Fstoppers does a nice quick video tutorial on how to get professional looking photos from the already amazing shooter in the iPhone 6s. The only tools they used can be picked up at Amazon for a few bucks:

1. Black foam core ($11)
2. White foam core ($9+$6 shipping)
3. LED flashlight ($10)
4. LED panel ($30)

Five years ago I filmed the iPhone Fashion Shoot, a 10-minute video in which I take professional looking images with the iPhone 3GS. That video was supposed to inspire photographers who assumed that their work was suffering because their gear wasn’t ultra expensive. The video became extremely popular and became very polarizing. The majority of people thought my images looked good because I used fancy lights.

For the last five years people have been asking me when I was going to revisit the iPhone Fashion Shoot. I had already proven that you can take a great picture with any camera, but when was I going to prove that expensive lights and modifiers aren’t what make images look good? At first I said I never wanted to do another professional photoshoot with my phone because I didn’t want to become “that iPhone photographer” but as time went on I thought, ahhh who cares. When I heard the iPhone 6s was coming out on September 25, I decided now was the best time to create a new video to prove once and for all that quality photography can be taken with any budget.

Also helps if your neighbor looks good in a bikini.

Filed under:
How-To, Tips and Tricks Tagged: Autofocus, howto, iPhone, professional

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How-To continue reading at 9to5Mac.

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Citing ‘overwhelming demand’, Apple has expanded the number of Apple TV Developer Kits available for registered developers who applied for a chance to receive the pre-release hardware last month. A number of developers (but not all) who previously missed out on the initial wave of test units have been notified by Apple Developer Relations that more dev kits have been made available for $1 and will be available for ordering through next Friday at 5 pm local on October 9th.

Apple TV 4 launches “toward the end” of this month as Tim Cook mentioned earlier this week and will include deep Siri integration and App Store for the first time. Apple first began notifying developers entering the dev kit lottery of their status in mid-September. With third-party apps and games being a major new feature of the new Apple TV experience, Apple clearly wants to give more developers the chance to create software for the new hardware before its release in a few weeks.

9to5Mac’s Dom Esp0sito recently got the opportunity to share the Apple TV 4 unboxing experience, sharing the first in-depth look at the new software experience using the new set-top box and Siri Remote.

With Apple and Google both upping their focus on the living room with updated Apple TVs and Chromecasts, we saw Amazon this week announce that it will soon stop selling both devices over the lack of the Amazon Prime Video service which is offers on its Fire TV hardware.

The new Apple TV ships in two configurations: 32GB for $149 and 64GB for $199. The current Apple TV 3 will remain available minus the new tvOS platform for $69.

Developers who previously entered the lottery to receive the $1 Apple TV Developer Kit chosen during the expanded wave of units will receive the email below for the chance to purchase a pre-release unit ahead of launch:

Filed under: Apple TV, Developers Tagged: Apple TV, developers, tvOS

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Macphun, maker of elegantly powerful photo editing tools including Tonality, Noiseless, and FX Photo Studio, has announced the impending release of Creative Kit 2016 — a bundle of 6 of the company’s Pro apps with 4 bonus items, collectively available at a pre-order price of $89.99. Creative Kit 2016 includes:

Noiseless CK (reviewed here) and Tonality CK (reviewed here), separately capable of eliminating various types of noise from images, and converting color images into beautiful black and white versions — both highly impressive, as our reviews discuss;

FX Photo Studio CK, a filter, frame, and brush-based photo editing tool that lets you convert simple photos into pieces of art; and

Snapheal CK, Focus CK, and Intensify CK, apps to erase unwanted items from photos, add lens effects such as blurs, or enhance subtle details in your images, respectively…

All of the CK versions are renamed from Macphun’s earlier “Pro” versions, and include features above and beyond their predecessors. For instance, batch processing is now available in Noiseless, Tonality, Intensify, and FX Photo Studio, along with seamless sharing of edited images across all six apps, and a unified installer. The apps can be used as plug-ins for OS X Photos, Aperture, Adobe Photoshop, or Adobe Lightroom, as well as in standalone form.

The Creative Kit 2016 pre-order bundle includes a duplicate photo-finding app called Snapselect, two eBooks, a photography training video, and additional textures for three of the apps. A demonstration of the tools can be seen here ahead of the bundle’s October 15th release.

