Apple Releases iOS 8.2 With Apple Watch Support

Today at their Spring Forward event Apple made a number of announcements. One smaller but still important update to come from the event was the release of iOS 8.2. The main purpose of iOS 8.2 is to add support for Apple Watch so that devices are ready when it begins to ship next month. It includes the new Apple Watch application, and likely many changes under the hood to prepare devices for when the Apple Watch becomes available.

The Apple Watch application can’t do very much at the moment, but what I found interesting was the fact that the pairing process for the Apple Watch involves the use of the camera. The explore button on the bottom leads to videos and images about the Apple Watch, while the App Store section is currently a placeholder until the Apple Watch actually ships and applications begin to be put on the App Store.

In addition to the new Apple Watch features, the update also fixes several bugs and improves the stability of several applications. Below is the list of major changes provided by Apple, although one should note that there are often many small bug fixes and improvements that don’t make their way onto these changelogs.

• Apple Watch support

  • New Apple Watch app to pair and sync with iPhone, and to customize watch settings
  • New Activity app for viewing fitness data and achievements from Apple Watch; appears when Apple Watch is paired
  • Available on iPhone 5 and later

• Health app improvements

  • Adds the ability to select the unit of measurement for distance, body temperature, height, weight and blood glucose
  • Improves stability when dealing with large amounts of data
  • Includes the ability to add and visualize workout sessions from 3rd-party apps
  • Addresses an issue that may have prevented users from adding a photo in Medical ID
  • Fixes units for vitamins and minerals
  • Fixes an issue where Health data wouldn’t refresh after changing data source order
  • Fixes an issue where some graphs showed no data values
  • Adds a privacy setting that enables turning off tracking of steps, distance and flights climbed

• Stability enhancements

  • Increases stability of Mail
  • Improves stability of Flyover in Maps
  • Improves stability of Music
  • Improves VoiceOver reliability
  • Improves connectivity with Made for iPhone Hearing Aids

• Bug fixes

  • Fixes an issue in Maps that prevented navigating to some favorite locations
  • Addresses an issue where the last word in a quick reply message wasn’t autocorrected
  • Fixes an issue where duplicate iTunes purchased content could prevent iCloud restore from completing
  • Resolves an issue where some music or playlists didn’t sync from iTunes to the Music app
  • Fixes an issue where deleted audiobooks sometimes remained on device
  • Resolves an issue that could prevent call audio from routing to car speakers while using Siri Eyes Free
  • Fixes a Bluetooth calling issue where no audio is heard until the call is answered
  • Fixes a timezone issue where Calendar events appear in GMT
  • Addresses an issue that caused certain events in a custom recurring meeting to drop from an Exchange calendar
  • Fixes a certificate error that prevented configuring an Exchange account behind a third-party gateway
  • Fixes an issue that could cause an organizer’s Exchange meeting notes to be overwritten
  • Resolves an issue that prevented some Calendar events from automatically showing as ‘Busy’ after accepting an invite

As you can see, there are a fair number of improvements in this release. The size of the update will depend on your device. On an iPhone 6, the OTA update came in at 476MB, while the release for the iPad Air 2 was only 391MB due to the fact that it doesn’t include the new Apple Watch application.

Panasonic at MWC 2015: Lumix CM1 Hands-On

At MWC 2015 this year we had the opportunity to pass by the Panasonic booth while they were holding a media event for the Lumix CM1 camera/smartphone hybrid. These “big-camera” smartphones have been around for quite a while, most notably from Samsung with their Galaxy Camera or Galaxy K Zoom product lines. The biggest disadvantage from those products were that the phone-side of the devices were always rather large spec downgrades from their flagship “pure” smartphone counterparts. 

The Lumix CM1 offers some fresh air by trying to not skimp on the phone hardware itself, offering a Snapdragon 801 as the brains of the device. While this isn’t the newest and most powerful SoC from Qualcomm, it still offers a very high-end experience over other products such as Samsung’s alternatives. It is pretty clear that Panasonic is trying to position itself the CM1 into against the K Zoom as both are the only Android camera hybrids which also offer cell connectivity.

It’s on the optical system that Panasonic didn’t venture too far, as the CM1 offers no optical zoom at all. The Leica lens promises excellent optical characteristics such as a reduction in vignettes, flaring, ghosting and chromatic inconsistencies while increasing resolution and edge-to-edge sharpness. The lack of OIS may also be eyebrow-raising as we’re starting to see the technology adopted in current conventional flagship smartphones. Having a large image sensor and the capability to shoot in up to ISO 25600 mode here may help to reduce exposure time, and thus possible blurriness due to shaking, but it’s still something that needs to be tested out in practice. Panasonic employ their own dedicated ISP named the “Venus Engine”, from which we might also see some advanced post-processing done to improve image quality.

