Linked List: September 13, 2016

Tuesday, 13 September 2016

iOS 10 Over-the-Air Update Glitch, Now Fixed ★

Jason Snell:

There are lots of reports out there of iOS devices being kicked into reset mode by a failed over-the-air iOS 10 update. […]

Apple released a statement saying this was an issue that affected a small number of users early on, and has since been fixed.

Always backup first. And it sometimes pays to wait a few hours, see how things shake out.

Daring Fireball RSS Feed Sponsorship Fall Schedule ★

It’s probably the busiest week of the year, traffic-wise, on Daring Fireball, ~~but for some reason this week remains unsold~~. [Update: Sold.] (It was sold, then un-sold, then sold again to a different sponsor, then postponed, but that’s a long story.) November and December are nearly sold out already, but September and October are mostly open.

Traffic and attention are pretty consistent week-to-week and month-to-month at Daring Fireball, but new iPhone week is a big one. Most years, the second week of September sells out months in advance. (Same for the second week of June, targeting WWDC.) And it’s not just new iPhones this week — it’s new Apple Watches and AirPods week too.

The rest of September and October should be great weeks too, with MacOS Sierra and (hopefully?) new Mac hardware. Get in touch if you’ve got a cool product or service to promote, and check out the list of all previous sponsors to see how many of them have come back for repeat sponsorships.

Matthew Panzarino on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus ★

Matthew Panzarino, writing for TechCrunch:

Every time you take a picture with the iPhone 7, both the wide angle and telephoto fire off. Yes, two 12 megapixel pictures for every shot. This could be a prime driver behind the increase of the iPhone 7 Plus’ memory to 3GB.

Both images are needed due to an Apple technique it is calling “fusion” internally. Fusion takes data from both sensors and merges them into the best possible picture for every condition. If, for instance, there is a low-light scene that has some dark areas, the image-processing chip could choose to pick up some image data (pixels or other stuff like luminance) from the brighter f1.8 wide angle and mix it in with the data from the f2.8 telephoto, creating a composite image on the fly without any input from the user. This fusion technique is available to every shot coming from the camera, which means that the iPhone 7 Plus is mixing and matching data every time that trigger is tapped.

This technique is made possible because the optics, coatings, sensors, perspectives and color balances of the two cameras are perfectly matched.

Terrific review. He makes all sorts of points that I wish I’d made in mine.

In my testing I didn’t see any noticeable difference between 1× shots on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus. I think this “fusion” stuff only kicks in, or at least mostly kicks in, once you start increasing the zoom level. Put another way, I think the wide angle lens assists the telephoto lens more than the telephoto lens assists the wide angle.

The other thing I don’t think I emphasized enough in my review: it never feels like you are switching between two cameras. It feels like one camera that has remarkable zoom optics for its size. I emphasized the two-camera stuff because I’m trying to explain (and understand myself) how it works. But in use it’s so simple and integrated. It’s actually hard to believe it’s two cameras when you use it. And the new zoom control interface is so much better. You can still pinch the display to zoom, but the slider is a much better control.

Also worth noting: his jet black iPhone 7 picked up some scratches. Close up, easily visible. Arm’s distance, not so much.

Parakeet: Snacks ★

Another delightful sticker pack. These look better than real food.

Iconfactory Stickers ★

Who better to provide some excellent stickers for the new iOS 10 Messages app than the exquisite artists at Iconfactory? See their blog for more details, including how to get bonus stickers by buying multiple packs.