Tech Trend 247

Apple just released iOS 10.1, the first major update to the iPhone and iPad's mobile operating system since iOS 10 launched in September.

For iPhone 7 Plus users, the update officially brings Portrait mode, the camera feature that creates photos with a blurred-out background. Portrait mode will continue to be an ongoing public beta, but iPhone 7 Plus users no longer need to install the public beta in order to get it.

As always, the easiest way to update your iPhone, iPad or iPod touch to iOS 10.1 is to go to Settings > General > Software Update and download it over-the-air (OTA).

iOS 10.1 weighs about 200MB and we recommend connecting to a Wi-Fi network to download adn install it instead of eating into your data plan.

If the update is taking forever to download, your best option is to try again later when Apple's servers aren't being slammed by everyone simultaneously downloading it.

Alternatively, you can also connect your supported iOS device to your PC or Mac and update through iTunes. 

The full iOS 10.1 release notes from Apple include:

iOS 10.1 is available for the following iOS devices:

• iPhone: iPhone 5, iPhone 5C, iPhone 5S, iPhone SE, iPhone 6, iPhone 6 Plus, iPhone 6S, iPhone 6S Plus, iPhone 7, iPhone 7 Plus

• iPad: iPad 4, iPad Air, iPad Air 2, iPad mini 2, iPad mini 3, iPad mini 4, iPad Pro 9.7, iPad Pro 12.9

• iPod touch: iPod touch (sixth-generation)

As a precaution, we also recommend backing up your data with iCloud or to a computer via iTunes beforehand to prevent any accidental data loss during the update process. It's rare you'll lose any data, but it's always better to be safe than sorry.

Google Photos is also a great way to keep a backup of all your photos and videos. If you go with the free tier, you'll be able to store an unlimited amount of photos at up to 16 megapixels and video at up to 1080p full HD resolution; to store video at up to 4K resolution, you'll need to pay for storage.

A surfer from the South Coast of New South Wales, Australia, has captured footage of the aftermath of a car fire he claims was caused by his week-old iPhone 7 on Thursday. 

Mat Jones told media outlets he wrapped the phone in some clothes on the seat of his car, while he went for a surf. By the time he returned, his vehicle was severely fire damaged. 

Jones is adamant the flaming Apple product was responsible for the starting the blaze, telling 7 News he had not damaged the phone or used a dodgy charger since buying the new model. 

"Here's the phone. Total burnout," he says in the video he recorded of the incident. 

"As I look into my car you could not see inside the car. All the windows were just black," he said according to the news program. "Ash was coming from inside the pants. Once you unwrapped the pants, the phone was just melting inside of it." 

While there's currently no evidence to suggest that the iPhone 7 "exploded" as some publications are claiming, it wouldn't be the first alleged explosion on record, the most recent Australian example being when a Sydney man fell off his bike and onto his butt, claiming his iPhone exploded on impact like a "mini bomb."  

Overcharging, puncturing or otherwise severely damaging the phone are all possible reasons why an iPhone 7 might catch fire. 

Chances of this happening could very well be heightened if the phone were placed in an excessively hot environment, such as in the back of a hot car on an Australian beach.

Apple has confirmed to Mashable that they are aware of Mat Jones' complaint and are investigating the incident.  

Before the mobs come out and put a hex on me, remember that photography and image quality is subjective. What looks better to me might not to you.

That said, let's get on to the camera comparisons between Google's new Pixel and Pixel XL and the iPhone 7/7 Plus and Samsung Galaxy S7/S7 Edge.

On paper, Google, Apple and Samsung's flagship phones appear to have the same cameras: 12 megapixels on the back. The front cameras differ in resolution: 8 megapixels for the Pixels, 5 megapixels for the S7 Edge and 7 megapixels for the iPhone 7.

But as I've said a million times and I'll say a million times more: megapixels (aka resolution) aren't everything. Having more megapixels doesn't make a camera necessarily better. Resolution matters, but if it's at the detriment of image quality and performance, what's the point?

To me, the best phone camera has to be a few things:

• Fast to autofocus and capture: Because you don't want to miss a shot.