The device offers a 4.7″ 1080p LCD screen that is by far the sharpest in its category. Panasonic did great here as we’ve seen camera-oriented smartphones employ lower resolution screens. From the small hands-on time, visibility seemed good as was the colour accuracy. 

The device ships with Android KitKat 4.4, a rather disappointing aspect for a device shipping in 2015. There is very little OS customization and Panasonic relies more on stock Android looks and features. It’s on the camera side where the CM1 shines, as we see a camera application that basically mimics every feature found on standard Lumix dedicated cameras. We have the full breadth of controls that you would expect from a full-featured camera, including exposure, aperture, ISO, white-balance, focus-modes and the vast plethora scene-modes that would put competitors such as the K Zoom to shame. We also have full RAW capture, a feature avoided in existing camera-oriented smartphones up until the release of Android 5.0 and Camera2 API compatible devices.

The camera lens is surrounded by a “manual control ring”, a turnable ring which can be set up, depending on shooting mode, to control different functions such as shutter speed, aperture or ISO. I found the ring to function very well and it certainly helps when you want to take very quick adjustments in (for example) the exposure while in manual mode. The device also features a dedicated hardware camera shutter button and a camera-quick access button which can be used to open up the camera app in sub-one second time even when waking up the device.

The general feel of the device was extremely solid, at 203g and 15.2mm thickness the device felt quite hefty. The faux-leather texture found on the front and sides give it a very good grip and it doesn’t detract from the rather premium feel of the camera-phone. Although the device is quite thick and heavy, we’re only seeing a 2600mAh battery employed. I’m not sure how the internal hardware is set up, but I expected it to much larger than that when I initially first picked up the unit.

The LED flash was probably the most disappointing aspect, as it simply really can’t be considered a proper solution and even Samsung’s camera-phones employ Xenon flashes. I tried it out in the Panasonic booth and it is little more powerful than your standard smartphone flash.

On the bottom of the device we find a flap which covers the SIM and microSD slots. There are two contact pins right next to it which seems to be designed for dock-charging, although Panasonic didn’t have the corresponding accessories on display.

Gallery: Panasonic Lumix CM1 MWC 2015 Hands-On

The Lumix CM1 seems to be an interesting device which wants to position itself as a serious alternative to the K Zoom. We’ve seen quite a few Android-powered cameras announced in the past, but these two products remain the only ones which offer the true combination of point-and-shoot cameras with the option of cellular connectivity.

There seems to be no contest on the software side as Panasonic brings the years of experience from its Lumix brand to Android with little compromise. I’m not yet sure how image quality will pan out given the lack of an optical zoom and OIS, and it’s something we would have to extensively test in an eventual full review. On the phone side we have the hardware matching 2014’s flagship smartphones, which again, doesn’t match current flagship devices, but nevertheless narrows the spec gap which we’ve seen to be quite large on the K Zoom.

It all falls back down to pricing. With an MSRP of 899€ and availability only in certain European countries, the CM1 comes with a really steep price that is hard to reason with. It remains a niche product for those who really want the flexibility of a smartphone device, yet want to have a higher-end camera without actually carrying one around.

Lenovo at MWC 2015: VIBE Shot SmartPhone/Camera Crossover Announced

As part of our booth tour at Lenovo during Mobile World Congress, on display was the recently announced Lenovo VIBE Shot and we managed to get some hands-on time. The VIBE Shot is described by Lenovo as a ‘2-in-1 camera smartphone’ attempting to bridge a gap between smartphones and point-and-click cameras. The device attempts this by placing buttons on the sides of the smartphone similar to how a point-and-click would do so, as well as having a full-frame 16:9 16MP low light sensor and a tri-color flash.

The 5-inch full HD device includes optical image stabilization as well as providing simple and pro modes with a button adjustment on the top. Simple mode is equivalent to the auto mode on most cameras, whereas the pro-mode offers manual adjustments such as exposure, white balance, focus mode, saturation and more. Hardware under the hood includes an eight-core Snapdragon 615 (A57/A57) at a 1.7 GHz peak on the fast cluster with 3GB DRAM and 32GB of internal storage.

Battery capacity comes in at 2900 mAh, with LTE Cat-4 and Android 5.0. The device will be offered in a dual Nano-SIM arrangement, weighs 145g and comes in at 7.3mm thin. Storage is expandable, with guaranteed support of up to 128GB via a microSD.

The phone felt pretty solid in hand, and the thinness is remarkable. What wasn’t remarkable was the aluminium band on the back along the camera side, as it attracted fingerprints. The display unit had seen a lot of use, and it was quite hard to clean it.

The VIBE Shot will be available in red, white and grey, and come to Lenovo’s regular markets in June starting at $349.