Tech Brew Ride Home - Wed. 09/12 - Happy iPhone Day!

Episode Date: September 12, 2018

What else? The iPhone event. Also, the EU strikes again, the T-Mobile/Sprint merger is on “pause” and "Gawker" is coming back.  Links:EU approves controversial Copyright Directive, including internet ‘link tax’ and ‘upload filter’ (The Verge)European Parliament Passes Copyright Directive Giving Artists Greater Share of Revenue (Variety)FCC says it needs more time to review Sprint-T-Mobile deal (CNBC)Verizon to begin 5G home broadband service sign-ups on Thursday (Axios)Gawker Set to Relaunch Under New Owner Bryan Goldberg (EXCLUSIVE) (Variety) Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

On April 4th, 2023, around 2 in the morning, a man was found stabbed multiple times on a sidewalk in downtown San Francisco. Hey, who did this to you? What happened next turned the story into a political firestorm. Reports have identified the victim as Bob Lee, the founder of Cash App. From Bloomberg Podcasts, this is Foundering, the Killing of Bob Lee, beginning April 16. Welcome to the TechMeme ride home for Wednesday, September 12th, 2018. I'm Brian McCullough. Today, what else?

The iPhone event. Also, the EU strikes again. The T-Mobile Sprint merger is on pause. And Gawker is coming back. Well, something called Gawker is coming back. Here's what you miss today in the world of tech. Today in Cupertino, Tim Cook and his merry band of executives announced iPhones with big screens and Apple Watches with big screens.

Both are faster and better in a bunch of ways we'll get to, but the bigness. That's the trend. Let's get into the details. First up, iPhone. The iPhone 10S is a straightforward revision of last year's iPhone 10. Basically name anything about the iPhone 10, and the new version is, you know, better. The CPU is faster. Face ID is faster.

The screen is better. The speakers are better. Battery life is better. The cameras are slightly better. and the device comes in 64, 256, and 512 gigabyte storage capacities. That 512 gig size is a first for an iPhone, by the way. Half a terabyte in your pocket. What a world. The iPhone 10S is available in silver, space gray, and gold.

It has more durable glass, which is important because both the front and the back are made of glass. Apple promises improved water resistance, too. One notable nerdy detail is that the chip powering this phone, is Apple's A-12 Bionic, which is manufactured using a 7-nanometer process. Last year's A-11 was 10 nanometers. So in this one case, smallness is the trend, and it's a good one, as you'll get better CPU and GPU performance from the new chip. With dual cameras, the photo-taking story is similar to last year's iPhone 10,

but with a few improvements, the wide-angle camera sensor has larger pixels, which can improve performance in low light. The flash is improved. Software and the increased computing power on that A12 chip allow for better camera exposures, especially when you're photographing something with very bright and very dark areas in the same image. Portrait mode features have been pumped up, allowing you to change the apparent depth of field of your photo after taking it by changing the selective blur in the background. No, this is not one of those lightro cameras that really change the depth of field.

This is just a slider that controls how blurry the back. background is. There are four microphones on the iPhone 10S, which allows it to finally record stereo sound while shooting video. It's a little weird that it's taken Apple so long to bring stereo sound recording to the iPhone, but I guess we'll take it. Then there's the iPhone 10S max, which is, in a word, huge, normus. It's the biggest iPhone yet at 10.5 inches diagonally. That makes it bigger than Samsung's Galaxy Note devices. Now, for perspective, the iPad Mini has a screen of 7.9 inches, so we're getting into small iPad territory with an iPhone now.

Maybe this is why Apple hasn't updated my beloved iPad Mini in many years. They've grown the phone into a fablet to replace their small tablet. The iPhone 10S Max is basically a plus version of the iPhone 10S. It's bigger with a bigger screen and a bigger battery. There are basically no specs that are exclusive to the Max model. Okay, and now we have the iPhone that probably everyone is going to buy. It's called the iPhone 10R. And it's kind of fascinating.

It's a hybrid between last year's iPhone 8 plus and this year's iPhone 10s, but with a larger screen than either of those devices. Yes, the low-end new iPhone has a bigger screen than the high-end new model. The iPhone 10R is very similar to the 10S with four notable differences. One, there's just one camera on the back. Two, the screen technology is LCD, although it's apparently a very nice LCD. Three, the case material is aluminum instead of glass, and four, 3D touch has been replaced with something called haptic touch,

similar to the forced touch feature used on Apple's recent track pads. All four of these are non-issues for most people, And so to stand out a little bit, the R phones come in lots of colors, black, white, red, yellow, blue, and coral, which is Apple's word for pink. The R phones come in 64 and 256 gigabytes sizes, and they support wireless charging just like the other iPhone 10 models. The iPhone 10R has the same wide-angle camera as the 10S, and it is now able to take portrait mode photos. The front camera is also the same as the 10S models and the A-10 Bi-10. ionic chip is the same. Battery life is up to 90 minutes longer than an iPhone 8 plus.