• Produce realistic colors with wide dynamic range: Because reality is not a comic book

• Produce sharp details with little image noise: Because details matter.

• Take great low-light photos: Because we like the dark and we like photos in dark places.

The iPhone 7 checks off all of these. Its cameras and image quality are well balanced across the board. The iPhone 7 Plus also has a fancy dual-lens camera that gives it 2x optical zoom and a fancy Portrait mode. Samsung's Galaxy S7/S7 Edge is better with low-light performance and the camera is faster to launch and autofocus, but it also saturates colors more.

The Pixel and Pixel XL's cameras falls somewhere in-between the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7. They're super fast. Images look incredibly crisp and have great dynamic range and low-light performance is damn good. So what's not to like? I'm not a fan of the oversaturated colors, but that's just me.

Testing method:

I left all camera settings on their defaults. In the past, I've always turned off HDR on all smartphone cameras before shooting with them, but I've now had to change that testing method since most people never bother to fiddle with them.

Not only that, but phones rely heavily on software processing to help produce the final photos. HDR+ is so vital to the Pixels' final image quality that my reviewers guide actually warned me that turning it off would result in poorer-looking photos and slower camera performance. Yikes!

As such, all photos below were shot with HDR set to auto. I couldn't tell you which ones actually had HDR on or off and I don't really care because what you see is what the camera considered the best shot.

Way warmer tones

The Pixel cameras' biggest weakness is color reproduction. Android is doing so much processing to the images that all the colors end up artificially pumped up and oversaturated. I've noticed it's a common symptom that plagues most Android phones like the Galaxy S7 and LG G5 and OnePlus 3. 

How is it that in 2016 no phone maker can match the iPhone's realistic colors?

I personally don't like the saturated colors. They don't look real. Skies are always way too blue. Yellows are too deep. Reds all blend into each other. I'll take photos with lifelike colors over saturated colors any day.

But if you're into the boosted colors or crank up the saturation in post anyway, you'll love the Pixel's  pictures.

Compare these two photos below. Just look at how much bluer the sky in the upper right corner is and how much more yellow the building is.

Here's another example where the blues and yellows are dialed up on the Pixel:

Turning off HDR+ mutes the saturation to some extent, but not by much. And turning HDR+ off on the Pixels isn't worth it since the camera start to lag a little.

Though most photos are way warmer than on the iPhone, sometimes the rear camera goes cooler for some reason. There just isn't much consistency for white balance:

But, at least the dynamic range is wider on the Pixel XL. The details on the fountain grass (that's the fuzzy plant) are softer on the Pixel XL compared to the iPhone 7, but look at how vibrant the purple leaves below it look. The same leaves in the iPhone 7 photo look totally dull in comparison.

Wider field of view

Compared with the iPhone 7, the Pixel XL's camera has a wider field of view thanks to its wider angle lens.

In English, it means you can fit more into a photo. The Pixel XL's wider angle lens makes it a more versatile camera for landscape photography.

It's perfrect for taking photos of tall landscapes, like the Bank of America building below:

The Pixel XL and Galaxy S7 Edge have roughly the same wide field of view:

Both photos look pretty sharp on their respective phone displays. It's only when you view them at 100% crops on a computer monitor that you can really see some of the differences in sharpness.

Honestly, the differences in sharpness are so minor, nobody but a nerd like me would care.

Here's another comparison showing how much more the Pixel XL cameras can capture:

And another close-up crop showing the barely noitceable sharpness differences:

Strong selfie game

As for selfies, I think the Pixel XL does a better job than the iPhone 7:

My skin looks smoother and healthier in the Pixel XL selfie since it's brighter:

Shoots well in low light

The Pixel XL performs quite good night shots. As expected, photos are a yellower than the iPhone 7:

You can click the below comparison to see how the Pixel XL stacks up against the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 Edge:

Notice how the sky is more washed out on the Pixel XL photo and the Galaxy S7 Edge turns all the bricks on the building in the left red:

The Galaxy S7 Edge preserves sharper details of the Empire State Building, but the image noise is greater, too:

See that building just between the water tower and that skinny high-rise condominium on the upper right? The Pixel XL brings the green color out best, but the rest of the image is kind of a wash.