Filed under: Apps Tagged: Creative Kit, Creative Kit 2016, editing, Macphun, photo, photography, Photos for mac, Plug-ins

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In an effort to strengthen Siri’s natural language conversation abilities, Apple has acquired a UK-based firm called VocalIQ. Business Weekly was first to report the acquisition today and Apple confirmed the purchase to The Financial Times with the usual boilerplate statement: “Apple buys smaller technology companies from time to time, and we generally do not discuss our purpose or plans.”

Apple’s purchase of VocalIQ is especially interesting for a couple reasons as noted by the report. First, the team behind VocalIQ believes their voice assistant is superior to Apple’s, writing in a blog post that Siri launched to much hype then settled into being used only as a toy.

VocalIQ also has experience in using machine learning to create conversational virtual assistants … for use in cars. Apple of course has its own iPhone-connected CarPlay feature, which makes using iPhone-based services like Messages and Maps safer using voice and on-screen controls, and CarPlay could greatly improve with some newly learned skills for Siri.

But the worst kept secret out of Cupertino this year is Apple’s ambitions to ship an electric car as soon as four years from now. 9to5Mac has reported on a number of the hires Apple has working on the team. Dubbed Project Titan, Apple’s car plans could greatly benefit from a souped up, more conversational Siri that makes CarPlay look like a trial run.

FT notes that VocalIQ has previous experience with in-car applications of its virtual assistant, even partnering with General Motors in the past. Now Apple can integrate that team into Siri and any future endeavors. Note, too, that Siri itself was an acquisition before launching with the iPhone 4s in 2011.

Filed under: AAPL Company Tagged: Apple, Apple Car, CarPlay, Project Titan, Siri, VocalIQ

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AT&T has called out two of its competitors, Sprint and T-Mobile, over their decision to offer Wi-Fi calling support on smartphones without first getting proper authorization from the Federal Communications Commission in a letter to that organization’s chairman.

According to AT&T, the FCC has been too slow in issuing a waiver that would allow the company to bypass certain requirements for hard-of-hearing users—a move that’s necessary for Wi-Fi calling to work.

Namely, AT&T is looking to offer Wi-Fi calling without support for teletypewriter, or TTY, devices, which “do not operate reliably on…Wi-Fi networks.” Because support for these types of devices is required by the FCC on all voice calling networks, AT&T can’t roll out Wi-Fi calling until they get a waiver releasing them from the requirement.

AT&T planned to roll out its Wi-Fi calling feature with the launch of iOS 9, and indeed still works for some users who were able to activate it in their area during the beta, but the service remains limited to only a handful of testers right now until the carrier can secure the proper paperwork.

T-Mobile and Sprint have both offered Wi-Fi calling without getting the needed authorization from the FCC, essentially putting AT&T at a disadvantage for playing by the rules.

AT&T isn’t trying to lock out deaf users on Wi-Fi calling, however. Instead, the carrier has plans to implement a newer system called RTT (real-time text) in early 2016. Along with the waiver, the carrier is seeking a change to FCC rules that would allow this new standard to be added as an acceptable alternative to the TTY requirement industry-wide.

The new RTT standard has the backing of employees within the FCC as well as advocacy groups for the disabled. There was also no public opposition to the request after a 45-day comment period opened by the FCC in July, three weeks after both proposals were first submitted.

Update: In a statement to 9to5Mac, Jim Cicconi, AT&T’s SVP of External and Legislative Affairs, took on T-Mobile’s firebrand CEO John Legere directly:

T-Mobile’s CEO is dodging the question posed in our letter to the FCC. The fact is that he “unleashed” his Wi-Fi calling while completely ignoring FCC rules. The rest of us aren’t in the habit of operating that way, especially in an area that impacts the disability community. But apparently T-Mobile feels it’s immune to the rules that apply to everyone else. It’s time the FCC proved them wrong. It’s also time the FCC granted our waiver so we can offer our customers a legal Wi-Fi calling option.

Filed under: iOS, Tech Industry Tagged: AT&T, iOS 9, wifi calling

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Whenever someone asks how I like my Apple Watch, I explain that I like but don’t love it, and wouldn’t recommend it to everyone… yet. “In two or three years,” I say, “they’re going to be common, but right now, they don’t feel necessary.” Nice, yes. Necessary, no.

