At Apple’s September product unveiling, three new iPhones grabbed the spotlight. Tim Cook’s presentation also showcased the new Apple Watch, called “an intelligent guardian for your health.” To introduce the new Apple Watch to the world, Apple turned to American Heart Association president Ivor Benjamin, who applauded the company’s innovation and commitment towards health issues. The most prominent new feature of the Apple Watch Series 4 is that the device is now able to detect a low heart rate and atrial fibrillation. This advances its health detection capabilities far beyond simple exercise tracking. The watch is now able to measure the electrical activity of the heart, enabling the user to take an electrocardiogram simply by putting their finger on the digital crown. The feature, as well as irregular heart rate detection, has received FDA clearance. There is also a next-generation accelerometer gyroscope, which enables the device to detect a fall by the wearer —when a fall is detected, the watch will send an alert prompting you to call emergency services. If the device senses that the user is immobile for more than one minute, the call will be started automatically. This may be ideal for those aging but hip grandparents who don’t want to admit a life alert device might be a wise wearable. Design-wise, Apple Watch Series 4 flaunts a 30 percent larger display—which gives enough real estate for up to eight shortcuts for apps—as well as a thinner body, which make it less bulky on small wrists. The speakers are 50 percent louder and its new S4 chip will have the watch perform twice as fast. The battery life should last for 18 hours and outdoor workout time has increased to six hours. Pricing starts at $399 for the GPS model and...

Come autumn, the world stops to see the next Apple crop. In this case, we mean tech, not fruit! This year has been especially bountiful with the launch of an upgraded Apple Watch, new iPhones, the 10-year celebration of the iPhone and the first keynote to be hosted at the company’s spaceship headquarters in the Steve Jobs Theater. Apple Watch Series 3 Even though the star of the evening was the iPhone X, some other interesting stuff occurred on stage. For example, we met the Apple Watch Series 3, Apple’s newest wearable version, upgraded to LTE connectivity—basically, the watch now works as a standalone device, so you don’t have to keep it connected to your iPhone. If you already own an iPhone and don’t have a watch, this should be the next item in your Apple shopping bag. The gizmo will work with the same phone number that your iPhone has, synchronizing calls, iMessage and music automatically. It will use a separate connection when away from the phone, so you no longer have to carry both your watch and your iPhone next time you hop on your mountain bike or head out for a jog. Visually, not much has changed. The device itself is slightly thicker than the Series 2 model, but that’s to be expected considering the performance upgrades it has stored inside. The Watch Series 3 is decked out with some new band options too—the Sport Loop, designed for outdoor active situations, and Hermès leather straps. Technical specs of the new watch include a new dual-core processor with 70 percent better performance and a new W2 chip that boosts Bluetooth, wireless connectivity and power efficiency. The cellular antenna is the display itself, and there is a tiny electronic SIM card inside for...

This year’s Apple WWDC event, hosted by chief executives Craig Federighi, Phil Chiller and Tim Cook, included updates to the company’s iOS, tvOS, watchOS and macOS. There were also a range of hardware updates, including a new iPad Pro, updates to the entire Mac laptop line, a new iMac Pro and the new Siri-enabled speaker dubbed HomePod. iOS 11 The new version of the iPhone’s and iPad’s operating system, coming this fall, is packed with new possibilities, culminating with the usage of augmented reality in games and apps. The new OS will reveal a system-wide design revamp, tilting towards bolder fonts, borderless buttons, new animations and other small visual tweaks. The Control Center has been compressed to fit on one page, and aside from its new look, offers new customization options. The Lock Screen and Notification Center have been combined under one entity, thus pulling down access to Notification Center will also bring up the Lock Screen. The App Store has been redesigned for the first time. It now organizes and separates games and apps into their own sections, while offering a dynamic Today view, populated daily with the newest content. A much-awaited change is the new Files app. It mimics the Finder on macOS (no surprise there), including the drag and drop feature that allows to reorganize files, links and more between apps. There is also a difference: on the iPhone, drag and drop can be used within apps, while on the iPad it can be used across the entire OS. Then there’s the new Dock, Mac users are familiar with it, but for iPad users is a foundational change. Easy to customize with apps, the Dock changes as you work—the suggested apps, such as the recently opened apps and the last one...