Impressive video stabilization

While the camera attention is almost always focused on still photography, the Pixel XL boasts impressive video recording capabilities. Like most smartphones, it records at up to 4K resolution.

That's nothing special. What is crazy is how well the camera stabilizes video. Phones like the iPhone 7 and Galaxy S7 rely on optical image stabilization (OIS) to compensate for shake in different directions, but the Pixels uses electronic image stabilization (EIS) to outstanding effect. 

EIS is normally inferior to OIS, but not so on the Pixels. Through software even the shakiest footage appears smooth — even smoother than the iPhone 7. Here's a video stabilization comparison between the Pixel XL and iPhone 7 (both originally shot in 4K and then downsized to 1080p):

Best smartphone cameras ever?

I don't think so, but they're so damn close. The color saturation bothers me too much, but again, that's personal preference. And that's fine, too, because if you prefer the artificially amplified colors, then the Pixel cameras will be perfect to your eyes.

It feels like a total cop-out to say this, but we've reached a point where the differences — outside of color reproduction — between flagship phone cameras are so negligible that most people will be very happy with the image quality.

We're all benefitting in the end. Android cameras have finally caught up to the iPhone with comparable performance and picture quality. Years of competition have pushed all phone makers to innovate harder and faster and now we're all winning because we don't have to look at crappy photos and videos.

If you have an iPhone 7, you should download the latest version of iOS now.

Apple just released an iOS update for iPhone 7 and 7 Plus devices, which fixes a bug that apparently caused some users to "temporarily lose cellular connectivity."

This is the second iOS 10 update that has addressed issues with cellular connectivity. Previously, during the initial iOS 10 rollout, T-Mobile reported a bug that caused some iPhone 6 and iPhone SE users to lose signal. Apple later addressed that bug in a subsequent update. 

The latest iOS  update includes other bug fixes as well, though Apple hasn't elaborated on them. The iOS 10.0.3 update includes the same security content as the iOS 10.0.1 update, according to Apple's website. 

Despite these issues, though, iOS 10 is seeing wide adoption just a few weeks after its formal release. The update is already installed on more than half of iOS devices, according to the latest numbers from Cupertino, and third-party estimates suggest adoption has been growing rapidly as well. 

Though an important update, iPhone 7 owners will still need to wait a little longer for an iOS update that brings new features to their phones. Notably, a forthcoming update will bring a new Portrait Mode to iPhone 7 Plus devices later this year. That update is currently part of the iOS 10 beta release, which suggests it should be getting an official release soon. 

In the waning days of September, just before the five-year anniversary of the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, a man in France walked into an Apple Store and began methodically smashing iPhones with a metal ball. 

The casual destruction of the pricey devices — displayed as art, as Jobs, who died on Oct. 5, 2011, intended — into unrecognizable pieces of tech ephemera is a kind of metaphor for Apple's trajectory since his passing. As Apple has achieved the mainstream acceptance that it fought so long for, now, without Jobs around to curate the experience as "culture over mundane functionality," the shine on Apple's "tech couture" is, for some, beginning to dull. 

No, Apple is not primed for a fall. Sales are still strong and the iPhone remains the standard-bearer as rivals work to literally put out fires. But the notion that Apple has some intangible, special quality above other tech companies, as Jobs often framed its efforts, simply isn't holding up now that Jobs is no longer with us. 

Sure, Tim Cook has, by all accounts, done a stellar job running Apple. And no one expects him to replace his former boss. 

But as Apple moves forward into the next phase of its place in tech history, it's time to look outside of the company for the next bold visionary who will capture the imagination of the public using the same kind of "reality distortion fields" Jobs became famous for. 

And yet, even while innovation continues to emerge all around us, we still haven't found our "next Steve Jobs." Why is that? The reasons may not be immediately obvious as we continue to live in the still looming shadow of Jobs, so here are few possible answers. 