Last week, my life changed. Shortly after our kids went to school, my wife stopped breathing in our home. I was able to get her breathing again, and thanks to 911 and outstanding EMTs, she survived to be diagnosed with Brugada Syndrome, a rare heart condition that typically goes undetected before a massive, fatal attack. Once Brugada was suspected, doctors looked for records of her heartbeat, but couldn’t find much on file. Between ER and ICU visits, I remembered that her iPhone’s Health app contained three months of heart rate data, because her Apple Watch had been passively recording it.

A report earlier this year said Apple has wavered on adding irregular heart rate reporting and other health functionality to the Apple Watch, fearing additional governmental regulation and/or liability for potentially inaccurate results. Given what my wife just went through, I have a newfound appreciation for the Apple Watch’s existing heart rate sensor, and a strong request for Apple: be bold on expanding Apple Watch’s health features, as well as its ability to be continuously worn. It’s nice for a watch to estimate calories burned after a workout, but merely having advance notice of her irregular heart rate could have prevented my wife’s near-death experience, and who knows how many other lives better sensors could save…

Currently, the Apple Watch measures a wearer’s heart rate at least every 10 minutes, attempting to record a simple piece of data: number of beats per minute. While the Watch’s heart rate sensor isn’t perfect, it’s pretty close. It’s better than what most people have access to in their homes (nothing), plus it’s constantly being worn, and thus taking tons of readings that can be compared over time. I’ve personally used my Watch’s heart rate Glance more than I’d ever anticipated, looking at it when I’m under stress to see how my heart’s holding up. If I’m at my desk and start getting into the 130s or 140s, I know I need to do something to calm down.

According to the EMTs, my wife’s heart rate went into the 240s when she was in their ambulance last week, requiring two defibrillating shocks to “reset” her heart. She notably wasn’t wearing an Apple Watch at the time. Why? After three months, she wasn’t getting any obvious value out of using it, and just left it on its charger all day, so we sold it. It was great that her Health app contained some heart rate data, but since she always took the Watch off when she showered — the time when she typically began to experience symptoms doctors later associated with her heart condition — it was missing a key piece of the puzzle.

Understanding why people stop wearing Apple Watches should be critical for Apple. I can say that several things interrupted the bond that was developing between me and my Watch: a lack of Sport Band comfort (remedied by replacing it with a Milanese Loop), buggy/laggy watchOS software, and too few things to actually do with the Watch. Although those were all contributors, daily recharges and a lack of guaranteed waterproofing have been bigger issues for me. I would like to wear the Watch when I shower and sleep, but as it is, I don’t feel comfortable doing either of those things. My wife tells me that she found her Watch too redundant with her iPhone, and not feminine enough, which combined to make her stop wearing it. Adding gold and rose gold aluminum Sport models may help somewhat, but addressing the functional issues would certainly bring more Watch customers to the table.

Improving the Apple Watch’s health sensors would ultimately be the product’s killer — perhaps better put, “death-defying” — feature. Having a fashionable, versatile watch with the ability to passively look out for heartbeat irregularities would be huge for a large group of people, so long as it wouldn’t need to be removed from the wrist as often as the current model. Obviously, the Apple Watch couldn’t take the place of a pacemaker or defibrillator, bringing the heart back to normal, but it could provide advance warning that such a device, similar medication, and/or lifestyle changes were necessary.

As of right now, the first-generation Apple Watch still needs help on both the hardware and software sides. But even if few of the Watch’s features have been executed with the depth they really need, I’m increasingly comfortable with the focus Apple chose for the device. With a handful of improvements, I’m certain that Apple will win some additional purchases from my household, as well as many others. And it will probably go from assisting with exercise to quantifiably saving some lives along the way.

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: Apple watch, Health

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Keep up with the best gear and deals on the web by signing up for the 9to5Toys Newsletter. Also, be sure to check us out on: Twitter, RSS Feed, Facebook, Google+ and Safari push notifications.

