Technology

Apple and Google both have big, expensive phones. But how do they measure up? Let's take a look at the specs.

Commentary: AI was buried in Apple's iPhone 16 reveal. I have no complaints.

AI can give you advice on everything from, super scary elements to kid-friendly spooks.

Apple’s Glowtime event served an avalanche of new products and features centered around the Apple Intelligence AI that the company has been hyping up for months. For a lowdown on everything you need to know, check out our iPhone 16 Pro hub. And for our first impressions, do read our hands-on iPhone 16 Pro review.

But, amid all of the new and upcoming features, the actual rollout felt familiar. I kept noting how each new feature already had a counterpart at Google, or OpenAI, or Meta, or all three and more. I have more than a passing knowledge of what’s out there, but even so, Apple’s rush of features felt more like someone setting up a comparison than forging new, innovative ground, which was what Apple used to do in the 2000s. What it really felt like was watching Apple’s announcement of its HomePod smart speaker and its later iterations. 

Siri blew everyone’s mind when it first came out, adding real power to the iPhone and setting a standard no one could reach for a while. But when Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa came along, suddenly Siri wasn’t so special, but still, no one was keen on using either with their smartphone the way they were with Siri. Then came the Amazon Echo and Google Home (later Nest after an acquisition). Both companies poured resources into not only making appealing, relatively cheap smart speakers and displays but also making sure to keep their voice assistants equal to the task, often with better natural language processing, superior context retention, and deeper third-party integrations than anything Siri could bring to the fore. 

The first Echo came out in 2014 and the first Google Home arrived two years later. Both quickly iterated the voice assistant and the hardware linking users to Alexa and Google Assistant. The first HomePod didn’t come out until 2018, and it had much of the rigidity in performance that drew complaints about Siri. The HomePod, while technically impressive in terms of sound quality, failed to compete with Amazon Echo and Google Home. Both rivals had already solidified their place in homes, offering affordable smart speakers with expansive voice assistant capabilities that tied into a wider ecosystem of smart home devices. Apple’s HomePod was more expensive, limited, and frankly late to the game. Even the later HomePod Mini could only try to match what had already been available for a while from Amazon and Google. 

Apple was playing catch up when it released its HomePod. (Image credit: Future) Apple AI's Steep Competition

Apple Intelligence doesn’t have quite the dire delay in release time as Apple’s voice assistant and smart speaker faced, but if you look at the list of AI features, you could repeat the words, “Google/OpenAI/many more did it already”, nearly every time. The advanced natural language understanding, photo editing tools, and enhanced smartphone controls have all already been announced or released by Google and others. They reflect a company that is still trying to close the gap left open by its AI rivals. Even Apple’s partnership news seems familiar. Embedding OpenAI’s models to give ChatGPT-power to its features is a good idea, but one that Microsoft and others have already pursued. Even Google, with its own stable of AI models, looked to ChatGPT's abilities in developing features for the Gemini AI assistant. 

There were only two ideas, one frivolous and one possibly important, from Apple that struck me as unique or at least notably different from what we’ve seen before. The custom emojis of Genmojis are a cute idea that doesn’t seem to be quite as easy to set up on Google-powered devices. More crucially, Apple made a point about how much on-device AI processing will happen and how it will leverage its Private Cloud Compute system to encourage privacy and data security. That could be a big selling point to potential customers even if it limits some of what the AI can do compared to a cloud-first approach. But, even the on-device processing as a selling point for a smartphone has already been done by Google when it debuted the Pixel 9.

Apple had a lot to say, and Apple Intelligence may bring some unique features to the table, but the company’s late entry and iterative approach to AI suggest that it is still playing catch-up. Much like the HomePod’s struggle to gain traction in a market dominated by earlier entrants, Apple’s AI tools—while carrying the Apple design polish and privacy focus many admire—seem designed more to match what others are already doing than to push the envelope further. Apple used to set the stage for the next big tech fad, but it will take more than fun custom emojis to retake that position; just ask the ten people who still have a HomePod.

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You've got to love Apple's announcement that it's going to turn your AirPods Pro into hearing aids. As someone whose iPod and iPhone listening has no doubt done tons of damage to my eardrums over the last few decades, it's funny that Apple is now promising to make some more money by selling me the fix. 

But the idea of my 2022-issue AirPods Pro 2 (and probably the AirPods Pro 3 that Apple has yet to unveil) suddenly becoming hearing helpers is genuinely exciting, even if Apple is also overhyping it.