1. The big players are dominating the field 

The startup community in Silicon Valley and cities around the world is still vibrant and full of new hits, but the big players are regularly flooding our collective consciousness with new products and innovations that are dazzling, but not necessarily industry-changing. Among the establishment innovators are likes of Mark Zuckerberg (Facebook, Oculus) and Jeff Bezos (Amazon, Blue Origin), both dutifully shepherding us into the future. But the kind of fiery trailblazing we came to expect from Jobs is absent in their well-produced and shareholder-sensitive advances. 

Yes, there's always Mars-obsessed Elon Musk (Tesla, SpaceX), but his self-driving, robotic spacecraft ambitions are decades-long bets, rather than the more immediate disruptions Jobs often delivered. 

2. Cynicism is clogging the wheels of tech optimism

For a sense of where our pop culture sensibilities are regarding the tech world, we need only look to the popularity of HBO's Silicon Valley, a celebration of the ineptitude present in the real Silicon Valley, versus the relatively tepid reception enjoyed by AMC's Halt and Catch Fire, a series that captures the early optimism of Jobs' rise to fame. For some, talking blue sky tech futures as Kim Kardashian banks millions on apps and venture capitalists target esports franchises simply doesn't resonate in the same way it did before. 

3. We haven't found him or her yet 

Despite being inured to never-ending cycle of the next big tech thing, the truth is that many still do want to see the rise of a new Steve Jobs-style innovator. Such figures are intrinsic to the spirit of tech entrepreneurialism. 

So while institutional players push forward and the public settles into a state of tech-cynicism, somewhere, perhaps in an incubator in Los Angeles, or in a warehouse in Berlin, the next Steve Jobs already exists, and just hasn't had the spotlight directed her way yet. But that person is coming, sooner or later. 

4. Some have tried, but they haven't measured up 

The last time I heard the name Steve Jobs attached to a new, supposed innovator it was in reference to Elizabeth Holmes, the embattled founder of biotech startup Theranos who is now fighting for her business life in the wake of controversy. Similarly, Time magazine featured 24-year-old Palmer Luckey on a now infamous cover photo indicating that he would lead us to our VR future. But that was before the recent Reddit/Trump dustup that has some developers swearing off Oculus and led to Luckey taking to Facebook to explain himself.  

5. We're still mourning 

But even in the face of the aforementioned elements that impact the rise of a new Steve Jobs, the fact is that we're still trying to get over the loss of the original. 

In a Twitter post on Wednesday, Cook marked the anniversary of the passing of his friend and colleague with a heartfelt post, which included a quote from Jobs: 

"Most important, have the courage to follow your heart and intuition." Remembering Steve and the many ways he changed our world.

And just this past weekend, during an interview in Utah, Cook reminded the audience that Jobs' office at Apple remains untouched, and is still in the state it was when he was alive. That gesture serves as ongoing tribute to preserving the memory of one of the most important individuals in modern tech history. 

Next year, when Apple celebrates the 10th anniversary of the iPhone, the company is sure to launch a major effort to hail the memory of its iconic leader. Until then, many will, on social media and in their hearts, take a moment to consider the impact of Jobs, and how five years seems so long ago. 

iPad sales aren't what they used to be. With the release of the 12.9-inch iPad Pro and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, it's clear the iPad's future is for professionals.

Apple is rumored to be considering an "iPad mini Pro" with a 7.9-inch screen and the 9.7-inch iPad Pro could be replaced with a slightly larger 10.1-inch model, according to the often-reliable Japanese Apple blog Macotara.

An iPad mini Pro would have all the features that would make it a "pro" tablet, including the True Tone display introduced on the 9.7-inch iPad Pro, a Smart Connector on the side for magnetically connecting to accessories like a keyboard, quad stereo speakers, an improved 12-megapixel camera with True Tone flash and a new four-array microphone setup.

The iPad mini was last updated in 2015 with the iPad mini 4. As I wrote in my review, it's basically an iPad Air 2 with a smaller screen.

An iPad mini Pro would have all the features that would make it a "pro" tablet.

A larger 10.1-inch iPad Pro would break with the 9.7-inch display that has been the standard size for the iPad since it launched in 2010. It could get the same microphone upgrade the iPad mini Pro is rumored to have.

