time it’s far more serious. Hackers broke into her website and leaked nude photos of her. They hacked into her Tumblr account and took the photos from her iCloud. It didn’t stop there. They posted her drivers license, passport, phone number, and other personal information of Jones’. They put images of Harambe, the dead gorilla, posing with her and other celebrities. Please believe such images were photo-shopped. Since late July, Jones has been the victim of vicious cyber racist and sexist attacks. ?Jones’ website, JustLeslie.com, is now defunct. Jones just got back from Rio as a guest social media commentator for the Olympics. ?So far, neither Jones nor her people have responded to the latest round of cyber attacks and hack. Many speak out on her behalf. Ghostbusters director Paul Feig tweeted, “What’s happening to is an outrage.” Even Milo Yiannopulous, who was banned from Twitter for allegedly harassing Leslie Jones, now sympathies with her. He expressed distress and wishes her the best during this upsetting time.
Unfortunately, this isn’t the first time celebrity nude photos were released without their knowledge or approval. In 2014, nearly 500 celebrity photos, most of them nude, were hacked and leaked to the public. Only one person was arrested for this crime. Their lies part of the problem. Few people are being caught and prosecuted for this. If people feel they can get away with it, they’re going to keep doing it. We have to strengthen our laws and efforts to catch these crooks. This should be the happiest year in Leslie Jones’ life. She has a spot on the historic Saturday Night Live. She’s a star of a major motion picture. She landed a gig covering the Olympics. She’s one of the fastest rising stars in Hollywood today. She should be living the American dream. But because of these trolls, bullies and hackers, Leslie Jones’ American dream has become an American nightmare. The nightmare seems to have no end in sight. Is this our new normalcy (I hope not!)?
The Rio Olympics were faced with problems. These problems included water pollution, crime waves, inadequate living quarters and new, frightening diseases. Many braced for low ratings, and they got them. Olympic ratings are down. Digital viewership is up.
Prime time TV ratings fell 17% compared to the London Olympics of 2012. Prime time ratings fell 25% among the critical 18-49 year old demographic. But digital viewership is booming. An incredible 1.86 billion, with a B, minutes of 2016 Olympics were streamed in the first seven days alone. That’s more than double of what London had in 2012 or what Sochi, Russia’s Winter Olympics had in 2014. Yes, less people are interested in this year’s Olympics. But more people are watching tidbits of them online. That creates a problem for NBC. You see, NBC has rights to the Olympics until 2032. They paid $12 billion for this investment. Naturally, they’re going to offer more digital options. Plenty of people are watching the Olympics on their computers, tablets, and smartphones this year. But you better have a cable login to watch the games, no matter how you’re watching it. The problem is not everybody has cable. How do they reach out to the millions who have computer devices but don’t subscribe to cable?
That’s a question NBC needs to answer sooner than later. More people obtain computer devices. Less people depend on cable. Why should they? In an era of Netflix, Hulu, and other streaming services, who needs the expensive costs and mediocre services of cable? That’s the dilemma. I tell you what…the prospect of this upcoming Olympics looked bleak. But some awesome stories came out of them. The stories are what saved the 2016 Olympics from total ruin. Technologically speaking, I guess the computers did too. But the human stories and competition are what saved these games from what many predicted would be a total disaster. NBC has the Olympics for at least 16 more years. What should they do to reach out to non-cable users? Should they?
Leslie Jones, star of the new Ghostbusters and Saturday Night Live, signed off Twitter due to many abusive tweets that came her way. Some are so racist and sexually offensive I won’t dare quote them. Jones fought back. She reported some of her abusers. But the more she did that, the more vicious the tweets got. Not only did Jones sign off, she called for action. She calls for stronger guidelines to crack down on hate speech. She urged fellow Twitters to report hate speech. In her final tweets Jones said, “I didn’t do anything to deserve this. It’s just too much. It shouldn’t be like this. So hurt right now.” Some Twitter users were found out and suspended permanently. A Twitter spokesperson vows his company will do more to fight Twitter abuse. One suspended Twitter user is Breitbart editor and conservative commentator?Milo Yiannopoulos. Yiannopoulos denied any abuse.??Milo Y. claims his suspension was politically based. He criticized Twitter. Yinnopoulos said he was targeted because he was a conservative. He even hinted he’s part of a left-wing witch hunt.