According to Apple, "AirPods Pro 2 provide the world’s first all-in-one hearing health experience including a clinical-grade, over-the-counter Hearing Aid feature". And that's a fair description. The crucial part is that your AirPods Pro are not hearing aids; they are earbuds that have a hearing aid feature. 

That's an important distinction because very many people wear their hearing aids all the time, and as a result they need to be long-lasting. Some models can go for the best part of a month between batteries, but even basic models run for days. AirPods Pro, as you know, are good for about six hours before you need to put them back in their case for a recharge. That's a lot of listening to music, but it's a lot shorter than a nine-to-five working day, or a family day out. 

Your AirPods aren't a viable hearing aid replacement – yet

I've written before about the AirPods' then-rumored hearing aid upgrades, and I think they're potentially game-changing. Hearing aids are not particularly complicated devices, but they are shockingly expensive devices – especially in the US, where the prices of some models are comically high. But of course, high prices aren't funny when you have a medical need. So the FDA's decision to license over-the-counter hearing aids from 2022 was a massive and very welcome shift. As I wrote earlier this year, "You know a market has been protected for too long when Apple prices look like the budget option."

What we're seeing now is a shot across the bows of the hearing aid industry, which isn't just facing competition from Apple: Sony's already in the market with its $799 self-fitting C10 hearing aids, which are expensive by earbud standards but incredibly cheap for hearing aids. But what Sony's offering is different from what Apple's planning: its hearing aids aren't also earbuds, so they don't have Bluetooth or other battery-sapping features. That means they're good for a claimed 70 hours between battery changes. Big difference, no? 

Apple is very good at selling things it hasn't yet delivered, and a lot of yesterday's Apple event was devoted to promises rather than products. AirPods Pro as hearing aids are part of that, I think, in much the same way that the Series 3 Apple Watch introduced sleep tracking to a device whose battery would run out of charge in the middle of the night; six generations later my Series 9 still urges me to charge it before bedtime in order to use the sleep tracking feature. It's a sign of hearing help to come, but it's going to be a while before the tech can fully deliver on its promise. 

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The iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max have been officially revealed, promising the biggest step forward for Apple’s smartphone software experience in years. 

Apple revealed the iPhone 16 lineup at the “It’s Glowtime” event on September 9, and also showcased its forthcoming Apple Intelligence AI features which will begin rolling out in October. 

Apple CEO Tim Cook called the iPhone 16 series the “first iPhones designed from the ground up for Apple Intelligence”, and the company showed several short videos to demonstrate the day-to-day uses of its new AI tools.

Amongst the features shown was Visual Intelligence, activated by the new Camera Control capacitive button, which analyses the images in the field of view of the camera app to provide contextual information about the user’s surroundings. 

Apple’s livestream showed a supposed user walking around town, using Visual Intelligence to pull up a restaurant menu and find more details about a concert flyer. 

However, the example that has stirred the most reactions has to be our protagonist using their iPhone 16 to scan a passer-by’s dog, to find the breed of the canine companion through an AI-assisted web search. Online commenters have been going barking mad (sorry) trying to figure out why the user wouldn’t just ask the dog walker themselves.

As tech reviewer and YouTuber Rjey Tech writes on X (formerly Twitter): “'What kind of dog is that?’ Instead of asking the owner, pull out your iPhone and ask Apple Intelligence."

“What kind of Dog is that?”Instead of just asking the owner, pull out your iPhone and ask Apple Intelligence.September 9, 2024

Others weren’t so quietly sarcastic. App developer kitze referred to “AI morons” silently pointing iPhones at strangers’ puppies. 

regular human: asks owner "what kind of dog is that"apple AI moron: says nothing and points phone at a strangers puppy and asks siri "what kind of dog is that"September 9, 2024

Most reactions haven’t been quite so strong, but there’s certainly a consensus of confusion regarding Apple’s choice of demonstration.  

Will Apple Intelligence be useful?

While most commentators – us included – recognize that Apple’s iPhone 16 demonstrations aren’t quite true-to-life, the dog-scanning discourse highlights concern over whether Apple Intelligence brings meaningful upgrades to the iPhone 16, iPhone 16 Plus, iPhone 16 Pro, and iPhone 16 Pro Max. 

After all, Apple’s annual September events are the most important product launches in its calendar, so fans expect the company’s A-game all the way through.

So, a somewhat unrealistic demonstration can leave commentators like FlightRadar24’s Jacob Rabinowitz thinking that Apple can’t bring any tangible use cases to mind. 