Moving to a larger screen could also give Apple the screen estate it needs to potentially increase the resolution. Not to mention a larger screen would give people more space to work on and create things. It's unclear if Apple might ditch the 4:3 aspect ratio if the larger iPad Pro turns up.

The rumor corroborates a previous report from KGI Securities analyst Ming-Chi Kuo that claimed Apple would introduce a larger iPad Pro; his report, however, claimed the tablet might have a 10.5-inch screen.

The 12.9-inch iPad Pro will also reportedly get upgraded with all of the iPad mini Pro's improvements.

Most notable of all is the new iPad Pros will reportedly keep their 3.5mm headphone jacks. Apple removed the jacks on the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus to make room for a larger battery, larger Taptic Engine and seal them for water-resistance.

Macotara believes the new iPad Pros will ship in 2017.

There are three reasons why wireless headphones mostly suck and I've steered clear of dropping serious dough on a pair: poor sound quality, frustrating pairing and weak battery life.

Beats' new Solo 3 wireless on-ear headphones solve all three. And they do so while looking stylish and recognizable on top of your head for hours.

Announced with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus, the Solo 3 headphones improve on the Solo 2 in every possible way. 

They're still a little pricey at $300, but for the wireless pairing convenience and battery life alone, I think it's money well spent. Sure, you could get a pair of sleeker B&O BeoPlay H8 or noise-cancelling Bose QC35 for $100 and $50 more, respectively, but the Solo 3 hit the sweet spot.

From the outside, the Solo 3 look virtually indistinguishable from the wireless Solo 2. Beats could have went with some more upscale materials like metal, but that would have also made them heavier. Plastic will have to do.

As they are, the Solo 3 are super light, the ear pads soft and the adjustable headband comfortable to wear all day long. They also fold up and fit snuggly into an included case. 

They're available in six colors to match the newest iPhone palette: white, silver, gold, rose gold, matte black and gloss black.

A battery LED indicator on the bottom of the right ear cup shows you how much battery power is left and there are play/pause and volume buttons embedded into the left ear cup (these are real buttons, not touch-sensitive gesture controls).

Beats provided a gloss black pair that matches my jet black iPhone 7. I'm just a breathing mask, cape and boots short of being Darth Vader every single time I step out of my home. Do not buy this color if you hate seeing smudges and fingerprints. 

Pairing magic

Ask any person with a pair of Bluetooth headphones and they'll tell you pairing can be a real bitch. You never know how well the pairing process will go. There's always something that creates interference. Or your computer can't detect the headphones. Or the battery died and the next time you go to pair them, they don't.

The Solo 3 are one of four pairs of new headphones (the others are the BeatsX, Powerbeats 3 and AirPods) from Apple and Beats that contain a tiny chip called the W1. The headphones are still connecting to devices via Bluetooth, but the W1 chip essentially acts like an assistant, talking to Apple devices (iOS devices, Macs and Apple Watch) to make pairing dead simple. 

And I really mean dead simple ... if you're pairing them to an iPhone running iOS 10, which I am. To connect, just press the power button for a second and place them near your iPhone. A screen slides up asking to connect, and that's it. No listening for beeps. No jumping into Bluetooth settings. No waiting for your headphones to appear on a list of nearby Bluetooth headphones. It even shows you the battery percentage.

Better, the headphones can pair with your Apple Watch, iPad or Mac easily using your iCloud login.

It feels good to finally be able to say, "It just works" — which is Apple's unofficial tagline of making complicated processes idiot-proof.

Unfortunately, if you're pairing the Solo 3 to iOS devices running iOS 9 or earlier, you won't get the pairing magic. Nor will you get it if you pair the headphones to an Android phone or other standard Bluetooth-supported devices; it's back to "pairing mode" and all that junk for you.

Battery champ

Aside from the W1's awesome pairing sauce, the chip also provides another major advantage: long battery life.

With the W1 chip, Beats was able to improve the Solo 2's 12 hours of battery life up to 40 hours, an increase of over 3x.