Today’s can’t miss deals:

Jawbone BIG JAMBOX Wireless Bluetooth Speaker (dented box) $120 shipped (Reg. $180)

UE ROLL 360 Bluetooth Speaker (all colors): $90 shipped (Reg. $100)

Inateck MercuryBox Aluminum Bluetooth 4.0 Ultra-Portable Speaker: $37 shipped (Reg. $46)

Omaker M4 Splashproof Bluetooth Speaker: $19 Prime shipped (Reg. $35)

Cambridge SoundWorks OontZ Angle 2 Bluetooth Speaker $27 Prime shipped (Reg. $35) wp.me/p1xTlR-I2z http://t.co/RUOjUYqXcH

—
9to5Toys (@9to5toys) October 02, 2015

Staples $100 Gift Card w/ email delivery for $85 from PayPal (15% off): save on Apple gear, Beats, office supplies, more

The best-selling Klipsch SB 120 Bluetooth TV Sound System is on sale for $159 shipped (Reg. $260+)

App Store Gorgeous Games for $1 Sale: Tengami, Superbrothers, KAMI, Icebreaker, Out There, many more

Games/Apps: True Skate for iOS goes free (Reg. $2), WWE 2K15 $20, Notes Plus 50% off, more

App Store Free App of the Week: Combo Quest RPG goes free for the first time ($1 value)

EA’s new free-to-play Need for Speed No Limits is now available on iOS and Android

Apple iPad Air 2 Wi-Fi: 16GB $380 shipped (Reg. $499), 64GB $490 shipped (Reg. $599)

More new gear from today:

Daily Deals: LG WXGA LED Minibeam Projector $300, Westinghouse 24-inch LED 1080p HDTV $100, more

More deals still alive:

Lenmar MAVEN iPhone 6 MFi Apple-Certified 3,000mAh Battery Case $29 shipped (Orig. $100), more

Get a no-contract iPhone 6s from Boost Mobile for just $450 shipped (Orig. $649)

• Samsung 55-inch 1080p 120Hz Smart LED HDTV: $600 shipped (Reg. $800)
• LG 34-inch 21:9 UltraWide LED IPS Monitor: $620 shipped (Reg. $780+)
• WD My Cloud 4TB Personal Cloud Storage NAS $160 shipped (Orig. $220)
• Anker 14W Dual-USB Port Solar Charger: $40 shipped (Reg. $50+)
• GoPro HERO3+ Silver Edition Camera (Refurb): $169 shipped (Orig. $240)
• Kindle First Books for Oct: Infinity Lost, The Mentor, The Concealed, This Is the Night, more
• Freebies: Alice in Wonderland animated book iPad app + San Diego Zoo admission + More!
• D-Link DOCSIS 3.0 Cable Modem: $59 shipped (Reg. $73)
• Klipsch STATUS Over-Ear Headphones $100 shipped (Orig. $150), more
• Samsung 850 EVO 2.5-inch Internal SSDs: 500GB $150 (Reg. $175+), 250GB $80 (Reg. $90)
• USB Power: Anker 15,600mAh Battery Pack $24 (Reg. $30), more
• Toshiba Canvio Basics 2TB Portable USB 3.0 Hard Drive: $70 shipped (Reg. $85+)
• SanDisk Connect Wi-Fi Flash Drive for iOS: 64GB $50 (Reg. $60), 32GB $30 (Reg. $40)
• Canary All-in-One Internet-Connected Home Security Device: $199 shipped (Reg. $250)
• Buy 2 Board Games, Get 1 Free: Star Wars Pictopia $25, Jenga $9, Monopoly $20, more
• Belkin QODE Ultimate Keyboard Case for iPad Air 2 in White/Gold: $49 shipped (Reg. $100)
• Free Xbox Live Gold Games for October: Valiant Hearts, The Walking Dead, more
• Free PS Plus Games for October: Super Meat Boy, Broken Age, Kickbeat, more
• Download Cole Swindell’s debut album for free ($10 value)
• Learn to hack a Raspberry Pi: $115 (Orig. $804, CA Tax Only)
• First Generation Lytro 16GB Digital Camera $80 (Orig. $199)
• Skybell Wi-Fi Doorbell livestreams video of anyone who calls: $169 Shipped (Orig. $199)
• Loot Crate: 3-Month Subscription: $49 Shipped (Orig. $58, CA Tax Only)
• SKEYE Pico Drone fits inside its own controller, packs gyro-stabilization: $35 Shipped (Orig. $49)
• Typinator Family Pack (5 licenses) for $21.99 (48% off)

