No more Bendgate … Apple has designed the iPhone 6S to be stronger at its most vulnerable spot.
A NEW video claiming to show leaked parts of the next Apple iPhone shows how the technology giant plans to kill Bendgate — the flaw in the iPhone 6 Plus design that had some people folding their giant smartphones.
The video at Unbox Therapy shows what is claimed to be leaked parts of the Apple iPhone 6S, the smaller of the two new iPhones that Apple is expected to unveil at a rumoured launch on September 9.
No More Bendgate
Shortly after the release of Apple’s first phablet, the iPhone 6 Plus, some customers complained that the 5.5-inch smartphone had a weakness in the frame that meant they bent if you applied force in a particular way, such as sitting on it.
Apple later admitted the problem although it said it was “extremely rare”.
The Unbox Therapy video out today shows the backplate for the iPhone 6S, the smaller of the new iPhones, compared with the backplate of the iPhone 6.
The new design is slightly bigger: 138.2mm tall by 67.16mm wide versus the current design of 138.09mm by 66.91mm. Yet despite the slight increase in size, the new frame is 2g lighter, suggesting that Apple is using a higher grade aluminium which it uses in the Apple Watch Sport.
The key design change means that the Apple iPhone 6 is stronger in its most vulnerable point.
The video today is a sign that Apple is keen not to have another Bendgate, although it should be viewed with a few qualifications.
Firstly, the leaked iPhone 6 backplate might not be a final version. Also, Bendgate was only a problem with the bigger phone, and the video does not show proof that the new design is across both models of iPhone.
From thousands of entries, the judges at IPPAwards select the top three photographers of the year and finalists in 19 categories
The iPhone Photography Awards, an international photography contest that fosters iPhone and mobile photography, has announced the winners of its eighth annual competition, with Michał Koralewski of Poland coming on top, and David Craik of the United Kingdom and American Yvonne Lu following the second and third spots respectively.
“It’s an incredible surprise for me to be given this award,” Koralewski tells TIME. “I’ve taken part in the IPPAwards contests for three years, and this is the first time I won something more than an honorable mention.”
Reviewing thousands of entries from all over the world, the jury selected the top three, as well as three winners in each of the 19 categories, which included travel, architecture, food and portrait. “This year’s entries were especially impressive ranging from intimate, thought-provoking moments to stunning, captivating imagery,” says the awards’ founder Kenan Aktulun.
Koralewski won best Photographer of the Year with the shoot Sounds of the Old Town, which depicts an elder accordionist playing traditional Polish songs in the market square of Warsaw. He captured the dreamy scene with an iPhone 5 equipped with a COVR photo lens – a sliding camera lens that allows photos to be taken discreetly from the waist.
First place, Sounds of the old town.
As an amateur photographer, Koralewski enjoys the portability and low-profile nature of the device: “I have it with me all the time. It’s fast and always ready to use so I almost never miss the fleeting moment,” he says. “It allows me to stay almost invisible to the neighborhood when shooting.”
Craik won second prize with Cafe Birds, an image taken with his iPhone 5s in a café in Dorset, a fishing town in South England. “I’m overjoyed because I’ve finally won some recognition with a wildlife photo, and with an iPhone photo as well,” he says.
Second place, Cafe Birds.
A self-taught photographer, Craik admits his “gut-wrenching passion” for wildlife inspired his shot. “I saw the birds, I saw the shadows on the wall, and I saw the corner of the table,” he says recalling the moment he noticed starlings reaching for crumbs on his table. “I saw this image happen in front of me.”
Craik applied minor edits to the photo using Pixlr to lighten it up. Although photo-editing apps were allowed in the contest, laptop post-production programs such as Photoshop were not.
With Before Sunset, an intimate photograph of a sleeping couple traveling by train along the Hudson River, photographer Yi-Chieh Lu – who goes by Yvonne – won third place. A fine art professional photographer, Lu relies on her phone mostly for street photography, as she values the “real-eye point-of-view” it provides, and praises the ability to share shots quickly on social media to reach a broad audience. Lu used VSCOcam to enhance her photograph.
Third place, Before Sunset.
Founded in 2007, the same year the iPhone was launched, the IPPAwards celebrates the power of the mobile device to produce valuable visual work.
The three winners learned to hone their skills through practice: “If you want to take a good photograph, first you need to cut out distractions in the background and focus on the essential parts of the frame. It’s especially important if you take photos with a smartphone,” says Koralewski who also encourages attention to light and experimenting with different angles for varying perspectives. The key is to be patient and to refrain from the natural instinct to rush, which might lead to blurry outcomes, Craik suggests while Lu reminds photographers to always have their iPhones with them. “Take your phone with you all the time, don’t put it in the bag!” suggests Lu. “That way, you can always capture beautiful moments just with your phone in hand.”
iPhone 5 uses iOS, Apple’s mobile operating system. The user interface of iOS is based on the concept of direct manipulation, using multi-touch gestures. Interface control elements consist of sliders, switches, and buttons. Interaction with the OS includes gestures such as swipe, tap, pinch, and reverse pinch, all of which have specific definitions within the context of the iOS operating system and its multi-touch interface. Internal accelerometers are used by some applications to respond to shaking the device (one common result is the undo command) or rotating it vertically (one common result is switching from portrait to landscape mode).
The iPhone 5 uses iOS 6, which was released on September 19, 2012. Many of the iPhone 5’s features that work specifically with the included new iOS 6.0 operating system, will only work in certain territories on release. Apple has said this is a rolling program, which will take longer to implement across more regions.
The phone can act as a hotspot, sharing its internet connection over WiFi, Bluetooth, or USB, and also accesses the App Store, an online application distribution platform for iOS developed and maintained by Apple. The service allows users to browse and download applications from the iTunes Store that were developed with Xcode and the iOS SDK and were published through Apple.
The iPhone 5 can play music, movies, television shows, ebooks, audiobooks, and podcasts and can sort its media library by songs, artists, albums, videos, playlists, genres, composers, podcasts, audiobooks, and compilations. Options are always presented alphabetically, except in playlists, which retain their order from iTunes. Users can rotate their device horizontally to landscape mode to access Cover Flow. Like on iTunes, this feature shows the different album covers in a scroll-through photo library. Scrolling is achieved by swiping a finger across the screen. Alternatively, headset controls can be used to pause, play, skip, and repeat tracks. On the 5, the volume can be changed with the included Apple Earphones, and the Voice Control feature can be used to identify a track, play songs in a playlist or by a specific artist, or create a Genius playlist.
Like the iPhone 4S, the iPhone 5 has Siri, that allows the user to operate the iPhone by spoken commands. For example, “What is the weather going to be like?” will generate a spoken response like “The weather is to be cloudy and rainy and drop to 54 degrees today”. For usability reasons, third-party applications cannot currently respond to voice commands. The commands given do not have to be formulated using rigidly determined wording; natural language can be used. Siri is accessed by holding down the home button rather than tapping it. The software was improved in iOS 6 to include the ability to make restaurant reservations, launch apps, dictate Facebook or Twitter updates, retrieve movie reviews and detailed sports statistics.
When will the new iPhone 7 (or 6s Plus) launch, and what new features can we expect in the next iPhone? We round up all the iPhone 7 release date rumours, clues to design changes, and images of what the iPhone 7 will look like when it comes out. Here’s everything we know (or can guess) about Apple’s iPhone 7, including predictions of a 9 September launch event and reports that the iPhone 7’s A9 chip will boast speed ‘to die for’