The best wireless headphones, some of which cost more than the Solo 3, only get up to half the battery life of Beats' new headphones. The only one that I could find that matches the Solo 3 on battery life is Sony's DRBTN20, which seems to have middling sound.

Beats was able to improve the Solo 2's 12 hours of battery life up to 40 hours.

On a weekday, I average about two hours of music listening during my commute to and from work, about four hours during the work day and another two hours when I'm at home. That's up to eight hours per day. I went five days before I ran the battery down from 100 percent. 

The BeoPlay H8s I tested last year needed to be charged every two days. The QC35s needed to be charged every three days for my listening habits.

If you don't listen to music as much as I do, you could easily go a few weeks without needing to charge the Solo 3 headphones again. Say you only listen to music on a two-hour roundtrip commute; that's up to 20 days of usage.

On top of that, the headphones have a "Fast Fuel" charging feature, which is basically like the quick charging features on many smartphones. With five minutes of charging, the headphones can give you up to three hours of listening time. That's more than enough to juice up in the morning and get you through your commute to work, where you'll be able to plug the Solo 3 in and charge them proper.

If you prefer, there's also a cable that plugs into the left ear cup for wired listening. The only downside is you'll need to supply your own 3.5mm headphone jack-to-Lightning or USB-C dongle if your phone doesn't have a headphone port.

Any way you slice it, the Solo 3 come out on top in terms of battery life. 

Solid sound

By now, you're probably thinking, "Ray, it's great they pair easily and battery life is awesome, but how do they sound? Do you they still sound like Beats?"

The answer is yes. But not like the old Monster-era Beats when they were tuned mainly for heavy bass and sounded terrible for everything else.

The Solo 2 reworked the sound for a wider range of music and the Solo 3 offer more or less the same audio experience. Mainly, they sound great on the low-end with dubstep and EDM and today's heavily audio-tuned vocals. 

That's intentional. Beats headphones are tuned for today's music, not Bob Marley or The Beatles. If you want a pure listening experience for the classics instead of Eric Prydz or Frank Ocean or Kanye, you'd be better served looking elsewhere. Beats headphones are made for modern digital music and your average millennial could care less.

So yeah, the Solo 3 sound like Beats and you know what? I have no issues with that. They're better than EarPods, but not as clean as more expensive wired headphones. For wireless headphones, they sound great to my "regular" ears in bed, on the subway and at work. 

They don't have noise-cancellation like the Bose QC35s, but the noise-isolation from the ear cups are quite good in blocking out ambient sound.

It's a mistake to dismiss the Solo 3 for a modest update because it doesn't look any different from the Solo 2. What Beats has achieved with the W1 chip in terms of convenience and power efficiency is game-changing. 

Years from now, when wireless headphones won't need to be charged for months, we'll be laughing at charging headphones every week (like I am now at existing wireless headphones that need to be charged every two to three days).

Audiophiles will never like Beats, but the company couldn't care less. Who needs to please audiophiles when the majority of people are streaming their music on Apple Music or Spotify, anyway?

The future of music listening will be wireless, but that doesn't mean good, old-fashioned wired headphones will disappear just yet.

Beats' newly announced EP on-ear headphones, priced at $129.95, are designed to get people to focus just on their music. They're available in four colors (white, black, blue and red) and offer a no-gimmick audio experience.

"The build quality on [the EP] is absolutely exceptional," Luke Wood, president of Beats Electronics, told Mashable. "The sound is beautiful and it's extremely simple. It's really the entry point into the brand."

I got to try a pair of EPs and briefly listened to some music and they're, well, they're Beats. They sound good with solid lows and good bass — better than the Solo 2s (with wire attached) in my opinion, but obviously nowhere near as good more expensive headphone geared at audiophiles. 

But again, they're not designed for audiophiles; the headphones have just enough kick to sound better than most average headphones and magnitudes better than the pack-in EarPods or earbuds that come with iPhones and other phones. 

The EPs fit comfortably on my head, the ear cups are cushiony, and the stainless steel-reinforced frame and friction adjustment sliders are solid. They definitely didn't feel cheap.