Many of us purchased (or were gifted) new smartphones. Many with new smartphones have the new iPhone 6S or iPhone 6S Plus. Like the iPhone 6, the newer version can be a little slippery – it’s rather thin and without sharp edges. Now it’s time to find suitable protection for it, as no one wants to experience that uh-oh moment when your iPhone slips out of your hand and goes falling to the hard floor. Smart Battery Case Apple Silk Innovation PureView Case with Customizable-Backpanel Pong Sleek Case Leather Wallet Case Incipio Feather Shine Incipio Edge Chrome Casetify Acme Charge Case Alto Case Radius v2 Tech Armor Active Series We’ve made a list of the top choices. Any favorites that are left off? Incipio Feather Shine is a sophisticated case made of rigid ABS polycarbonate frame with a premium brushed aluminum style finish. It protects the device against dents and scratches while looking dashing. It’s available in six colors on Incipio’s website. Incipio Edge Chrome mixes durable protection with fashionable flair. Its frame is made of Plextonium™ polycarbonate that covers all edges. Moreover, the case is comprised of two-piece sliding design for docking and device removal. Silk Innovation PureView Case is an ultra slim protective case against drops, dings, and scratches. It combines a sleek, shock-absorbent rubber bumper with a crystal clear polycarbonate back shell. Users can personalize it through customizable inserts that fit behind the clear back shell. Casetify also allows its customers to turn their photos into a case, besides the designer collection. Radius v2 looks like a stripped down bumper with snap-on convenience that protects the corners and rear of the iPhone, the areas most susceptible to damage when dropped. This minimal design makes Radius v2 extremely light. Color options include...

Apple’s annual fall product preview featured a colorful array of unprecedented announcements kept 6,000 in-person attendees and thousands more online viewers interested for more for almost two hours. “To wear it is to love it.” Everyone knew there would be a new pair of iPhones—the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus—but this is not how the evening started. First came the Apple Watch, now best buddy with high-end fashion house Hermès, in an entirely new collection that features hand-stitched leather straps and a special watch face. The couture device will have a selection of three bands with the stainless steel face: a single leather loop, a double loop, and a cuff. The double loop one comes only with the 38mm face, while the thicker cuff only has the 42mm version. The band leather is available in different colors. Apple also announced new gold and rose gold colors for the Apple Watch Sport, a take on the pricey Apple Watch Edition series, but in anodized aluminum. Moreover, an expanded range of pastel Sport Band colors were presented under the fall collection. This can only mean that more colors are in the works for next year. Starting September 16, the wearable software will be updated to Watch OS 2, providing support for native third-party apps named “third-party complications” that bring notification and other third-party app data on to watch faces, as well as some overall performance improvements. More on that when it’s out. “Thin. Light. Epic.” Then there was the iPad Pro. This (not so) little (anymore) device grew up into a fabulous 12.9-inch screen, with plenty of surprises. Very comfortable for gaming, entertainment, and serious work tool, the new iPad is accessorized with a full-size keyboard and a multi-tasking tool. And if you thought that MacBook...

