Taking a look back at another week of news from Cupertino, this week’s Apple Loop covers the first signs of iOS 9, a potential dual-lens camera in the iPhone 6S, Apple and GoPro, the no-poaching antitrust case, changes to the iTunes store for kids and free singles, eight years of iPhones, and how to smuggle ninety-four smartphones before getting caught.
Apple Loop is here to remind you of a few of the very many discussions that have happened around Apple over the last seven days (and you can read our weekly digest of Android news here on Forbes).
iOS 9 Visiting Various Websites Around The World
It should be no surprise that Apple is working on the next version of iOS. After the Christmas and New Year break and the return of the staff at Cupertino, a number of eagle-eyed webmasters have spotted iOS 9 popping up in their referral logs. Forbes’ Gordon Kelly:
As always Apple does not comment on leaks and it is possible these iOS 9 devices could be fakes designed to fool Google. That said it would seem a pretty left field way of going about it and Apple would be in big trouble if it didn’t have working iOS 9 betas at this stage.
Traffic data from AppleInsider shows that visits from devices that appear to be running early builds of iOS 9 have been steadily increasing over the last month. Traffic from iOS 9 devices peaked last week and has grown every week.
Given the current one year cycle of iOS releases, it should be no surprise that iOS 9 is already on a range of test devices in Cupertino. Expect to see iOS 9 debut at this summer’s WWDC.
Take Two Camera Lenses Into Your Smartphone?
Along with iOS 9 showing up, more details on the next iPhone are also around the web this week. One interesting rumor concerns the camera of the potential iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus. The new handsets will be equipped with dual camera lenses, providing improved low-light performance and the potential addition of optical zoom.
An additional benefit of dual-lens setups is improved low light performance – perhaps the one area iPhone rivals like the Note 4 and Nexus 6 have started to outperform Apple – and faster HDR photography.That said perhaps the biggest benefit optical zoom would make in an iPhone 6s / iPhone 6s Plus would be the elimination of digital zoom, a horribly outdated technology which merely zooms into the screen.
The iPhone 6 Plus (image: Ewan Spence)
Can You Love And Hate The iPhone 6 Plus?
Not every phone is perfect, and if you can live with the problems and love the features that work, you have a winning combination. Does the iPhone 6 Plus have enough bouquets to overcome Gordon Kelly’s brickbats?
I’ve had the iPhone 6 Plus and iPhone 6 since their September launch and moving to the massive iPhone 6 Plus is not something to take lightly. Several major issues will be deal breakers for many and they need to be weighed up against you own personal circumstance.
What do you need to love and hate about the iPhone 6 Plus? Find out…
GoPro Is Not Going To be Killed By Apple
Lots of chatter about a commercial challenge by Apple to GoPro and its line of action cameras last week, thanks to a patent on remote-controlled cameras coming to light. Unsurprisingly, there’s a bit more to the story than that, and Forbes’ Ryan Mac looks at what’s right, what’s wrong, and why GoPro can relax:
The intellectual property in question here, U.S. Patent No. 8,934,045, which was purchased by Apple from Eastman Kodak in 2012, certainly shows a digital camera that’s controllable by some type of wireless remote. There are diagrams of cameras, mounts and a remote control with a normal-power state, for when it’s on and in-use, and a low-power state, for when its screen is off and not in-use. But does it mean Apple is building a standalone digital camera? No. And more specifically, does it mean Apple will build a point-of-view, action camera that can be controlled by a remote? Certainly not.Apple files or obtains hundreds of patents a year, some of which go unused in the devices that are actually built for the public. And if Apple were really trying to go after the action camera market, the company would create its own technology, says Apple Insider, not tack on to an existing patent that was previously owned by a now-irrelevant photography company.
New Proposed Settlement In Non-Poaching Antitrust Case
Apple, along with Google, Intel, and Adobe, have proposed a new settlement in the antitrust case around the ‘no employee poaching’ agreement between the two companies (reports the BBC).
Four of the world’s biggest tech giants – Apple, Google, Intel and Adobe – have agreed to a new settlement of $415m (£273.5m) in an attempt to resolve a lawsuit. The US lawsuit alleged the firms agreed not to poach staff from each other. It claimed the alleged agreement prevented workers from getting better job offers elsewhere.The 2011 US case had claimed $3bn in damages on behalf of more than 64,000 workers at the four firms. The latest attempt to settle the case for $415m, which was filed in court on Thursday, comes after a US judge rejected a $324.5m settlement offer last year.
The companies will be waiting to hear back from the Judge to see if this settlement will be accepted, and the Forbes Tech Team will bring you that news when it arrives
http://www.forbes.com/sites/ewanspence/2015/01/16/apple-loop-ios-9-leaks-iphones-optical-zoom-6-plus-love-and-hate/
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