Like all Beats, the headphones have a built-in RemoteTalk control for mic, Siri and music playback controls.

One thing that Beats got right from the start was making its headphones fashionable. From offering tons of different colors to a clean design, Beats, whether you like them or not, look cool. All the cool kids wear them and everyone knows it.

And now they sound a lot better, too. So it might be good to clean your ears, maybe take a break from the 24/7 world and learn how to appreciate music. You might surprise yourself and hear things in your favorite songs that you never did before.

Apple may have slayed the headphone jack in one fell swoop, but the iPhone 7 rollout has not been entirely problem-free.

For one thing, those wee wireless AirPod headphones have been compared to everything from Snoopy to toothbrushes to tiny vibrators, and now there are reports the Lightning EarPods have a significant glitch. 

According to Business Insider, the wired headphones that come with the iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Plus can seize up, seemingly at random, minutes after connecting via the iPhone 7's Lightning port. Although music still plays, at that point volume adjustments, Siri or phone calls can no longer be controlled via the headphone dongle.

Although the glitch does not seem to be affecting every product, an Apple spokesperson reportedly told the publication the bug would be fixed with a software update. 

Apple also supplies buyers with a 3.5 mm headphone jack to Lightning adapter, although it's not clear if the same glitch is affecting listeners converting their old headphones for use with the iPhone 7.

This isn't the only teething pain affecting Apple's latest smartphone offering. 

There have been some reports of the phone hissing when in heavy use, although it doesn't seem to affect its function. Likewise, updating to iOS 10 accidentally put some people's phones into recovery mode, requiring them to wipe the devices's memory.

Mashable has approached Apple for comment.

Following that black and white iPhone 7 teaser video from last week, Apple has launched a new series of commercials promoting the iPhone 7 and the Apple Watch Series 2 and each one is, in true Apple tradition, a tiny work of art. 

The first is titled "Midnight," and it takes us on a trip with a skateboarder who has an eye for night photography. Designed to show off the iPhone 7's low-light powers, the one-minute mini movie is oddly intimate, even while touting the most talked about technology product on the planet. 

Next there's "Morning Ride," a 30-second dip into the world of a cyclist who, suddenly called by nature's pull, decides to emerge from his garage and go for a ride. The spot ends on an epic frame of storm clouds gathering in front of the biker. The message: Yes, the newly water-resistant iPhone 7 can survive the looming downpour. 

Finally, "Go Time" is Apple's new take on promoting the powers of the Apple Watch, and the breathtaking visuals are not only convincing, they're a tad inspirational. 

From surfing to basketball to swimming to yoga, we see the Apple Watch Series 2, and the Apple Watch Nike+ (with that distinctive, perforated band), put through the rigors of all manner of sports, and even a bit of meditation. Next to the device's apparent durability, the message here also tends to focus on the device's newly water-resistant capabilities. 

All this action is set to the music of Nina Simone's "Sinner Man," which transports the video from common commercial into cultural message territory, familiar ground for Apple. 

That message appears to be focused on the notion of bringing our technology further into the natural parts of everyday life, whether that means thunderstorms, ocean waves or the usually dark, photo-obscuring pitch of night. 

However, there's something different about these latest spots. Sure, Apple is known for producing slick television commercials, but these feel a lot more like short films. The devices are at the center of each video, but you actually feel like you're peeking in on a part of a story. 

This could be a mere change in directors and/or producers, or it could be yet another indication of Apple's increasing interest in producing original content. 

If it's the latter, then we may be in for a interesting ride from Apple, as these new spots are about as well shot and visually engaging on a narrative level as your favorite cable television drama or indie film.  

Amidst all the crazy news at Apple's iPhone event last week, the announcement of new emoji may have gotten lost in the shuffle. (Remember the shuffle? RIP.)

As part of the iOS 10 update that rolled out this week, a slew of new – and for the most part, progressive – emoji are available on your iPhone.

With so many new emoji sliding into your DMs, we created a guide on when each is most appropriate to use. 

Here are our suggestions on when you should use all of the shiny new emoji. Happy texting!