Netflix already borrowed the concept of short-form video “Stories” from social apps like Snapchat and Instagram for its Previews feature back in 2018. Now, the company is looking to the full-screen vertical video feed, popularized by TikTok, for further inspiration. With its latest experiment, Fast Laughs, Netflix is offering a new feed of short-form comedy clips drawn from its full catalog. The feed includes clips from both originals and licensed programming, Netflix says. It also includes video clips from the existing Netflix social channel, “Netflix Is A Joke,” which today runs clips, longer videos and other social content across YouTube, Twitter, Facebook and Instagram. Fast Laughs resembles TikTok in the sense that it’s swiped through vertically, offers full-screen videos and places its engagement buttons on the right side. But it’s not trying to become a place to waste time while being entertained. Like many of Netflix’s experiments, the goal with the Fast Laughs feed is to help users discover something new to watch. Instead of liking and commenting on videos, as you would in a social video app, the feed is designed to encourage users to add shows to their Netflix watch list for later viewing. In this sense, it’s serving a similar purpose to Netflix’s “Previews” feature, which helps users discover shows by watching clips and trailers from popular and newly released programming. As users scroll through the new Fast Laughs feed, they’ll encounter a wide range of comedy clips — like a clip from a Kevin Hart stand-up special or a funny bit from “The Office,” for example. The clips will also range in length anywhere from 15 to 45 seconds. In addition to adding clips to Netflix’s “My List” feature, users can also react to clips with a laughing emoji button, share the clip with friends across social media, or tap a “More” button to see other titles related to the clip you’re viewing.
The feature was first spotted by social media consultant Matt Navarra, based in the U.K. In his app, Fast Laughs appeared in front of the row of Previews, where it was introduced with text that said “New!” Netflix confirmed to TechCrunch the experiment had been tested with a small number of users earlier this year, but has recently started rolling out to a wider group this month — including users in the U.K., the U.S. and other select markets. It’s currently available to a subset of Netflix users with adult profiles or other profiles without parental controls on iOS devices only. However, users don’t need to be opted in to experiments nor do they need to be on a beta version of the Netflix app to see the feature. It’s more of a standard A/B test, Netflix says. And because it’s a test, users may see slightly different versions of the same feature. The product may also evolve over time, in response to user feedback. Netflix is hardly the first to “borrow” the TikTok format for its own app. Social media platforms, like Instagram and Snapchat, have also launched their own TikTok rivals in recent months. But Netflix isn’t a direct competitor with TikTok — except to the extent that any mobile app competes for users’ time and attention, as there are only so many hours in a day. Instead, the new feed is more of an acknowledgment that the TikTok format of a full-screen vertical video feed with quick engagement buttons on the side is becoming a default style of sorts for presenting entertaining content. “We’re always looking for new ways to improve the Netflix experience,” a Netflix spokesperson said, confirming the experiment. “A lot of our members love comedy so we thought this would be an exciting new way to help them discover new shows and enjoy classic scenes. We experiment with these types of tests in different countries and for different periods of time — and only make them broadly available if people find them useful,” they added. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/12/netflixs-latest-experiment-is-a-tiktok-like-feed-of-funny-videos/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634636677053284352 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com
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In 2009, Udemy co-founder Gagan Biyani tried to convince people to learn online through live classes. But what he discovered instead was that everyone wanted an online repository of content that allowed them to learn at their own pace, whenever and wherever. So, he canned his idea and Udemy created what is now called a massive open online course provider, or MOOC. In the years since, Biyani was let go from Udemy, started a 200-person food company, shut that down, took a sabbatical, and is now returning to the seedling he left behind in 2009: live, online courses. Today, Biyani tells TechCrunch that he is teaming up with Wes Kao, the co-founder of AltMBA, an online cohort-based leadership program, to start an edtech company that combines both of their experiences into one focus: live, cohort-based learning. The duo grew up as friends in the same hometown, but only recently reconnected over education once Biyani returned from sabbatical. Kao’s experience building an online course from scratch, with an over 95% completion rate, was validation that the format worked. And soon enough, they incorporated a company together. The company will focus on cohort-based learning, mixing live and asynchronous components. As it’s still in early stealth, the founders said it doesn’t have a name yet. Instead of a company site, they have a Notion landing page. Update: The company filed paperwork with the SEC indicating that the funding has been raised under an Austin-based corporation named “Didactic.” Despite those missing details, what Biyani did say is that the startup’s main focus is creating a community where anyone can start their own course. Kao says that creating a course requires over a dozen people behind the scenes — teacher assistants, community moderators and the process is essentially “an entire production.” With the startup, she wants to democratize that operation. “I see it as a way to help more traders and experts be able to share their knowledge,” she said. “And take away the question marks on how to build community.” The company from the start will focus on the back-end production of helping teachers, but eventually create a marketplace to allow students to see a directory of classes. “It should be as easy as building a Substack,” Biyani said, referring to the popular newsletter service. Similar to Substack, the company will only make money if the instructor, or creator, does. It takes a chunk of each student’s subscription cost as revenue. The company is entering a crowded space. Yesterday, CampusWire announced that it has pivoted to start offering build-your-own courses to experienced professors. MasterClass allows celebrities to teach classes, Teachable allows anyone to create their own course, and the list continues. But Biyani views their biggest competitor as teachers who have already built courses without a third-party service. The company is planning to bring those creators onto their platform by offering ways to manage their customer base. Ultimately, the market will only be won over by the startup that has the best strategy, product, and teacher pool. Based on their stealthy vision, the duo has raised $4.3 million in a round led by First Round Capital. Other investors include Naval Ravikant, Sahil Lavingia, Li Jin, Arlan Hamilton and co-founders from Lambda School, Outschool, Superhuman, and Udemy. It’s a stacked term-sheet for a company in the early stages, suggesting that that edtech’s boom is still very much upon us. Lavingia says that he committed right away even though he didn’t use the product. “Gagan’s name was enough for me,” he said. “I think I followed him on Twitter a year or two ago and i’d back anything he does just based on what he shares.” Backstage Capital’s Hamilton said that Kao has been within the Backstage mentor network for a while, and added that “there’s a perfect storm for Wes and Gagan to execute within.” from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/12/udemy-and-altmba-co-founders-return-to-edtech-with-a-new-stealthy-business/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634625346453602304 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Mobile storytelling startup Unrd is making its first move into adapting existing intellectual property — specifically “Ghosted: Love Gone Missing,” an MTV reality series about ghosting (the dating practice, not anything supernatural). Until now, Unrd (pronounced “unread”) has created original crime, horror and romance stories that are told through characters’ phones, through content like text messages, video footage and more. Starting next week, on November 16, the app will feature a version of “Ghosted” that — unlike the TV show — is scripted, as users explore characters’ text messages, photos and video calls to discover why they’ve been ghosted. They’ll even get to vote on whether the characters should “ghost” or “make up” before they see the stories’ ending (their votes won’t affect the outcome). MTV Head of Digital Rory Brown told me that this was a “very close collaboration” between MTV and the Unrd team, led by CEO Shib Hussain. “This is the first time they’ve partnered with an already established IP — but that didn’t scare us at all, to be that first media partner that they worked with,” Brown said. “There was a strong point of view on our side of the house how to keep it true to the existed format, while the Unrd team helped us reimagine it, and our collaboration met in the middle of that Venn diagram.” He also argued that while interactivity can be “a bit of a buzzword in the industry,” Unrd isn’t focusing on “interactivity for interactivity’s sake.” Instead, the aim is to create “a more immersive experience for the user.” Unrd will feature three stories tied to “Ghosted,” each of them unfolding over six days. “The key thing that we do different is this notion of real time,” Hussain said. “You can’t just binge it and consume every story in one day. You’ve got to wait with the character for the next message. That’s more immersive, and it also builds that tension and excitement amongst users as well.” Brown noted that these Unrd stories are launching during a break in the second season of “Ghosted.” The hope is that they’ll keep existing fans engaged while creating new fans as well. “At MTV, we’re always going to keep looking at ways to test the elasticity of IP,” he said. “I think Unrd is one way to do that. We’re talking to other partners, but Shib and his team have been fantastic to work with and we’d love to keep the relationship going.” from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/11/mtv-partners-with-unrd-to-create-a-mobile-version-of-ghosted-love-gone-missing/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634512265749610496 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Apple’s upcoming desktop and laptop operating system, macOS Big Sur, will be released on November 12, the company announced today. macOS Big Sur — which stays with the company’s California-themed naming scheme — will arrive with a new and refreshed user interface, new features, and performance improvements. Much of the features in iOS 14 are porting over — including improved Message threading and in-line replies and a redesigned Maps app. The new Apple software also comes with a new Control Center, with quick access to brightness, volume, Wi-Fi, and Bluetooth. Safari also gets a much needed lick of paint. It comes with new privacy and security features, including an in-built intelligence tracking prevention that stops trackers following you across the web, and password monitoring to save you from using previously breached passwords. If you’re wondering what macOS Big Sir is like to work on, TechCrunch’s Brian Heater took the new software for a spin in August. macOS Big Sur will be supported on Macs and MacBooks dating back to 2013. Read more:
from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/10/apple-macos-big-sur-release/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634436776659927040 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com With the second season of “His Dark Materials” premiering on HBO on November 16, the network has partnered with creative studio Framestore to create a new iOS and Apple Watch app called His Dark Materials: My Daemon. The free app gives fans of the show (and the Philip Pullman novels the show is based on) a chance to interact with their very own “daemons” — the magical animal companions that serve as an extension of characters’ souls. “It’s a really great opportunity to give users and fans of the show the opportunity to have a daemon companion that’s personalized to them,” said Christine Cattano, Framestore’s global head of VR. “And what better way to do that than on your phone, which is a constant companion to us all?” Users are assigned a daemon after taking a simple quiz consisting of questions like “day or night?” and “above or below?” They can then interact with the daemon by providing basic updates on their current state (like whether they’re feeling focused or distracted). Based on those updates, the daemon will recommend tasks tied to physical and emotional wellness, like going for a walk or a run, or watching a movie. As users perform more wellness tasks, their daemon becomes happier and healthier. The app also allows users to go on “journeys,” where they perform a series of (again, wellness-focused) tasks that are tied to the activities of characters on the show. His Dark Materials: My Daemon will learn more about your activities by integrating with Apple Health and Spotify. And it incorporates augmented reality by allowing you to watch animations where you daemon interacts with the world around you. You’ll be able to share your companion interactions on social media, as well. HBO’s vice president of program marketing Emily Giannusa noted that the original plan was for “large, real world activations.” After all, Framestore didn’t just work on visual effects for the actual “His Dark Materials” show. It also collaborated with HBO to develop “Beyond the Wall,” a virtual reality experience tied to “Game of Thrones,” as well as Magic Leap GoT experience called “The Dead Must Die,” which were both available via installations in flagship AT&T stores. (AT&T owns HBO’s parent company WarnerMedia.) But given the pandemic and the need for social distancing, HBO and Framestore knew they had to take a different approach, so Giannusa said they came up with something that could “delight [fans] while they’re at home” — and that should reach a much larger audience in the process. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/10/hbo-releases-a-wellness-focused-ar-app-to-promote-his-dark-materials/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634436775307329537 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Following weeks of rumors surrounding a potential sale, Huawei has reportedly struck a deal to divest itself of its Honor brand. A new report out today from Reuters notes that the embattled hardware maker will sell the budget unit to a consortium of buyers that includes the government of the city of Shenzhen and Digital China, a phone distributor. The report, which cites “people familiar with the matter,” puts the price tag for the Honor unit at $15.2 billion. Honor’s new owners will reportedly keep much of the brand’s 7,000 employees (management included) in tact, with plans to take the company public in around three years. The Honor brand has largely focused on low-cost devices, with sales in China, Europe and the U.S. This deal would likely find Huawei focusing more exclusively on high-end products under its own brand. While the deal has been rumored for some time now, its seeming conclusion comes in the wake of Joe Biden’s presidential election win. It seems clear from Huawei’s decision to press on with the all-cash deal that the company doesn’t believe its international fortunes will change immediately under a new U.S. president. The news comes in the wake of ongoing difficulties tied to U.S. sanctions. Huawei’s inability to access technologies from companies like Google have proven to be a major hit for the world’s second largest phone maker. While the company has managed to maintain solid sales in its native China, even those have taken a hit amid its struggles. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/10/huawei-reportedly-set-to-sell-honor-budget-phone-division-for-15b/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634436774436929536 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com We review the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the iPhone 12 mini, Zoom settles with the FTC and Pfizer announces promising results for its COVID-19 vaccine trial. This is your Daily Crunch for November 9, 2020. The big story: Reviewing the biggest and smallest new iPhones TechCrunch Editor in Chief Matthew Panzarino tackled both extremes of the new iPhone 12 lineup today, publishing reviews of the Pro Max and the mini. It sounds like he’s impressed with both of them. The iPhone 12 Pro Max, he writes, has “a really, really great camera” — the question is whether you’re willing to make the ergonomic trade-off, since you’ll probably need to use two hands with the larger phone. At the same time, he suggests that the iPhone 12 mini might be “the most attractive phone in the lineup.” As if that wasn’t enough, Matthew also checked out the MagSafe Duo charger, a dual magnetic charger that he found underwhelming. The tech giants Zoom settles