Even Apple can't demo a useful function for AI in its iPhone keynote.This ridiculous interaction goes "hi, can I take a picture of your dog so I can use AI to identify the breed?" instead of just being a normal person and asking "hi, what breed is your dog?" pic.twitter.com/JZI30yIMFbSeptember 9, 2024

It’s too early to draw conclusions about Apple Intelligence, but we think it’s most likely Apple was just having a bit of fun – and let’s face it, cute dogs are good for business.

On the other hand, Apple are always keen to emphasise the constant presence of its products in people’s lives, so there is something to glean about how the company may be envisioning a normalisation of AI in day-to-day interactions. 

Visual Intelligence will be available later this year as part of a staggered rollout of Apple Intelligence features. 

We’ll have the latest Apple Intelligence news as we hear it, and for our first impressions of a key new iPhone, do read our hands-on iPhone 16 Pro review.

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Media company Future has launched the Mobile Gaming Show, a new broadcast event that will highlight a range of exciting upcoming mobile games. It joins the company’s other existing video game showcases, including the PC Gaming Show and Future Games Show.

The Mobile Gaming Show will be broadcast on September 26 at 10am PT / 1pm ET / 6pm BST / 7pm CEST. It will be available via YouTube, Twitch, X / Twitter, TikTok, Facebook, GamesRadar+ and other streaming platforms. 

The show will be hosted by voice actor Benn Starr, known for his role as hero Clive Rosfield in Final Fantasy 16, and will feature a wide range of exclusive reveals, trailers, interviews, and more pertaining to a number of mobile games. Participating publishers include Digital Extremes, CCP Games, and NetEase Games. 

Regarding the launch, Editorial Director of the Mobile Gaming Show Jake Tucker said that “mobile is now the world’s most popular gaming platform with billions of people playing games on their phone every day. The Mobile Gaming Show will shine a spotlight on some of the very best mobile games available and the people that make them.

“We’ll also look at the most innovative and exciting titles coming soon that demand your attention,” he continued. “Join us on September 26 to discover the mobile games that everyone will be playing in 2024 and beyond!” 

The Mobile Gaming Show will be presented by the Future Games Show, which is currently the world’s biggest quarterly video game showcase. It averages roughly 40 million total views per show and has featured details on more than 500 games from big-budget hits such as Lords of the Fallen and Warframe to indie adventures like Pacific Drive.

The Future Games Show is part of Future plc, a British publishing company that owns brands such as PC Gamer, Tom's Guide, and TechRadar.

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A recently discovered bug in SonicWall SonicOS firewall instances is being used in ransomware attacks, multiple researchers have confirmed.

SonicWall recently reported finding, and patching, an improper access control vulnerability affecting its Gen 5, Gen 6, and Gen 7 firewalls, as well as the firewalls’ SSLVPN feature. The bug is tracked as CVE-2024-40766, and does not yet have a severity score assigned.

Now, the company has warned the bug is being actively exploited in the wild, and urged its users to apply the patch without hesitation. Soon after, security researchers from both Arctic Wolf and Rapid7 said the same thing, with the former pinning the attacks on Akira ransomware affiliates.

False sense of privacy

Akira was first spotted in March 2023 and has since raided dozens of companies. Akira’s affiliates target mostly enterprises, but they don’t seem to favor any specific vertical, as so far they targeted firms in education, finance, real estate, manufacturing, and consulting industries.

Besides operating flawed instances, the companies that recently fell prey to Akira did another thing - kept MFA disabled for high-value accounts.

“MFA was disabled for all compromised accounts, and the SonicOS firmware on the affected devices were within the versions known to be vulnerable to CVE-2024-40766,” commented Stefan Hostetler, a Senior Threat Intelligence Researcher at Arctic Wolf.

CVE-2024-40766 has also been added to CISA’s Known Exploited Vulnerabilities (KEV) catalog, which also means federal agencies have a deadline to patch up, or stop using the instances entirely. The deadline is September 30.

Those who are unable to apply the patch immediately are advised to restrict firewall management and SSLVPN access to trusted sources, and to enable multi-factor authentication for all SSLVPN users using TOTP or email-based one-time passwords (OTP).

Via BleepingComputer

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Apple’s ‘It’s Glowtime’ event was jam-packed with new announcements, with the iPhone 16 range making its debut alongside the Apple Watch Series 10, new AirPods models, and a whole lot more. With so much being unveiled, it would have been easy to miss that Apple is bringing a major charging upgrade to the iPhone 16 lineup.