New products & more:

These Bluetooth earbuds use your iPhone’s Lightning port to charge

BRO Ball combines Bluetooth audio and pigskin for the ultimate tailgate companion

• TiVo makes the DVR sexy with 4K content, AirPlay and one-click commercial skipping
• Bose’s latest connected speaker lowers the entry price into the SoundTouch family
• Keurig’s new KOLD brewer lets you make Coca-Cola at home but it’s going to cost you
• Amazon snags exclusive streaming rights for Back to The Future trilogy
• Amazon’s Prime Music adds new artists to its streaming service
• GoPro introduces a new cost-effective action camera with Wi-Fi capabilities
• Exploride combines the best iPhone features into one safe head-up display unit for your car
• Microsoft is announcing a new Xbox One bundle every day this week
• Review: JBL’s new Xtreme Bluetooth speaker goes big on sound and design

Filed under: Tips and Tricks Tagged: 9to5Toys, Amazon Gold Box, Amazon Prime, apple deals, Best Buy, Big Jambox, Bluetooth Speaker, coupon codes, Daily Deals, eBay Daily Deals, free apps, free shipping, Freebies, Games, iOS apps, iPhone 6s, itunes deals, Jawbone, New Toy of the Day, Portable Bluetooth Speaker, Staples gift card

Check out 9to5Mac for more breaking coverage of Tips and Tricks, 9to5Toys, and Daily Deals.

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Behind this still photo shot on iPhone 6s Plus is both motion and audio that further capture the moment

Live Photos aren’t perfect. The video shot in a Live Photo is a mediocre 12 frames per second compared to the 30fps iPhones generally capture. Low-light photos are noticeably less vibrant when Live Photos are enabled. Shoot a Live Photo in the wrong orientation then rotate it, and you revert back to a standard photo. Sharing Live Photos is fairly fragmented by Apple standards, even on Macs running the latest versions of OS X El Capitan. And it’s not easy to frame the perfect Live Photo; great Live Photos tend to happen by chance, not technique.

But with all of the opportunities Apple has to improve the new Live Photo experience, I’m honestly quite surprised at just how much I appreciate the new feature on the iPhone 6s. Using my iPhone 6s Plus for a full week now, my take on Live Photos has shifted and evolved from curious but confused to “I get it but when should I use it?” to wishing I had Live Photos years ago. Read on for how I believe Apple can improve the Live Photos experience and how the new iPhone 6s feature has changed my approach to shooting photos and videos.

Okay, so what is a Live Photo exactly? Apple describes a Live Photo as a full-resolution still image that captures movement and sound just before and after the photo was taken. That means 1.5 seconds of video and audio is captured both before and after you tap the shutter button and snap the pic, but note that Apple won’t call a Live Photo a video. iPhone 6s and 6s Plus let you watch Live Photos by 3D Touching (deep pressing) the still photo. Older iPhones can play shared Live Photos by long pressing the still images. Apple marks a Live Photo with a special icon in the image’s corner.

The video captured during a Live Photo is a low 12fps so the footage plays back with a murky but somewhat dreamy look to it. I’m sure it’s noticeable on the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s, it’s definitely noticeable on the 5.5-inch iPhone 6s Plus, and it’s just not pretty to see on even larger displays like iPads and Macs. The 12MP still photo dramatically contrasts with the dated-looking video footage behind it. It’s like pairing an iPhone 6s shot photo with an iPhone 3GS shot video. I would love to see the 12fps number increase or at least provide an option if storage is the issue.

Live Photos can be used as lock screen wallpapers on the new iPhones, but the motion is such subpar quality that it isn’t as compelling as I’d hoped after Apple’s presentation. You also need to deep press the lock screen for it to animate, likely to keep battery life in control, but would anyone regularly do that? For now I’m using a Live Photo as my wallpaper, but only because I like the way the still photo looks.

Once you grasp what a Live Photo is for yourself, the first time you share one with someone else necessarily requires teaching them how to engage it. My experience with both power-user friends and less-savvy family members when sharing a Live Photo to other iPhone users is this: 1) send Live Photo 2) include instructions to open image full-screen, press and hold 3) just hope that makes sense. And that’s just iPhone to iPhone. (There is a Live Photos icon in the photo’s corner, but it’s not a play button.)