with FTC after making ‘deceptive’ security claims — The FTC previously accused Zoom of engaging in “a series of deceptive and unfair practices,” in part by claiming its encryption was stronger than it actually was. Adobe acquires marketing workflow startup Workfront for $1.5B — This deal gives Adobe more online marketing tooling to fit into its Experience Cloud. Beyond Meat shares rise on news that it collaborated with McDonald’s on the McPlant options — While McDonald’s initial announcement made it sound like the McPlant was developed entirely in-house, the new vegetarian option is actually a collaboration with Beyond Meat. Startups, funding and venture capital Autonomous delivery startup Nuro hits $5 billion valuation on fresh funding of $500 million — Nuro was founded in June 2016 by former Google engineers Dave Ferguson and Jiajun Zhu. MSCHF’s Push Party raises an unconventional seed round at a $200 million valuation — MSCHF is poking a little fun at the venture industry and perhaps publications like TechCrunch, too. Bumble’s new feature prevents bad actors from using ‘unmatch’ to hide from their victims — This will make it harder for harassers to avoid having their conversation reported to Bumble’s safety team. Advice and analysis from Extra Crunch Five UX design research mistakes you can stop making today — Jason Buhle writes that while working with startups and tech companies, he’s seen that even people who understand the importance of user research don’t necessarily know how to conduct it in optimal ways. What happens to high-flying startups if the pandemic trade flips? — An effective vaccine trial is shaking up public companies, unicorns and startups. What we’ve learned about working from home seven months into the pandemic — We interview Karen Mangia, vice president of customer and market insights at Salesforce and author of “Working from Home, Making the New Normal Work for You.” (Reminder: Extra Crunch is our membership program, which aims to democratize information about startups. You can sign up here.) Everything else Pfizer’s COVID-19 vaccine proves 90% effective in first results from Phase 3 clinical trial — This reflects only early results from the trial, rather than the final verified result, but it’s still extremely promising. NASA partners with SpaceX, Rocket Lab, Blue Origin and others for test flights and research — While no money will change hands, NASA will dedicate millions in personnel and other support to these test launches and developing technologies. Original Content podcast: ‘The Queen’s Gambit’ is the historical chess drama we need right now — Somehow, the show makes competitive chess seem thrilling. The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 3pm Pacific, you can subscribe here. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/daily-crunch-reviewing-the-biggest-and-smallest-new-iphones/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634368661593997313 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Reviewing the iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12 Pro Max at the same time has been an exercise in extremes. I noted in my earlier reviews of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro that it was difficult to evaluate the middle of the lineup without having the extreme ends of the scale available to contrast them. Now that I have had a chance to examine those extremes, I have come away incredibly impressed with the job that Apple has done on the whole lineup this year. These phones are extremely well sized, highly crisp from a design perspective and generously appointed with features. Aside from a handful of small items, there are no glaring examples here of artificial cliffs on the feature side or price side that attempt to push people upwards in the lineup. Something that has been the case in some years. The most impressive of all of the iPhones 12 this year should be, by all rights, the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Its big screen and beautiful casing make it very attractive and it has the best camera I’ve ever seen in a phone. But in my opinion, the iPhone 12 mini is the most attractive phone in the lineup. The dark horse that makes a strong case for itself outside of the “I just want a small phone” crowd. The size The iPhone mini is 20% smaller and 18% lighter than the iPhone 12 and about half the size of the iPhone 11. It really hits a nicely sweet note for fit, and the lack of a home button means that the screen can accommodate quite a bit more content on display at once. Though my larger hands do feel a bit more comfortable on the iPhone 12, I am happy to report that the typing experience on the iPhone 12 mini is far superior to the 4.0” first generation SE. It even gets a leg up on the 4.7” iPhone SE introduced earlier this year because the screen is the same width but taller — letting it pull off the TARDIS trick of being smaller with a bigger screen. This allows the emoji keyboard toggle and the voice dictation button to drop out of the bottom row of keys, relaxing spacing on the return, space and number pad buttons. This additional size, especially for the spacebar, improves the typing experience measurably. The key spacing is a bit less generous than the iPhone 12, but this is a workable situation for typing. If you look at this and an iPhone 11, because of the way that the screen is rendered, you’re going to see pretty much the same amount of content. Speaking of rendering, the iPhone 12 mini is scaled, which means that it is displaying at roughly .96 of its “native” screen resolution of 2340×1080. In my testing, this scaling was not apparent in any way. Given that the mini has a resolution of 476ppi in a smaller screen than the iPhone 12, which clocks in at 460ppi, that’s not too surprising — iPhones have been doing integral scaling for years with their magnification features, so Apple