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What's good?
Brian Tong here.
And welcome to the Apple Byte for everything good and bad inside the world of Apple.
It's the week of reviews for the Apple watch series 3 and iPhone 8. So, let's just jump in.
Now, the biggest talk right now is surrounding the Apple watch series 3, which had a majority of positive reviews.
But a few pointed out a major issue where it's LTE connectivity Just isn't good enough when it comes to switching off when it's connected to the phone and then using LTE.
The [UNKNOWN] says sometimes it took many minutes to find LTE, sometimes it didn't work at all.
Doesn't look like I have service out here.
Yikes.
Now it got the point where Apple issued an official statement saying, we have discovered that when Apple Watch Series 3 joins unauthenticated Wi-Fi networks without connectivity, It may at times prevent the watch from using cellular.
We are investigating a fix for a future software release.
So Apple's gonna fix this.
The question is, how long will it take to get that fix done.
And it makes me really wonder, did they really just Test this in Apple headquarters and didn't see this coming at all?
Like, this is new to them?
That we already know the battery life is going to be poo poo when it's only using LTE with a one-hour life for talk time.
You know what?
That's expected.
But it's gotta work on those small trips to the store or supermarket or working out.
And if it's not, What's the point.
And let's be on this.
When most of you got your first Apple watch you were playing with it constantly and touching it so much in the first two weeks that the battery drain super fast.
And then normalize after it fit in to a normal routine.
After you got over the honeymoon phase.
Kinda like.
In real life.
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Now I'm getting mine this Friday, it's the device I was most excited about from the keynote.
So I'll just have to find out how well it really works or doesn't work for me.
And just another thing, WatchOS 4 is a whole lot slower on a first-gen Apple watch.
Just be ready for it, it kinda reminds me of what it used to be like to get a new iOS on an older phone back in the day.
All right, the iPhone 8-inch 8 Plus reviews are in, and positive across the board.
With the power from its new A11 bionic chip, Truetone display, and wireless charging.
But the real star is the camera on the 8 Plus, and it's really a preview of what you can expect on the iPhone 10.
Now we sent CNET's own photographer, James Martin, out with the iPhone 8 Plus, where he took over 2,000 photos.
James said, with the new sensor, HDR delivered better details in highlights and shadows.
HDR is always on, signaling Apple's deeper commitment to computational photography with the iPhone 8 Plus.
That's different from the iPhone 7 Plus, Which gave you the option to set HDR to auto off or on.
And you know what?
Those pictures do look very nice.
Now the question is, who should upgrade to the 8 or 8 plus?
Like, generally if you're an owner From a 7 or 7 Plus, there's no major gotta have feature difference to the 8 or 8 Plus, so it's not worth it to make that jump.
You should be fixed on the iPhone 10, if the price doesn't hold you back or wait until next year's iPhone Dos Equis.
And really, Most people have their eyes set on the 10, but going from a 6s or lower to an 8 is a big jump that's going to make a huge difference, so for you, that's worth it.
But, then there's the camp that just buys the newest, top of the line stuff, like me, and you know what?
Apple likes that group a lot, but I did skip the 4S because that phone was not worth it at all.
All right when a new phone comes out, everyone loves the benchmark tests, and I can tell you the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and 10 absolutely just destroy anything the Android world has to offer.
Now you can see the Geek bench for single core score performance here that hits above 4,000 for the new A11 bionic based phones.
And then the performance from the current crop of high-end Android phones, that's not even close.
Now, let's look at the Multi-Core performance where A11-based phones have pretty much a score of 10,000 and compare that to the Multi-Core scores of the best Android phones they have to offer.
Again, Apple just obliterates them.
And the reality is that this isn't an indication of real world performance and day to day use but it feels like Apple is future proofing itself and giving it a lot more room to do a whole lot more with this new architecture in the future.
Now Apple can brag here but when it comes to gigabyte LTE, Apple is a no show and they chose not to be able to tap into the super high speed carriers are building into their networks today There are 10 Android phones on board right now, including the Galaxy S8, the Note 8, LGB30 and others that can reach this theoretical peak speed of 1 gigabit per second.
Now, that's fast enough to download a two-hour movie in 15 seconds.
Apple confirm they do support LTE advance that has a theoretical peeks with a 500 Mbps.
That's fast but not anywhere close to a Gigabit.
Now carriers are making a big push for this.
We'll see if it being rolled out.
Out to more and more markets next year.
We know it's not broadly available right now, and surprise, Apple was late to 3G and LTE as well.
But this is important, remember, the modem fiasco from last year's iPhone 7, Qualcomm's chip can hit the gigabit speed.
Intel's current modem chip can't.
You might not care right now, but you will in a year or two, when your iPhone can't use gigabit LTE because This is tech that will actually make your phone faster later in its life.
Alright, if we're looking forward and beyond iPhones and Apple Watches, and to the next generation of Macs, reports from DigiTimes and Patently Apple says Intel Has delayed the launch of its next gen Cannon Lake processors until the end of 2018, putting their release a full 18 months behind their original target.
Now, this will likely have Apple move towards a less efficient copy like processors for the next MacBook Pro and it would also require them to stick with LPDDR 3 RAM Limiting the memory of the machines to 16 GB.
Now, that was a big knock on the 2016 Macbook Pros.
Cannonlake supported DDR4 would have increased that max memory to 32.
Now, Apple could skip over the Cannonlake and make the jump to Intel's Ice Lake processors, but that would happen in late 2018 To 90 and there's nothing Apple can do about.
So you know what?
That's a bummer.
But before we go, let's leave on a high note with CNet's own Scott Sine who is playing with the new AR kit ikey app which is amazing.
And using it to place a variety of furniture pieces underground at the New York City subway.
That's just great.
All right, that's going to do it for this week's show.
You can email us at theapplebyte@cnet.com or tweet me @briantong.
Thanks so much watching.
We'll catch y'all next time for another byte of the apple.
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