There’s a software component to making Live Photos work, too, and not even Apple has caught all of its platforms up. This is what you can expect when sharing Live Photos across Apple’s apps and platforms. iCloud Photo Library can sync Live Photos to the Mac, and Photos allows you to play them back within the app. A button labeled LIVE in the lower right hand corner lets you click and play the Live Photo.

Just like on the iPhone, Photos for Mac lets you edit a Live Photo and enable or disable the live part of it. Click edit then toggle the yellow or white Live Photos icon in the top center: yellow is on and white is off. Similarly to iOS, auto-enhancing a Live Photo preserves the motion and sound, but rotating, cropping, applying filters, or adjusting light and color will revert it to a non-Live Photo.

Somewhat frustratingly, Messages for Mac currently has zero support for Live Photos. Messages on iPhone and iPad work with Live Photos just fine, but the Mac version of the app treats every Live Photo as a traditional JPEG still image. There’s not even an icon to let you know you should view the Live Photo on your iPhone or iPad. This also happens when sharing a Live Photo directly from Photos for Mac through Messages using the share action. This is the case on both the public version of OS X El Capitan 10.11.0 and the developer beta version of OS X 10.11.1.

More reasonable is Apple’s lack of support for Live Photos on the web. This is the case when using iCloud Photo Library on both icloud.com and beta.icloud.com, which sometimes has future features before the main site. You can playback video from both versions of icloud.com, so I wouldn’t be surprised if it eventually caught up with Live Photo support. For now I don’t spend much time viewing my photo library online, though, so the omission is less annoying than no Live Photos on Messages for Mac.

And what about Apple Watch? Testing with watchOS 2, Live Photos work as expected when you sync an album that includes them. In my case, I sync photos that I favorite to Apple Watch. This lets you set these photos as your watch face, and Live Photos will animate your watch face each time the display lights up. Viewing a Live Photo in the Photos app presents an icon in the lower left corner that shows motion but not audio when tapped. Live Photos in Messages on Apple Watch work like Messages on the Mac, just still JPEGs with nothing to clue you in to watch it.

Sharing a Live Photo online is also tricky. My videos are captured using QuickTime on the Mac with a wired connection to my iPhone, and the result is really just a video that you play and pause. Apple said that Facebook plans to support Live Photos sometime this year, but it’s not clear what that will look like. Still, with Apple behind it there should be a fair amount of support coming.

Live Photos aren’t as straightforward as traditional photos and videos, but are they worth the trouble right now? All of these software pieces will come together in time, but the wow effect of what a Live Photo can offer is not something I expect to get over anytime soon. As I mentioned at the top and discussed on our podcast ‘Happy Hour’ this week, my feelings about Live Photos have quickly changed since first trying the new camera feature last Friday.

@BenBajarin @drbarnard One of these has a lot of value as a Live Photo, the other I’m not so sure of http://t.co/mkJlxbqtRw

—
Zac Skellington (@apollozac) September 26, 2015

The iPhone’s Camera app lets you decide before shooting whether or not you want Live Photos to be on or off. You can quickly toggle it on or off before each shot if you want. After my first couple of days with Live Photos on my iPhone 6s Plus, that’s exactly what I was doing: shoot a photo of a person with Live Photos on, snap a pic of an interesting looking coffee cup with Live Photos off.

That’s a lot of work, though, and the extra step of processing that decision isn’t worth missing a good shot. Adjusting my approach (and taking advantage of my 128GB of storage plus iCloud Photo Library with optimized storage turned on), every photo I shoot now starts as a Live Photo then I decide in post if I should revert it to a still image afterwards.

I have one exception to this approach. Live Photos capture 3 seconds of motion and audio, with 1.5 seconds being after you snap the image. That means taking a Live Photo is noticeably not instant because it can’t be. It’s similar to taking an HDR photo on an old iPhone before the processor got so fast. That process involves taking and mixing multiple images and shooting without moving. Live Photos are the same. They take an extra second and a half so I toggle it off if I want to shoot something very quickly in succession.

I joked on Twitter that every iPhone reviewer should have a toddler around when testing Live Photos because that’s when the feature really shines. Parents need Live Photos. It seemed gimmicky when I tried shooting the flag waving in my front yard and getting my cat to pose for one was more annoying than pleasant, but nearly every Live Photo of my daughter just impresses me over and over.

iPhones are getting really great at shooting video. My iPhone 6s Plus has optical image stabilization even for video and shoots in 4K resolution, and while I sometimes decide to shoot a video and not a photo, it’s still a fraction of the time.