has plenty of practice at this. I didn’t notice any artifacting or scrolling, and most apps looked just fine proportionally, though some developers that do not take advantage of Apple’s native frameworks that support various screen sizes may have to do a bit of tweaking here and there. The iPhone mini has a nice lightweight compactness to it. In order to get a read on its vibe I compared it to the iPhone 4S, which felt far denser, the iPhone 5, which felt a bit more airy, and the iPhone 5C, which still feels fun but cheap. It shares pedigree with all of these devices but feels far more assured and integral. The iPhone 12 design language doesn’t feel like multiple materials sandwiched together in the way that these earlier devices do. It feels grown, rather than made. That integral quality does wonders when it’s such a small device because every millimeter counts. Apple didn’t cheap out on the casing or design and gave it an exterior to match its very performant interior. The speaker and microphone grills, I’m sad to say, are asymmetric on the iPhone 12 mini. Ding. And don’t think you miss out on anything performance related when you go to the mini. While it appears that either heat management, scaling or power management in general has made Apple tweak the processor ever so slightly, the benchmarks are close enough to make it a wash. There is zero chance you ever see any real-world difference between the iPhone 12 mini and any other iPhone 12. For what it’s worth, the iPhone 12 mini has 4GB of RAM, same as the iPhone 12. The iPhone Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max have 6GB. The biggest real-world effect of RAM that I have found on iPhone is less dumping of Safari tabs in the background, so if you’re a pro browser take that into account. The iPhone 12 mini is basically identical in the photography department to the iPhone 12. You lose nothing, it’s a great camera. Nothing much to see there, though so I’m not spending any time on it. You will have a world-class phone camera, just no telephoto. If you’re a camera-oriented iPhone user, your usage of the telephoto lens is probably the most crisp deciding factor between the iPhone 12 Pro and the iPhone 12. The lidar benefits are there, and they absolutely make a big difference. But not having a telephoto at all could be an easy make-or-break for some people. Cribbing from my iPhone 12 Pro review here, one easy way to judge is to make a smart album in Photos on a Mac (or sort your photos using another tool that can read metadata) specifying images shot with a telephoto lens. If that’s a sizeable portion of your pics over the last year, then you’ve got a decision to make about whether you’re comfortable losing that option. When I did this, just about 19% of my iPhone 11 Pro shots were taken with the telephoto lens. Around 30% of those were portrait shots. So for me, one in every five images was shot with that tighter framing. It’s just something I find attractive. I like a little bit more precise of a crop and the nice amount of compression (for closer subjects) that comes with the longer focal length. You don’t get 4K/60fps video, but you still can shoot 4K/30fps Dolby Vision video in this super tiny device, which is wild. It’s more than I think any normal iPhone 12 mini user will ever need. Apple says that the iPhone 12 mini’s battery life is better than the 4.7” iPhone SE, and that bore out in my testing. I got through a day easily, with maybe a few percentage points difference between the iPhone 12 mini and the iPhone 12. I didn’t have enough time to run a comparison against the battery king, the iPhone 11, but I doubt it would come anywhere near unseating it just from a physics perspective. This thing is small, so the battery pack is small and the processor is not being majorly throttled in any way. The iPhone 12 mini charges at 12W on a MagSafe charger on a 20W brick, rather than the full 15W because the smaller battery allows it to still hit the same percentage charging speed as the larger iPhones 12 while mitigating heat buildup — always a problem in a smaller chassis. I did have a chance to try the iPhone 12 mini slip case and I thought it was well made and clever, though absolutely positively not for me. I use my iPhone too much to be sliding it into a sleeve and back out again; it would be an exercise in futility. But if you are in the market for this kind of case, I hold that the Apple version shows off the company’s earned expertise in leather. It’s well trimmed, it has nice edge finishing and a clever clasp. It integrates Apple’s MagSafe magnet array to display a live clock on the OLED screen with a space for the ambient light sensor. The clock display is pretty clever. It has a lightly colored background that matches the leather color of the case using the same NFC trick as the silicon cases that display a color-matched ring when you put them on. The clock fades in two stages over a few seconds but will turn on when the ambient light sensor knows it’s not in your pocket and the motion coprocessor in the A14 senses movement. So a quick lift will flip the time on and let you check it. It also still allows tap-to-wake in the clock window, showing you the color-matched time. There’s also a hidden card slot for maybe one credit card or ID card inside the mouth of the case. Like I said, it’s not for me, but I can appreciate that a lot more is going on in this little case than meets the eye, and it shows off some of the sophistication that could be coming to other MagSafe accessories in the future. The conclusion In my iPhone 12/12 Pro review I noted my rubric for selecting a personal device:
And this is the conclusion I came to at the time: The iPhone 12 Pro is bested (theoretically) in the camera department by the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which has the biggest and best sensor Apple has yet created. (But its dimensions are similarly biggest.) The iPhone 12 has been precisely cloned in a smaller version with the iPhone 12 mini. By my simple decision-making matrix, either one of those are a better choice for me than either of the models I’ve tested. If the object becomes to find the best compromise between the two, the iPhone 12 Pro is the pick. Now that I have had both of those devices in my hand, I can say that my opinion hasn’t changed, but my definitions of the lineup have a bit. Because the iPhone 12 mini has no appreciable compromises in feature set from the iPhone 12, I consider these one device with two screen sizes. Yes, this may feel like a “duh” moment, but I didn’t want to jump to this place without actually using the mini for an extended period. Most critically, I needed to get a feel for that typing experience. The iPhone mini is by far the best value per dollar in Apple’s 2020 lineup. With this you get all of the power and advances of the iPhone 12, everything but the telephoto camera (and 60fps/4K video) of the iPhone 12 Pro and everything but the new sensor in the iPhone 12 Pro Max. Those additions will cost you anywhere from $300-$400 more over the life of your device if you choose to step up. I’ve been thinking hard about what a clear break point would be between deciding on the iPhone 12 and the iPhone 12 mini. If you are someone who really likes or ergonomically needs a smaller screen, you’re being treated to a device with no compromises in core functionality. But if you’re not a “small boi” fan, then what is the deciding factor? For me, it comes to this decision flow:
Here, I even made you a handy flowchart if that kind of thing is your bag: This is one of the best years ever for the iPhone lineup. The choices presented allow for a really comfortable picking routine based on camera and screen size with no majorly painful compromises in raw power or capability. These are full-featured devices that are really well made from end to end. I hope that this template in sizing sticks around for a while as the powerful camera tech creeps its way down the lineup over time, invalidating at least the photography side of my flowchart above. Until then, this is still one of the better “small” iPhones Apple has ever produced, and certainly one with the least overall compromise. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/iphone-12-mini-review-tiny-package-big-bang/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634368661170323456 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com The iPhone 12 Pro Max is probably the easiest of all of the new iPhone 12 models to review. It’s huge and it has a really, really great camera. Probably one of the best cameras ever in a smartphone, if not the best. For those of you coming from an iPhone “Max” or “Plus” model already, it’s a no-brainer. Get it, it’s fantastic. It’s got everything Apple has to offer this year and it’s even a bit thinner than the iPhone 11 Pro Max. For everyone else — the potential upsizers — this review has only a single question to answer: Do the improvements in camera and screen size and potentially battery life make it worth dealing with the hit in handling ergonomics from its slim but thicc build? The answer? Yes, but only in certain conditions. Let’s get into it. Build I’m not going to spend a ton of time on performance or go through a feature-by-feature breakdown of the iPhone 12 Pro Max. I’ve published a review of the iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro here and just today published a review of the iPhone 12 mini. You can check those out for baseline chat about the whole lineup. Instead, I’m going to focus specifically on the differences between the iPhone 12 Pro Max and the rest of the lineup. This makes sense because Apple has returned us to a place that we haven’t been since the iPhone 8. Though the rest of the lineup provides a pretty smooth arc of choices, the iPhone 12 Pro Max introduces a pretty solid cliff of unique features that could pull some people up from the iPhone 12 Pro. The larger size sets off all of the work Apple did to make the iPhone 12 Pro look like a jewel. Gold-coated steel edges and the laminated clear and frosty back with gold accent rings around the cameras and glossy logo. All of it screams posh. Some of you may recall that there was a period of time when there existed a market for ultra-luxury phone makers like Vertu to use fine materials to “elevate” what were usually pretty poorly implemented Symbian or Android phones at heart. Leather, gold, crystal and even diamond were used to craft Veblen goods for the über rich just so they could stay “above” the proles. Now, Apple’s materials science experimentation and execution level is so high that you really can’t get anything on the level of this kind of pure luxe manifestation in a piece of consumer electronics from anyone else, even a “hand maker.” To be fair, Vertu and other makers didn’t die because Apple got good at gold, they died because good software is needed to invest life into these bejeweled golems. But Apple got better at what they did faster than they could ever get good at what Apple does. This is a great piece of kit and as mentioned is even thinner than previous Max models with the same size screen, but it’s about the same width (.3mm wider). And in my opinion, the squared-off edges of this year’s aesthetic make this phone harder to hold, not easier at this size. This is essentially the opposite effect from the smaller models. For a phone this size I’d imagine everyone is going to use a case anyway, so that’s probably moot, but it’s worth noting. My feelings on the larger iPhones, which I haven’t used as a daily driver since the iPhone 8, remain unchanged: these are two-handed devices best used as tablet or even laptop replacements. If you run your life from these phones then it makes sense that you’d want a huge