Skimming through the specs pages for the iPhone 16 and the iPhone 16 Pro, you’ll find a small but important change coming to the charging and battery life of these devices. That’s because these products now support MagSafe wireless charging up to 25W (providing you have a 30W power adapter or better), almost double the previous 15W limit. And it will work with the Qi2 standard for better compatibility, too, although this only goes up to 15W.

The new 25W MagSafe limit could make a major difference to your device’s charging times. According to Apple’s own figures, you’ll now be able to power up your iPhone 16 or iPhone 16 Pro to 50% within 30 minutes. This is true for both wireless MagSafe and wired USB-C charging, providing you use a 30W or 20W adapter for each, respectively.

Compare that to the iPhone 15 range, which were capable of fast charging up to 50% within 30 minutes, but only using a cable. On those devices, MagSafe charging was limited to 15W, the same power output limit MagSafe has had since it was introduced in 2020.

Flying under the radar

(Image credit: Future/Jacob Krol)

Apple barely mentioned this charging speed boost during its event keynote, with company marketing chief Greg Joswiak simply saying that the iPhone 16 range will come with “a new MagSafe charger for even faster wireless charging.” Joswiak didn’t mention any specific power output or charging time figures, while Apple’s press releases buried the detail in their footnotes.

That means it would be very easy to miss this significant update. If you want your iPhone to juice up as quickly as possible, it could be a tempting reason to upgrade.

Phones have offered fast charging for some time now, with many of the best Android phones coming with extremely rapid charging times – the Realme GT 3, for instance, boasts 240W fast charging. Yet that requires a cable (the Realme GT 3 doesn’t offer wireless charging at all, in fact), and wireless charging hasn’t managed to offer anything near the same speeds. While Apple’s 25W MagSafe upgrade is far below the best wired charging speeds, it’s still a welcome improvement.

There were plenty of other upgrades announced with the iPhone 16 range, including a new Camera Control button, faster chips, improved cameras, and more. While the charging uptick didn’t get as much time in the sun as some of the other new features, it could prove to be just as important. 

For our first impressions of one of the new iPhones, do read our hands-on iPhone 16 Pro review.

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If you're lucky enough to live somewhere where summer doesn't just mean warmer rain, outdoors is the new indoors: it's where we take our Bluetooth speakers, where we take our smart cookers and, if Samsung has any say in it, where we put our TVs too. But of course you can't simply stick one of the best OLED TVs on the terrace or in your yard unless you want to squint at it in the sunshine before it gets full of rain and bugs. Hence The Terrace, Samsung's range of TVs designed to live outside no matter what the weather.

Samsung has added a whole bunch of new TVs to the Terrace range, including 65 and 75-inch Full Sun models and 55, 65 and 75-inch Partial Sun models. They're designed to deliver serious brightness so you can see the picture clearly on a sunny day, which is why Samsung has put Neo QLED displays inside, and they come with IP56 ratings, the highest water and dust resistance ratings of any Samsung TVs. 

Samsung The Terrace Full Sun and Partial Sun TVs: features, pricing and availability

There are two new partial sun models, and they cost $3,499 for the 55-inch (so around £2,675 or AU$5,253), $4,999 for the 65-inch (about £3,820 or AU$7,506) and $6,499 for the 75-inch versions (roughly £4,968 or AU$9,758) respectively. Full Sun models start at $7,499 (around £5,730 or AU$11,259) for 65 inches and $9,999 (£7,645 or AU$15,010 approx) for 75 inches. 

Each of the TVs in the range is built around a very bright quantum matrix Neo QLED display with very wide viewing angles, and they're powered by Samsung's NQ4 AI Gen2 Processor. In order to minimize glare they come with anti-reflective screens, and the built-in audio is loud enough for pretty big outdoor spaces: 40W through four speakers.

There's another key difference between these Samsung TVs and TVs designed for indoor life: The Terrace TVs are designed to withstand serious heat, so for example the Full Sun models are designed to withstand temperatures of up to 122ºF, and to operate in direct sunlight for up to 6 hours at 104ºF.

As you'd expect, there's Samsung SmartThings integration with your smart home, and the new TVs also include the Samsung TV Plus and Gaming Hub to deliver over 2,700 free channels, which include over 360 Samsung TV Plus channels and thousands of games for console-free play.

The new TVs are available for pre-order from this week at Samsung.com.

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