Month: September 2022

Apple focused heavily on iOS 16 at its annual developer conference in June 2022. Among the headline features are a redesigned, highly customisable lock screen, with less intrusive notifications, improvements to Focus and more.

But while Apple spent a significant amount of time talking about iOS 16, it didn’t mention many of the smaller changes, some of which are well worth knowing about.

So without further ado, here are the best features we’ve spotted that we think you’ll love when you update to iOS 16 later this year. For more on the big software update, take a look at the latest iOS 16 news.

1. The Fitness app is available for all
   iOS 16 marks the first time that iPhone users who don’t own an Apple Watch will be able to fully use the Fitness app, with access to the same three-ring system that tracks calories, standing hours and exercise. Instead of getting that data from a Watch, it’ll use the iPhone’s built-in sensors.

Of course, it won’t be quite as accurate, and you won’t see advanced metrics like heart rate and blood oxygen monitoring, but it’s a nice app that’ll let you keep an eye on your general fitness goals over time.

1. Privacy Access History
   While the iPhone and iPad can let you know when your mic, camera and location are being accessed by apps, it’s only handy if you catch the icon while it’s in use, with no way to look at what has been accessing tech recently – until iOS 16, that is.

A new privacy access history feature will give you a list of all the apps that have recently accessed your camera, microphone and location data, and it’ll be accessible by tapping the icon in the control centre when it appears.

Goodbye secret location-tracking apps!

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Search around online and you’ll find the general advice is that you don’t need antivirus on your iPhone or iPad. And while the reasons for that advice are sound, the real answer is a bit more nuanced than an outright no.

Apple has designed iOS – and iPadOS – in such a way that it is very difficult for malware, including viruses, to penetrate its defences. This is a good thing, but remember that modern antivirus software does far more than detecting and blocking viruses.

In fact, calling it ‘antivirus software’ does it a disservice as the threats go way beyond viruses these days. The latest security software protects your device – and you – from a much wider range of dangers.

The people who create viruses are in a constant battle with the companies that make the operating systems (such as iOS and iPadOS), and have realised that it it’s far easier to trick the user into handing over their password and payment details than trying to make some malware that will achieve the same result.

After all, the criminals are after your identity and your money: that’s the end game.

So, this means that running an ‘antivirus’ app on your iPhone and iPad can be a very good idea indeed as it can protect your from yourself!

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Chipset company MediaTek has unveiled its latest flagship smartphone silicon: the Dimensity 9000+.

In case the name doesn’t give it away, this is positioned as an upgrade to the Dimensity 9000 flagship the company launched last November. Like that chip, this is high-end hardware intended for premium phones only.

This isn’t a true successor – expect that to arrive some time towards the end of the year – but a half-step upgrade, with enhancements made to the same base 4nm hardware.

The key change is an upgrade to the CPU’s Cortex-X2 prime core, which runs at 3.2GHz in the 9000 Pro – up from 3.05GHz in the regular 9000 – though the remaining seven CPU cores are unchanged from the previous iteration, resulting in an overall performance improvement of around 5%.

The GPU has had an upgrade too. The 9000+ still uses a Mali-G710 chip, but MediaTek says it’s made tweaks to deliver a 10% boost in graphics performance.

Those might not sound like dramatic gains, but they’re enough to bring the 9000+ right in line with rival Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 8+ Gen 1, itself announced almost exactly a month ago. That chip also upgraded to a 3.2GHz clock speed on its prime CPU core, and boasts 10% GPU gains along with some power efficiency improvements.

As always, the big question is which phones will be powered by the Dimensity 9000+. While Qualcomm has already announced the 8+ Gen 1 will appear in phones from Asus, OnePlus, Xiaomi, and more, MediaTek usually waits a few weeks to announce OEM partners, so there are no phones or manufacturers confirmed so far – though the company has confirmed the first handsets should arrive in Q3 2022, aka July-September.

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AMD is on a roll. The US chipmaker continues to eat into Intel’s CPU market share, hitting a record 25% by the end of 2021.

This progress has been driven by the strong performance of its Ryzen processors, which took a big leap forward with the Ryzen 5000 Series. 2022’s Ryzen 6000 Series only includes laptop CPUs, but AMD has already confirmed that its successor – the Ryzen 7000 Series – will also feature desktop processors.

But in this article, we’re looking even further ahead. The Ryzen 8000 Series might be well over a year away, but that hasn’t stopped AMD revealing some key details. Here’s everything we know so far.

AMD Ryzen 8000 Series release date
It’s not clear exactly when the Ryzen 8000 Series will officially launch, but we can take some clues from other AMD launches. The company has already confirmed that the upcoming Ryzen 7000 Series will debut in the ‘second half of 2022’, but mobile CPUs aren’t expected until CES in January 2023.

Indeed, the Ryzen 5000 Series was announced in October 2020 before laptop chips were added in January 2021.

A similar schedule is likely for the Ryzen 8000 Series. That would suggest an initial release of late 2023 – potentially October – then mobile processors at CES in January 2024. But as is often the case, AMD is likely to continue releasing new Ryzen 8000 Series chips in the the subsequent few months and even years.

Remember, AMD hasn’t confirmed any of this yet. We know the company is working on the Ryzen 8000 Series behind the scenes, but no release window has been revealed.

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Sony has unveiled a raft of new gaming hardware, but hold your horses – this isn’t the PS VR2, PS5 Pro, or whatever other upcoming gear you’ve got your heart set on. In fact, you won’t find the PlayStation logo anywhere.

That’s because the new tech – a trio of gaming headphones and a pair of gaming monitors – mark the debut of a whole new PC-focused gaming brand: Inzone. Or INZONE, if you prefer Sony’s excited capitalisation.

With Sony increasingly moving to port its biggest PlayStation games to PC, it’s no surprise that it wants to catch a portion of that market. The bigger surprise is that it’s launching a new hardware line to do so, rather than leveraging the power of the PlayStation brand.

While the new Inzone hardware may not boast PlayStation branding, it does boast plenty of tech borrowed from the company’s console line, and is clearly designed to appeal to PC gamers who also have a PS5 in the living room – or would if they could buy one – with features optimised for both gaming PCs and Sony’s latest console.

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