screen with plenty of real estate for a browser and a pip video chat and a generous keyboard all at once. The differences When we’re talking about whether or not to move up to this beast I think it’s helpful to have a list of everything here that is different, or you think might be but isn’t, from the iPhone 12 Pro. Screen. The 6.7” iPhone 12 Pro Max screen has a resolution of 2778×1284 at 458 ppi. That’s nearly identical but slightly less than the iPhone 12 Pro’s 460ppi. So though this is a difference, I’d count it as a wash. The screen’s size, of course, and the software support that some Apple and third-party apps to take advantage of the increased real estate are still a factor. Performance. The iPhone 12 Pro Max performs exactly as you’d expect it to in the CPU and GPU department, which is to say exactly the same as the iPhone 12 Pro. It also has the same 6GB of RAM on board. Battery performance was comparable to my iPhone 11 Pro Max testing, which is to say it outlasted a typical waking day, though I could probably nail it in a long travel day. Ultra-wide-angle camera. Exactly the same. Improved over the iPhone 11 Pro massively due to software correction and the addition of Night Mode, but the same across the iPhone 12 Pro lineup. Telephoto camera. This is a tricky one because it uses the same sensor as the iPhone 12 Pro, but features a new lens assembly that results in a 2.5x (65mm equivalent) zoom factor. This means that though the capture quality is the same, you can achieve tighter framing at the same distance away from your subject. As a heavy telephoto user (I shot around 30% of my pictures over the last year in the iPhone 11 Pro’s telephoto) I love this additional control and the slightly higher optical compression that comes with it. The framing control is especially nice with portraits. Though it comes in handy with distant subjects as well. There is also one relatively stealthy (I cannot find this on the website but I verified that it is true) update to the telephoto. It is the only lens other than the wide-angle across all of the iPhone 12 lineup to also get the new optical stabilization upgrades that allow it to make 5,000 micro-adjustments per second to stabilize an image in low light or shade. It still uses the standard lens-style stabilization, not the new sensor-shift OIS used in the wide-angle lens, but it goes up 5x in the amount of adjustments it can make from the iPhone 11 Pro or even the iPhone 12 Pro. The results of this can be seen in this shot, a handheld indoor snap. Aside from the tighter lens crop, the additional stabilization adjustments result in a crisper shot with finer detail even though the base sensor is identical. It’s a relatively small improvement in comparison to the wide-angle, but it’s worth mentioning and worth loving if you’re a heavy telephoto user. Wide-angle camera. The bulk of the iPhone 12 Pro Max difference is right here. This is a completely new camera that pushes the boundaries of what the iPhone has been capable of shooting to this point. It’s actually made up of three big changes:
Sensor-shift OIS systems are not new, they were actually piloted in the Minolta DiMAGE A1 back in 2003. But most phone cameras have used lens-shift technology because it is very common, vastly cheaper and easier to implement. All three things work together to deliver pretty stellar imaging results. It also makes the camera bump on the iPhone 12 Pro Max a bit taller. Tall enough that there is actually an additional lip on the case meant for it made by Apple to cover it. I’d guess that this additional thickness stems directly from the wide-angle lens assembly needing to be larger to accommodate the sensor and new OIS mechanism and then Apple being unwilling to let one camera stick out farther than any other. The iPhone 12 Pro Max has a massive ISO range, enabled by the wide angle. It can pick anywhere from 34-7,616 ISO, which allows it to snap candid shots at wide apertures and faster shutter speeds with much more surety than the iPhone 12 Pro. This isn’t a huge deal for some people, and some of the gain can be washed away depending on what you’re shooting. But for people with kids and who shoot moving subjects in less than ideal conditions, it’s big. It can be the difference between a tack-sharp shareable and a throwaway in the right situation. These are Night Mode samples, but even there you can see the improvements in brightness and sharpness. Apple claims 87% more light-gathering ability with this lens, and in the right conditions it’s absolutely evident. Though you won’t be shooting SLR-like images in near darkness (Night Mode has its limits and tends to get pretty impressionistic when it gets very dim) you can absolutely see the pathway that Apple has to get there if it keeps making these kinds of improvements. Wide-angle shots from the iPhone 12 Pro Max display slightly better sharpness, lower noise and better color rendition than the iPhone 12 Pro, and much more improvement from the iPhone 11 Pro. In bright conditions you will be hard pressed to tell the difference between the two iPhone 12 models, but if you’re on the lookout the signs are there. Better stabilization when handheld in open shade, better noise levels in dimmer areas and slightly improved detail sharpness. The iPhone 12 Pro already delivers impressive results year on year, but the iPhone 12 Pro Max leapfrogs it within the same generation. It’s the most impressive gain Apple’s ever had in a model year, image wise. The iPhone 7 Plus and the introduction of Apple’s vision of a blended camera array was forward looking, but even then image quality was pretty much parity with the smaller models that year. A very significant jump this year. Can’t wait for this camera to trickle down the lineup. Lidar. I haven’t really mentioned lidar benefits yet, but I went over them extensively in my iPhone 12 Pro review, so I’ll