I suspect that the iPhone 10R will be a huge seller because it's absolutely a top-of-the-line modern iPhone with all the features you'd expect from the camera to the face ID to the fast chip, but it's a lot cheaper. More on that in a moment. Since Apple just announced three new phones in a bunch of colors, I decided to do some math. This year, Apple is shipping 30 variants of the iPhone. As usual, Apple is keeping around a bunch of older phones at reduced prices. By comparison, in 2017, Apple introduced just 16 iPhone models before the product red versions came out.

Clearly, Apple thinks it can manage the complexity of this supply chain. We'll have to see how that works out, and there's already plenty of snark about the complexity of the product lineup on Twitter. The iPhone 10S and 10S max will be available for pre-order this Friday, September 14th. They ship September 21st. The 64-gigabyte S-phone is $999, and the 64-gigabyte max phone is $1,099. They obviously go up from there

with the highest price being the $1,449-512-gabyte iPhone 10S max. Now here's the bummer. It looks like iPhone 10R manufacturing is delayed, lining up with rumors we've heard before the event. Prices start at $749 for the 64-gigabyte model, but pre-orders for the 10-R don't actually start until October 19th, a full month away. The 10-R phones ship on October 26. Meanwhile, Apple announced that iOS 12 launches Monday, September 17th, and Mac OS Mojave will be released on Monday, September 24th. That Mojave release date is the only Mac-related news that we got today.

While Apple didn't mention it on stage, their website no longer features buy buttons for the iPhone SE, original iPhone 10, iPhone 6, iPhone 6+, iPhone 6S, and iPhone 6S plus. Text on the screen says those phones are available at authorized resellers, which apparently means they're discontinued, at least in the U.S. The oldest phone you can now buy new today is an iPhone 7, which starts at $449. That's $100 more than the iPhone SE, which will be missed by people with small hands or tight budgets, or basically my wife. I think this might push her into Android territory. On to the Apple Watch.

The new Apple Watch Series 4 has a 30% bigger screen and is a little thinner than previous models. The watch faces have been redesigned to take advantage of the larger screen. The Digital Crown now has haptic feedback, so it feels more mechanical. The speaker is 50% louder, all the better to hear Siri, and people you're trying to call on your wrist phone. The watchbacks are now all ceramic, matching up with yesterday's report from Ming Chi Kuo. The new watch has an improved S4 chip, which is a 64-bit dual-core processor. But more interesting than that, the other sensors in the Apple Watch have been improved, and there's a new one in there. An improved accelerometer and gyroscope can detect if the wearer falls down.

This process is a combination of hardware and software, and Apple says they tested people falling down to make it work. If you fall, the watch brings up a prompt allowing you to call an emergency services number with one swipe. If you remain immobile for more than a minute, the watch automatically invokes the SOS function, calling emergency services and your SOS contacts. It will be interesting to see if there's a lot of false positives on that one.

The audience reacted to this with huge applause. It's clear that this new feature will literally save lives. On that saving lives tip, there are three new heart health features. First, a notification if your heart rate is too low, which might mean your heart isn't pumping enough blood. Second, the watch can detect atrial fibrillation, known as aphib, while running in the background using the existing optical pulse sensor. Third, score another scoop for Ming Chi Quo yesterday. A new electrical heart sensor allows you to take an electrocardiogram or ECG to measure to measure. your ECG, start the ECG app, and put your finger on the digital crown for 30 seconds.

This can also detect AFIB in a very detailed way, and the data is stored in Apple's health app so you can share it with your doctor. This is handy in case you have heart troubles, but you don't happen to be in the doctor's office the moment they happen. Apple says this is the first ECG product offered directly over-the-counter to consumers, though I saw some reporting that said there were others. Yes, Apple had to go through FDA approvals for the Apple Watch Series 4 and some of the heart features

will only roll out internationally once regulatory approval is sorted out. Let me tell you that the crowd really loved hearing about those Apple Watch health-related features, but if you have one nagging question in the back of your mind, can you use all of your old Apple Watch bands

with these new Apple Watches? Even though the new watch is bigger, yes, you can. The new Apple Watch Series 4 comes in a silver gold and space gray aluminum finishes. Stainless steel is available in space black, the standard polish steel finish, and a new gold stainless steel finish. Apple has discontinued the ceramic Apple Watch addition bodies,

so your choices are now just aluminum and stainless steel. Apple is actually increasing the base price of its series four watch models. It's now $399 for the GPS model and $499 for cell. Pre-orders start Friday, September 14th, and they ship on September 21st. Watch OS5 comes out Monday, September 17th. The Series 3 model is sticking around, though, gets a $50 price cut, down to $279. And WatchOS 5 comes out Monday, September 17th. Although Apple didn't mention it on stage, it looks like Apple Watch models older than the Series 3 are discontinued.

