iPhone 7 news and features: all you need to know about the new iPhone | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... -7-1328149

I'm out of touch, are the other companies claiming such a leap in battery life these days?

Yes. Every single one, every single time. Also about having the best camera they've ever had.

Is any of it actually true? Or is this like buying a cheap laptop and believing the battery life quote?

I mean I'm assuming Apple have actually cracked it since every comedian in the world seems to take the piss... plus how much will bluetooth audio drain the battery? I haven't used it for anything in years...

Put it this way : There is absolutely some metric or statistic by which the camera is the best one they've ever produced. Does that means the average person would notice a qualitative difference between a photo taken with the new one and the last one? Not necessarily no.


I use bluetooth audio quite a lot - both to my car to play music and with headphones. I don't notice a significant difference in battery life. If you're using BT 4.0 - which if you have a vaguely modern phone and bluetooth headphones you almost certainly are - you're using very little power at all.

Two things..

Someone at Apple's PR agency really knows their stuff

Gruber on Apple using the word 'Courage' about dropping the headphone socket.
Obviously there is a line of parody there - they're making a product design decision, not running into a burning building to save someone. There are lots of people who have courage in spades and show it every day, and Apple isn't in that league at all. But I kind of agree with the fundamental point - it does take courage of a sort to make a decision which you know is going to be widely unpopular because you think it's the right thing to do (which doesn't mean it is the right thing to do, but that's a separate argument). It is, essentially, 'having the courage of your convictions', to use a phrase we all understand. So they were probably entitled to use the word, even if they were bigging themselves up a bit in the process.

I've seen it being likened to Apple dropping the DVD/CD-ROM drive. In some ways, I agree it's a pain being tied down by wired earphones at times but they can be cheap and cheerful. All this does is bump up the price of any BT earphones. I've lost a few earphones recently (because of swmbo) but losing one of these would be a ballache.

Whist I agree on everything said above, let's not forget that Apple are including a pair of earbuds that connect via the Lightning port which, as a digital connector rather than analogue, should in theory be better quality than the ones they gave you previously. Not that I know anyone who actually uses the Apple ones, though I'm told they're better than they used to be, mine are still in the box and I've stuck with my old Seinheiser ones.

There's no way I'd pay anything over £50 for a wireless set, which you're bound to lose at some point. Besides, the new ones look daft.

You can get 'cheap and cheerful' no-brand BT headphones from Amazon for 20 quid. You can get some 'not awful' ones for probably 30 quid. Yes, you can pay 150-200 quid for a set of BT headphones if you want, but you can pay that for pair of wired headphones if you want. BT headphones do have a certain minimum cost. as the batteries & bits cost money, so you'll probably not see anybody giving BT headphones away for free for a while. But 'BT headphones = must be expensive' is a bit of an out of date idea, tbh.

Jon

Some new iPhone 7 handsets have reportedly started hissing at their owners | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... rs-1328846

In my head it sounds like







Is the iPhone pining for the 3.5 jack?

Yawn!

Hey, Samsung phones have the decency to try and kill you, they don't just sit there hissing like a hipster's kettle...

You'll never be able to pretend you missed a WhatsApp message again | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... in-1329026
...

Spotify swipes right on Tinder | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/software/ ... er-1328999
...

Vodafone will now block scam calls before they even hit your phone | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/phone-and ... ne-1329035

Lenovo denies accusations of 'locking' Yoga PCs to Windows 10 | TechRadar
http://www.techradar.com/news/mobile-co ... 10-1329166

Replacement Note 7 catches fire on plane

Samsung are pretty much buggered at this point.

The hand-warming feature is innovative and magical!