As iPhone 18 Pro (Max?) has a variable aperture, I wonder if they'll automatically shrink it to allow the clueless to shoot document photos while being way too close... I've heard too many times that "camera got worse after updates" in this aspect, even though it's just physics. Yes, you should use telephoto for the clearest looking document photos otherwise, just mind the motion.

https://fixupx.com/johnternus/status/2097672038781763614

Major warning: iPhone Duo is basically a foldable version of (currently not existing) base iPhone 18, it's not considered a Pro even for the pure software features that have no business being locked and lack a form factor justification. Contrary to speculations, I'd say it's unlikely that it's the sensor from 17e, even though "Hybrid Focus Pixels" are an odd sight. Unless 17e was artificially gatekept from 4k120 (rather than due to inability to offer a staggered/DCG/DAG sensor mode at that frame rate and skipping it because of it), the sensor on Duo is twice faster.

Regardless, it's an odd sight to see a 48~50MP sensor that isn't 4PD on a product so high-end. Not because I'm a fan of using 12 million microlenses on 48 million photosites, but because it seems very desirable to device vendors, thanks to sole amount of phase data they provide for PDAF. This at least does suggest that it's a smaller format than 18 Pro. EXIF will later tell us the crop factor and therefore the sensor format.

Apple Watch 12 offers a currently opt-in feature that basically uploads the conversations it captures into the cloud.

I know many people are concerned about completely offline hardware trying to sense you 24/7 for something convenient that you may want. For example, Mi 17 is capable of waking up the screen when you specifically move your eyes at it, likely thanks to a low power front camera sensor mode and Qualcomm's support for that. I liked it, but it probably eats battery.

That's one thing. But *uploading* constantly sensed data from people who never gave you consent for it, especially without homomorphic encryption (that was used with Enhanced Visual Search and still managed to break people's trust when it got enabled by default in update), is simply way too much. I've seen an article from TechRadar that completely omitted the important part: it is an online feature based on servers attesting their legitimacy. For something meant to constantly listen.

FAQ:
- Yes, it's currently less likely that this data gets anywhere near advertisers and government agencies compared to conversations with Google bots.
- Yes, it's much more invasive, as you don't have to wake it up every time and the whole premise is about listening not just to you, but also to people who are nearby enough.
- Yes, an attested cloud is not an extension of your device. It's still moving your own and others' data out of your offline control, justified only by claim that the cloud holders implemented technical roadblocks for extracting this data. And so they did. But would they sign a contract that bankrupts the company in case of a sufficiently advanced or powerfully sanctioned breach? No.


Tldr: don't assume you're talking in private if you see an Apple Watch 12 on someone's wrist.

I know that most of people are either logged in or swear by not using AI in any form, but to whom it may concern, the login-less ChatGPT got upgraded to GPT-5.6 Luna and it's now capable of spending over a minute on your tasks. If you're somehow still using Google search, this is a much better way to find any information that wouldn't be your first result.

Of course, there are means of getting access to better models anonymously, but this is quite a leap regardless. Two years ago it'd be a jaw-dropping model you'd need to pay solid money for. I think it's additionally interesting that the industry started talking about intentionally slowing down, right when I'd expect it to do that naturally (unless they move on from the LLM path). That makes free, login-less access comparatively much more valuable.

It is faster in the end tho

https://fixupx.com/MGAldys4/status/2100144298029449331

Hey OEMs, why not give up instead, offer an official unlock flow instead of adding a major motivator for rooting your devices that shows how vulnerable they are?

Galaxy Store in the US will receive lots of GP-only apps due to a ruling there. An unanswered question remains, what'll happen with apps enrolled into PairIP?

(I'm posting this not to forget to follow up when I get the answer)

From how I'd interpret the FAQ, it allows you to bind an external camera into ID 0 or ID 1, making this device much more versatile than a usual smartphone connected to external camera.

https://github.com/koaaN/DeepTest2.0
Supposedly this still works if you're unpatched against GhostLock

https://support.apple.com/en-us/127848

Apple officially implemented a hand-warmer mode as means of dropping the battery charge below 20Wh, alongside a setup wizard charge state info availability to allow them to skip shipping restrictions.

There's something I wanted to say for a long time regarding PWM sensitivity. I'm largely agnostic about this topic, but at the same time, everything wrong with display output is close to my heart and I can surely list at least one source of flicker that's outside of widely discussed characteristics of PWM itself.

If you ever looked at an OLED in the dark, you might've visually noticed a flicker at the moment of refresh rate switch, whenever you leave the screen idle for a second. Sometimes it's minimal, sometimes it's dramatic. OEMs are aware of their existence, but their solutions to this problem tend to be merely a bandaid. Whenever the brightness drops below 30~50%, they tend to force a constant refresh rate on you.

There is another way. Something the people with cameras recording displays at short exposure time are so close to discovering, and yet I'm yet to see it mentioned even once. Keep the main refresh pulse (the one you'll always see even at max brightness, even with DC dimming on) unchanged through refresh rate changes.

That's it, I'd want to end this post here. Obviously, the difficulty of implementing that may vary between display controllers, and who knows, maybe some of them would have to be fed with duplicate frames. Regardless, the reason of on-switch flicker is a physical change that follows the commands asking for it. The Tearing Effect pulse is what we're talking about in particular. From driver's standpoint, it makes some sense to reduce their count, but physically, on an OLED, the only solid way to make the panel look constant is to also keep these pulses constant too.

Mi 17 has a setting that increases their count from up to 120 to up to 360 per second. Yes, "up to", it sucks. They had the greatest opportunity of keeping the panel look constant, such a config would allow switching seamlessly even between 120Hz and 90Hz modes, and yet the RR changes are evident in lowlight and to camera. If done right, their hardware would allow them to completely eliminate flicker visible to camera exposing at 1/360s and therefore, imo, also to naked eye, as image persistence would do its job.

Funnily enough, Google did provide a way to achieve what I'm saying without involvement of the panel, but it'll be a few extra years until this source of flicker disappears.

https://source.android.com/docs/core/graphics/arr