The lineup is now Series 3 and Series 4. And that's it. Joanna Stern summed it up on Twitter. This introduction of the Apple Watch was fascinating. Very few shots of beautiful young fit people. Clear to me, Apple is going after an older market with the fall detection and the heart health features, end quote. As if to play up that older folks demographic push, Apple played the hokey-pokey song in a promo video on stage. And that pretty much sums it up for the Apple event.

conspicuously absent from the event was the air power charging mat first announced a year ago. Also no word on iPads, on Macs, or updated AirPods, which that's super interesting. Apple did take some time to talk about the environment, announcing that the company now runs all of its facilities worldwide on 100% renewable power. We'll stay tuned to rumors and analysis overnight and be back to you with that tomorrow. So other news, it was actually a pretty big newsday even without the Apple event. The EU has brought the hammer down again on the world of tech. A bunch of news here, so let me just summarize the key points. Remember those controversial articles 11 and 13 dubbed the link tax and the upload filter,

the thing that people fear will kill the meme culture of the internet? They were initially rejected in July after criticism, but the laws were then reworked. And now by a vote of 438 in favor to 266. against they have been passed. There is still a final, final vote scheduled for January and each individual member state will have to decide how they want to implement the directives, but yeah, this is potentially going to be a big deal

for the whole web, and perfectly legal things like parodies and memes are possibly in danger. Reactions on Twitter used words like catastrophic. The EEF said, this was the worst possible outcome. But I'm not done. yet, also as a part of this directive, are details that will give film and TV writers,

directors, and performing artists the opportunity to renegotiate their rights and royalty contracts with online streamers like YouTube, Amazon, and Netflix. So costs are going up for online streamers, but then it looks like artists are going to get paid. Finally, the EU has formally proposed new legislation that would fine online platforms up to 4% of their global worldwide revenue if they fail to remove terrorist content posted to those platforms within one hour of them being posted. There had previously been voluntary guidelines in this regard, but if approved by Parliament and member states, this would become actual law. In a letter to the interested parties, the FCC has told Sprint and T-Mobile that it needs more

time to review the proposed merger. Quoting from CNBC, the agency has paused. An informal 180-day transaction clock to allow for thorough staff and third-party review of recently submitted materials, end quote. What does this mean? Quoting from the Verge, with regards to the pause of the shot clock, the commission is mostly taking issue with how late in the process it is received key information related to Sprint and T-Mobile's proposed network engineering model and build-out, end quote. So your guess is as good as mine, if this augurs poorly for the deal. I don't actually think that this means that the deal is in trouble, but I'm sure, of course, that T-Mobile and Sprint would have preferred things to stay on the quickest timeline possible. Yesterday, I mentioned my self-imposed effort to track the progress of self-driving car technology, but I'm also on the case of the rollout of 5G. This issue is a dead certainty, unlike self-driving cars, but the only question in this case is one of timing.

For example, there were no 5G models of the iPhone. announced this year? Will we get one next year? Every day, carriers are announcing cities that will soon see 5G deployment as early as the end of this year and definitely in 2019, but the real promise of 5G technology, as we've discussed before, is truly ubiquitous broadband. Everywhere, wires be damned. A reality that, if it came to pass, would be seriously threatening to traditional ISPs like cable companies. Well, the first meaningful step toward that reality is here. says it's wireless 5G home broadband service will launch October 1st in Houston, Indianapolis, Los Angeles, and Sacramento. Starting tomorrow, you can check and see if your home is covered by going to the website FirstOn5G.com.

If you sign up, you'll get the first three months free and then it's $50 a month after that if you're an existing Verizon Wireless subscriber. If you're not, it's $70 a month. You'll get speeds ranging from 300 MbPS all the way. up to one G.BPS. And get this. No data caps. At least that's what they tell you now. So this could replace your internet service and your TV service, especially without data caps. And to that end, you'll even get YouTube TV free for that first three-month trial and receive a free Apple TV 4K or Google Chromecast Ultra. So shots fired Xfinity Spectrum at all. today Gawker is coming back, or at least a website named Gawker is coming back. Bustle owner Brian Goldberg, who recently bought the Gawker name and assets for $1.35 million,

has hired Amanda Hale, the former Chief Revenue Officer for the outline as the publisher of a to-be-relaunched Gawker website. The new Gawker will likely resurface in early 2019, though no word of any other editorial hires have come down yet. I won't go into the whole sorry saga of Gawker. I assume you know it involves Peter Thiel and Halk Hogan. The site has been dark since 2016. The question, of course, is,

will the new site merely be named Gawker, or will it actually be Gawker? Will it be snarky, biting, mean, sometimes? The fighting champion against sacred cows. In a memo to Bustle staff that Variety got its hands on, Goldberg announced Hales hiring by writing, quote, We won't recreate Gawker exactly as it was, but we will build upon Gawker's legacy and triumphs and learn from its missteps.

In doing so, we aim to create something new, vibrant, highly relevant, and worth visiting daily, end quote. As Ryan Mack tweeted, so not Gawker. As the Washington Post, Hamza Shaban tweeted, Imagine buying a pioneering website known for fearlessness and anti-bS at a time of political disorder and media upheaval and announcing it all by saying, tronk, tronk, tronk, tronk, end quote. I guess we'll just have to wait and see. Busy, busy day, everybody. I hope Santa Tim brought you everything you wanted.

My thanks sincerely to Chris Higgins for helping me get all of this written today. Both of us thank the TechMeme editors for organizing that flood of news. Follow Chris on Twitter at Chris Higgins. Follow the TechMem editors at TechMeme. And follow me on Twitter at Brian MCC. Talk to you tomorrow.