It shouldn’t take a celebrity to remind us about proper social media etiquette. Twitter should not be a place to spit venomous hatred. And cowards hide behind fake names and pictures to spew it. That’s the real tragedy here. I’d like to see one of those abusers confront Jones face to face. But we have to be careful when we say, ‘curb hate speech’. Milo Y. may have a point. Let’s not turn hate speech into a witch hunt. How can we crack down on abusive tweets without interfering with free speech? I’ve seen some of the tweets Jones got. Some are really vile and perverse. That has no place on Twitter. But if someone doesn’t like Ghostbusters, and posts a constructive criticism about the movie, that should not be censored. Let’s be respectable about it. Will this case make Twitter a safer place? Or is this an attempt to stifle our First Amendment rights?
The Nintendo comeback is in full swing. First came the Pokemon Go explosion. Now, Nintendo takes us back to our childhoods (those who grew up between 1985-1990).
Later this year, NES will bring Nintendo classics back. This game will fit in the palm of your hand. But it won’t be game boy. This is the exact Nintendo we played in the 1980s, only smaller. You connect the console with an HDMI cable to your TV or desktop computer screen. It includes the old school controller. It’s just like the one we remember. This controller can connect to a Wii Remote. That means this controller works with Wii or Wii U. The console has suspended points, so you won’t be playing ‘What’s my password again?’. The new NES classic is expected to be releases November 11. That’s right; just in time for the holiday shipping season. The NES will cost around $60. Thirty games come built in this system. These games include Super Mario Brothers 1, 2, and 3. They include Zelda 1 and 2. They include really old school arcade games like Pac Man, Galaga and Donkey Kong. They include Punch Out, Metroid, Techmobowl, Final Fantasy, Ghosts and Goblins, Balloon Fight.
I think of the ones this NES console don’t have. They have Double Dragon 2, but not the original Double Dragon. That one left me scratching my head. They don’t have Duck Hunt because this console doesn’t come with a gun. But they could have built the shots in the remote. Other games I will miss include RC Pro-Am, Spy Hunter, Pro Wrestling, and Kung Fu. How can they not have Kung Fu?! Despite that, I see good thing for this system. For anyone born before 1984, playing this game will allow us to relive memories, before gaming got all complicated. For the younger generation, it will be a great lesson on how things were back in the day. You can’t beat the price! You get a console and 30 games for $60. Who does that today? Who did that back in the ’80s? What games would you like to see on the upcoming NES?
In the 1990s, a game called Pokemon was released worldwide. It became the addiction of a generation. Now there’s Pokemon Go: the new addiction.
Pokemon Go is Nintendo’s first ever smartphone game. And they hit the jackpot. It’s already the most downloaded item in the Apple store. Nintendo stocks are soaring. This isn’t your 1990s Pokemon. Now, you look for Pokemon and other characters in the real world. It sounds like a simple concept. But this concept is taking off worldwide. Young and old play Pokemon go. So do all other demographics and cultures. The game may be Nintendo’s. But Pokemon Go was created by former Google subdivision Niantic. This game is unique for a reason. You use your smartphone as a mirror of the world around you. The game injects a Pokemon character somewhere in that reality image. Then you find it. Pokemon could be in the streets, or in your kitchen. It also uses mapping and GPS technology. You can turn neighborhoods and businesses into Pokestops. Tap on Pokestops. Swipe the coin in the center. You’ll get Pokemon balls, eggs and potions. The more famous the neighborhood is, the more Pokestops you’ll see. For example, you’ll see more Pokemon activity in South Beach Miami than you will in Medfield, Massachusetts.
I think that is what makes Pokemon Go so addictive. Yes, the characters are cute. But this game takes you to places very familiar. And it gives you an excuse to see places not very familiar. I’ve seen videos that show the Pokemon Go?experience. People are so into Pokemon they can’t get their work done. From where I stand, that’s not much of a parody. That’s real life. I’m old enough to remember when Pac-Man became so addictive. But with smartphones, and the easy access of smartphones, Pokemon Go addiction can get way out of control. Be careful out there. How many hours a day or week do you play Pokemon Go?
