What to expect from Apple: the main thing about iOS, macOS, Watch 3, iPhone 8

Apple's capitalization is approaching a trillion dollars, but not everyone approves of the path chosen by the company. Critics point to the lack of wow-effect in recent releases, the stagnation of technology, copying ideas from competitors who managed to advance far in the technological race. It is possible that some of the claims can be dispelled very soon, when the Yabloko begin presentation of several long-awaited products.

The main thing that Apple will please this fall is iPhone 8. After lengthening the update cycle for the iPhone and iPad, user expectations have grown. But not only an iPhone is interesting for the upcoming season. Smart HomePod column, Apple Watch 3, macOS High Sierra - all these new items should appear in the near future. The amount of information is multiplied (both reliable and in the form of rumors), but this collection contains only data confirmed from several independent sources.

iPhone 8: follow the trends

A very accurate copy of the device is presented in the video above. The video accumulates all previously collected rumors. It is already difficult to distinguish where prototypes of the Apple iPhone 8 with the final design meet, and where the copies assembled by craftsmen are presented. Many preliminary reviews have very detailed models.



So, what is known at the moment according to the source . The iPhone 8 will be slightly larger than the iPhone 7, but noticeably smaller than the iPhone 7+. The 5.8-inch screen will be almost “edge to edge” - it will occupy almost the entire area of ​​the front panel. Side frames will not disappear, but their width will be reduced to 4 millimeters.



The device will receive a Super AMOLED display with a resolution of 750x1334 (~ 300 ppi) and 16 million colors.



The smartphone will have a small frame at the top of the screen. A speaker, front camera and proximity sensor will be placed in a special cutout.



iPhone 8 will receive a glass case. On the rear panel are a vertical dual camera and LED flash, and on the side are the volume and power buttons.



Wireless charging (judging by the scheme obtained directly from the factory) will consist of two thin layers of PCB. The battery capacity is comparable to the battery capacity of the iPhone 7 Plus. By the way, iPhone 7S, 7S + will also receive wireless charging.

It is possible that the iPhone 8 will receive ProMotion technology, already introduced in the new iPad Pro tablets. ProMotion screens with the Neuro Engine chip are capable of updating at a higher frequency, reducing image blur during scrolling and in some other situations. In addition, the technology reduces the refresh rate to save battery.



But the number of colors of the case will be reduced. Most likely, the flagship will be presented only in black and white.

New Camera, Augmented Reality and Face ID


The iPhone 8 camera is equipped with a VSCEL touch-sensitive laser sensor (“surface-emitting laser with a vertical resonator”), which allows you to accurately determine the depth of the scene. This technology will improve the quality of the work of augmented reality systems and allow more accurate focusing of autofocus for photos.

Many believed that Apple would integrate a fingerprint scanner into the screen, but the company decided to completely abandon the Touch ID and the Home button in favor of Pearl ID (scanning the iris of the eye and face). The function will unlock the smartphone, as well as conduct transactions.
In the process of studying the firmware of the HomePod smart column, a line of code “com.apple.accessibility.resting.pearl.unlock” was revealed, which may indicate that the face recognition function in the iPhone works even if the device is simply lying on the table.
How exactly this function will work is still unknown. The main issue that bothers everyone is security. Many face recognition systems can be fooled just by slipping a user's photo.

According to another leak , the iPhone 8 will shoot 4K video at 60 frames per second from both cameras. The shooting will be conducted in the new HEVC format, in which the file size will be reduced by half compared with the files in the iPhone 7.

Code in the firmwareThe smart speaker, which became the source of a lot of news, indicated the appearance of the SmartCam mode, in which the camera recognizes objects inside the scene, and also analyzes it as a whole. For example, the camera will understand that the objects are inside the scene “sunset”, “sky”, “sport”, “snow” and so on, determine the presence of children and pets. And the new freezeMotion function allows you to take photos of moving objects with maximum clarity.

macOS High Sierra

macOS High Sierra has already been announced, but will be available for download in the fall. By the way, as partners with Apple, we got access to a prototype system in advance, which allowed implementing High Sierra support in the latest version of Parallels Desktop 13 .

The update continues the line of Snow Leopard and Mountain Lion, mainly adding performance improvements to the system thanks to the new Apple File System (APFS).
APFS is optimized for working with large files, provides data storage in case of power outages or system failures, and also has built-in encryption (it is not yet disclosed which one).

High Sierra will introduce an efficient HEVC video compression format (H.265 helps to compress video more than the previous codec, not inferior in quality) and a new Metal 2 graphics platform that supports interaction with external graphics cards. Metal 2 can be used for machine learning in speech recognition, computer vision and other areas of artificial intelligence development.

High Sierra supports the Unreal Engine, Steam VR, and the Vive VR glasses.

There are many other less noticeable changes. So, the Safari browser will automatically block auto-play of videos and banner ads, and the Photos application will safely synchronize face recognition data within the Apple ecosystem using iCloud.

Smart HomePod speaker

Siri will get a new home - now inside a music column. As Tim Cook stated :

“ We wanted to create something that would sound incredible. I think that when people hear the HomePod, they will be shocked by the sound quality. Of course, he knows how much else! ".



As for the sound, here we can only judge by the description: a subwoofer + a block of seven multidirectional tweeters with their own amplifiers. HomePod, running on the A8 processor, will receive as many as six microphones responsible for picking up voice commands. HomePod will probably go on sale at the end of the year for about $ 350.

Apple Watch 3

Apple Watch 3 can show along with the iPhone 8, but so far it is necessary to collect bit by bit the available information. The most important of the smartwatch innovations is the presence of an LTE modem that allows the use of a virtual card of individual operators. Thus, the Apple Watch 3 works as a standalone device, without being tied to a smartphone.

In watchOS 4, a new dial with an assistant will appear, which displays the latest information: traffic jams, weather, daily tasks and more. Music from Apple Music will be automatically saved to your watch so you can listen to it through your wireless headphones.

iOS 11

The new iOS was already presented at the summer WWDC, but since then there have been many new updates: cash transactions via iMessage using Apple Pay, the new HEIF image format (photos weigh less) and the already mentioned HEVC codec.



Concerning the disappeared Home button, designer Max Rudberg published his conceptual solution. Various indicators in the status bar are located on the sides of the "cutout" in the screen.



However, most likely, the solution will be different. Home will probably be hiding automaticallyor appear depending on the context - the button disappears when you need a place for “full-format” content on the screen. The interfaces of the lock screen and the control panel, which "pushes" from the bottom, will change. Menu items can be added and reordered.

IOS 11 Beta 6 is already available for developers. There is less time left until the news collected on the basis of leaks and rumors ceases, and we can check whether expectations coincide with reality. It is likely that the iPhone 8 will be announced along with the iPhone 7S and iPhone 7S + in early September, but iPhone 8 shipments will begin in October-November. The price of the iPhone 8 will range from 1,200 to 1,400 dollars.

Z.Y. Well Tim, don't let me down!