The new holiday lineup from Apple has launched, and Tim Cook calls it “the strongest lineup of products that Apple has ever had.” Joining the iPhone line and the updated iOS are the new iPads, iMac, and OS X Yosemite. The iPad Air 2 is a 6.1mm thick tablet, down from the previous 7.5mm; this makes it noticeably thinner than the iPhone 6 which is 6.9mm thick. Design-wise, the tablet shares many of the iPhone 6’s features, with a few notable distinctions from the smartphone like the sharply angled chamfer where the screen meets the aluminum body outside the edge of the screen. Despite the ultra-thin profile, the iPad Air 2’s iSight camera sits flush against the body. The thinness of the device is achieved by laminating the different screen layers into one seamless panel. This process reduces glare and improves clarity. The resolution has not been increased, but the Retina display has been improved. An anti-reflective coating has been applied to the screen, reducing reflections by 56 percent. The device runs on an A8X chip and a GPU that Apple says is 180 times faster than the original iPad. It includes a new M8 motion co-processor that “tracks motion, calibrates sensors, and has a barometer,” said Apple. This is the first iPad with 2GB of RAM which not only will speed up overall performance, but will help with multitasking as well. The iPad Air 2 has a 10-hour battery life. New Wi-Fi 802.11ac MIMO and cell radios are in the iPad Air 2, increasing the speed performance. The home button now includes a Touch ID fingerprint scanner, which works just like those on the iPhones: unlock, complete app and in-app purchases, and works with Apple’s new Apple Pay to buy products in retailer...

Apple’s highly-anticipated sapphire glass will not only offer super-protection to our favorite electronic devices, but will also improve battery life by the addition of solar-powered charging cells. Sapphire is one of the three gem-varieties of corundum, the other two being ruby – corundum in a shade of red – and padparadscha – a pinkish-orange. Although blue is the most common color, corundum can also be colorless or pink, green, and shades of gray and black. It can be mined or artificially produced. Sapphire is more than a beautiful and extremely expensive gem. Because of its remarkable hardness – 9 on the Mohs scale, right after the diamond which scores the maximum 10 – sapphires are used in non-ornamental tasks such as infrared optical components (red ruby sapphires are utilized to create new-infrared lasers due to their capacity to be turned to the appropriate wavelengths, because of the titanium and chromium impurities that form them), high durability windows for high pressure diagnostic and scientific equipment, including bullet proof glass, wristwatch crystals and movement bearings, and scratch-resistant coverings for lenses and high-end watch faces (Rolex, Citizen, etc.) It is important to note that Corning Gorilla Glass scores ~7 on the Mohs scale. Very high-end smartphones are already using sapphire crystal screens. The handmade Vertu Ti has a 3.7-inch crystal-covered screen, but thus far the technology has been too expensive for mass produced smartphone screens. Apple started using it to protect the cameras on the iPhone and, more recently, on the home button for the 5S model. But things are not about to stop here. In a post on the Seeking Alpha investor blog, Matt Margolis concludes that the $578m deal Apple struck with GT Advanced Technologies has more than just the sapphire glass growth initiative behind...

Colleen Gray admits that when a frigid ice storm struck her hometown of Toronto, Ontario a few days before Christmas, she wasn’t prepared. “I had no flashlight, candles, tasty emergency food,” said the Business Applications Leader for Real Estate Management Services, a Yardi client. Her apartment lost power on Dec. 21 around 10 p.m. Nor did she realize that power was going to be out for more than three full days. The storm knocked out electricity and other services to 300,000 Toronto residents, and a few hundred were still without power as of this writing on Dec. 30. Anxious to have the most up-to-date information on weather conditions, expectations for the next few days how friends, family and colleagues were doing, Colleen was glued to her iPhone, which she hadn’t charged the night the power went out. “I was trying to get information from web sites, while at the same time rationing data access as I knew it drained the battery pretty fast,” she told us in an email. But Sunday morning, she was already below 50 percent of her battery and had no idea how much longer it would be out – service wasn’t restored until 6 p.m. on Dec. 24. Then she remembered – a tiny, battery powered iPhone charger was included in a gift for clients delivered at Yardi’s recent Canadian client appreciation dinner. “Brilliant!  This gave me enough juice to get through the day and evening. The next day I went to the office and was able to charge up both my iPhone and Portable charger to get me through another night.   It was a tremendous comfort knowing that I wasn’t going to run out of power when the only thing connecting me to information and friends and family was...