cite them here. Lidar is an iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 Pro Max-only feature. It enables faster auto-focus lock-in in low-light scenarios as well as making Portrait Mode possible on the Wide lens in Night Mode shots. First, the auto-focus is insanely fast in low light. The image above is what is happening, invisibly, to enable that. The lidar array constantly scans the scene with an active grid of infrared light, producing depth and scene information that the camera can use to focus. In practice, what you’ll see is that the camera snaps to focus quickly in dark situations where you would normally find it very difficult to get a lock at all. The lidar-assisted low-light Portrait Mode is very impressive, but it only works with the Wide lens. This means that if you are trying to capture a portrait and it’s too dark, you’ll get an on-screen prompt that asks you to zoom out. These Night Mode portraits are demonstrably better looking than the standard portrait mode of the iPhone 11 because those have to be shot with the telephoto, meaning a smaller, darker aperture. They also do not have the benefit of the brighter sensor or lidar helping to separate the subject from the background — something that gets insanely tough to do in low light with just RGB sensors. As a note, the lidar features will work great in situations less than five meters along with Apple’s Neural Engine, to produce these low-light portraits. Out beyond that it’s not much use because of light falloff. Well-lit Portrait Mode shots on the iPhone 12 Pro Max will still rely primarily on the information coming in through the lenses optically, rather than lidar. It’s simply not needed for the most part if there’s enough light. The should I buy it workflow I’m straight up copying a couple of sections for you now from my iPhone 12 Pro and iPhone 12 mini reviews because the advice applies across all of these devices. Fair warning. In my iPhone 12/12 Pro review I noted my rubric for selecting a personal device:
And this is the conclusion I came to at the time: The iPhone 12 Pro is bested in the camera department by the iPhone 12 Pro Max, which has the biggest and best sensor Apple has yet created. (But its dimensions are similarly biggest.) The iPhone 12 has been precisely cloned in a smaller version with the iPhone 12 mini. By my simple decision-making matrix, either one of those are a better choice for me than either of the models I’ve tested. If the object becomes to find the best compromise between the two, the iPhone 12 Pro is the pick. But now that I’ve had time with the Pro Max and the mini, I’ve been able to work up a little decision flow for you: If you haven’t gathered it by now, I recommend the iPhone 12 Pro Max to two kinds of people: the ones who want the absolute best camera quality on a smartphone period and those who do the bulk of their work on a phone rather than on another kind of device. There is a distinct “fee” that you pay in ergonomics to move to a Max iPhone. Two hands are just plain needed for some operations and single-handed moves are precarious at best. Of course, if you’re already self-selected into the cult of Max then you’re probably just wondering if this new one is worth a jump from the iPhone 11 Pro Max. Shortly: maybe not. It’s great, but it’s not light years better unless you’re doing photography on it. Anything older though and you’re in for a treat. It’s well made, well equipped and well priced. The storage upgrades are less expensive than ever and it’s really beautiful. Plus, the addition of the new wide angle to the iPhone 12 Pro Max makes this the best camera system Apple has ever made and quite possibly the best sub compact camera ever produced. I know, I know, that’s a strong statement, but I think it’s supportable because the iPhone is best in class when it comes to smartphones, and no camera company on the planet is doing the kind of blending and computer vision Apple is doing. Though larger sensor compact cameras still obliterate the iPhone’s ability to shoot in low-light situations, the progress over time of Apple’s ML-driven blended system. A worthy upgrade, if you can pay the handling costs. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/review-the-iphone-12-pro-max-is-worth-its-handling-fee/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634368660627193856 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Hello and welcome back to Equity, TechCrunch’s venture capital-focused podcast where we unpack the numbers behind the headlines. This is Equity Monday, our weekly kickoff that tracks the latest big news, chats about the coming week, digs into some recent funding rounds and mulls over a larger theme or narrative from the private markets. You can follow the show on Twitter here and myself here — and don’t forget to check out last Friday’s episode that we wound up titling “Fortnite is actually a SaaS company.” It makes sense in context, I promise. Anyway, here’s what’s on today’s show:
This has been a wild to start the week, but with good news. I suppose a vaccine was always going to eventually make it to this step, but, that said, the United States is seeing record COVID-19 cases today. So mask up and let’s get as many of us across the line as we can. Equity drops every Monday at 7:00 a.m. PDT and Thursday afternoon as fast as we can get it out, so subscribe to us on Apple Podcasts, Overcast, Spotify and all the casts. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2020/11/09/equity-monday-vaccine-news-scrambles-the-stock-market-shakes-up-startups/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com https://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/634330971459764224 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com |
AuthorMy name is Alan and I love to read ebooks. Archives
November 2020
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