Photos are fast to share, easy to enjoy, and don’t ask for much of your time. Videos catch the moment much better but rarely get re-watched around my house. I’m finding that Live Photos strike a really nice balance between the two formats. I have way more photos than videos of family and friends, but I wish I’d have shot more videos over the years. Live Photos makes that decision much easier for me going forward. I don’t have to change my approach, but I get the benefit of details previously only captured in video.

Live Photos seemed ambiguous when first announced and ranked low on my list of reasons for upgrading from my iPhone 6, the motion quality has plenty of room to improve and Apple’s software still needs to catch up in some corners, but consider me completely sold. Android phones and App Store apps may have been first to the photo format, but being built into the camera and apps that I use everyday in a way that isn’t intrusive is perfect.

Filed under: AAPL Company, iOS, iOS Devices, Opinion Tagged: iCloud Photo Library, iOS 9, iPhone 6s, iphone 6s plus, ISight, Live Photos, photography, photos, Photos for mac

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As regular readers will know, I think wires are evil. To the extent that they are unavoidable, they should be invisible. And if they can’t be invisible, they should at least be neat.

I’ve also found you can never predict when you’re going to need a cable, so I keep one of each of the main types – Lightning, MiniUSB and MicroUSB – in each of the bags I use to carry a MacBook. I’ve tried various methods of wrapping them, from rubber bands (fiddly and they break) through velcro (collect fluff and lose their stickiness) to releasable cable-ties (neat but fiddly).

But I think I’ve finally found a solution that Just Works. Cloopbands are rubberized cable wraps with magnetic ends that can be applied and removed in a second.

Cloop suggests you semi-permanently attach the bands to your cables like so:

Personally, I didn’t find that necessary, but I can see that it could be useful for some.

The company also sells a small bar magnet, the idea being that you attach this to your desk and then your Cloopband-wrapped cables stick to that. Again, that wasn’t for me, and the bar is so small it would only work for a few anyway.

The one downside of Cloopbands? The price. They’re available in two sizes, small and large, in packs of three. Small bands cost $9.99 for three – and cope with most cables – while the larger size is $11.99 for three. Fine for a single set of cables, but if, like me, you have enough cables to rewire a power station, that could soon add up. You can claim a 15% discount on orders of over $20 by following the company on social media.

If Cloopbands are not for you, there are plenty of other cable management products available on Amazon, for both desk and mobile use.

Cloopbands are available on the company’s store from $3.99 for individual bands.

Filed under: Reviews Tagged: Cable management, Cable ties, Cable wraps, Cloopbands

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Still no Apple Pay in stores at Target just yet, but Apple Watch will be joining the lineup of iPhones and iPads in select stores this week – and all stores by October 25th.

Target operates over 1800 stores across the United States, greatly expanding the points-of-sale for Apple Watch going into the holiday quarter. Aside from the couple hundred Apple Stores in the US, Apple Watch has been sold in a few premium vendors plus Best Buy, T-Mobile, and Sprint…

Between Target picking up Apple Watch at select stores this week and all stores by the end of the month, the retailer says it will also begin selling Apple’s wearable online at target.com (and in its iPhone app where you can use Apple Pay at checkout).

Target says it will carry 20 models in total, ranging from $349 Sport versions to $599 stainless steel Apple Watches. Both the smaller 38mm and larger 42mm Apple Watches will be available, including newly introduced color options gold and rose gold in the aluminum Sport collection. Select models will be sold in stores, with all models available online. Best Buy, which sells models in the same range, took a similar approach of launching in a few stores then expanding to all over a short period.

Apple hasn’t released numbers for how many Apple Watches it has sold so far, but retail availability going into the gift-buying season is greatly expanded compared to the roughly 3-month period after launch where orders were only available through apple.com. Apple has also refreshed the lineup with a collection of new bands, including more Sport colors and an improved Classic leather band. watchOS 2 was also released this month, adding support for faster, native apps and new watch face options.

Filed under: Apple Watch Tagged: Apple watch, Holidays, retail, sales, target

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