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- 'Fortnite', NFL team up to add skins and gear to the game starting Friday
- iPad Pro Reviews Roundup: Blazingly Fast With a More Balanced Design, But Some Face ID and USB-C Quirks
- iPhone XR demand reportedly forcing Apple to cut production expansion plans
| 'Fortnite', NFL team up to add skins and gear to the game starting Friday Posted: 05 Nov 2018 07:00 AM PST Are you ready for some football with your "Fortnite?" The NFL has huddled with publisher Epic Games to bring football gear to the massively popular online game. Players will be able to get NFL team outfits in the game's Battle Royale item shop beginning Friday. Once a player gets a uniform for any one NFL team, they can customize it with a jersey number each time they use it – and swap it out for a different team's helmet, jersey pants and cleats. So if for one game you are wearing New England Patriots gear, the next you'll be able to suit up as the Green Bay Packers without having to purchase a new uniform pack. Uniforms will be available for male and female characters and players can switch jerseys and numbers any time they use the outfit. "That is actually very exciting for us, with the avatars being available as females and being able to have females in NFL uniforms for the first time," said Rachel Hoagland, the NFL's vice president and head of gaming and eSports. Although players can change numbers, they won't see names on the back of the jerseys, neither their own usernames nor the names of NFL players.  More: Season 6 of 'Fortnite' is here: Everything you need to know More: 'I want to look like Tom Cruise': How free game Fortnite makes so much money In addition to all 32 NFL team jerseys, "Fortnite" will also have football-themed emotes, harvesting tools that resemble goal posts, pigskin-outfitted gliders, and male and female referee outfits. Referees will emerge as emotes for first downs and to signal touchdowns. "It's just a way to bring some fun and some pop culture relevance to the game," Hoagland said. The NFL-Fortnite deal represents the first time Epic has teamed up with an outside partner on special outfits inside the game. “We have so many football fans at Epic and we know a lot of the game’s fans share that same enthusiasm,” Mark Rein, co-founder of Epic Games, said in a statement. “Allowing our players to represent their favorite teams in the game was too cool of an opportunity for us to pass up, and we couldn’t be happier with how they turned out!”  NFL team outfits can be purchased like other skins from the Battle Royale Item Shop using in-game currency called V-Bucks, which can be earned in the game or purchased with real-world cash. Skins typically cost 1,200-1,500 V-Bucks, or $12 to $15. There will be three male and three female variations of avatars to purchase. The new NFL outfits will be priced comparable with other skins. "Fortnite" has already cemented itself among many NFL players and other athletes. Professional players in football, soccer and other sports have broken out into "Fortnite" celebration dances during real-world sports events. And back in March, the Internet buzzed when rapper Drake and Pittsburgh Steelers star JuJu Smith-Schuster joined "Fortnite" expert "Ninja" during a gameplay session on game streaming service Twitch. The NFL and Epic Games teamed up, Hoagland said, to give "our NFL fan audience a great way to express their fandom inside of the 'Fortnite' game ... and to really tap into this cultural phenomenon that we have seen now for the past year." Follow USA TODAY reporter Mike Snider on Twitter: @MikeSnider. |
| Posted: 05 Nov 2018 04:59 AM PST The first wave of reviews of Apple's redesigned iPad Pro were published this morning. We've collected some of the key takeaways below. The new upgraded 11-inch and 12.9-inch iPad Pro models feature edge-to-edge displays that do away with the Home button, slim bezels all the way around, and a TrueDepth camera system that enables Face ID. Apple's new iPad Pro models also work with the Apple Pencil 2 and revamped Smart Keyboards.
Apple says this is the iPad it's wanted to build all along, and I'm not surprised. All the horsepower tucked away inside (and there's a lot of it) is more accessible because of this streamlined design, and I don't think I could go back to an iPad that wasn't this trim. The overall aesthetic is much more businesslike and less 'friendly' in that very curvy sort of Apple way. I like it, a lot. The flat edges are pretty clearly done that way to let Apple use more of the interior space without having to cede a few millimeters all the way around the edge to unusable space. In every curved iPad, there's a bit of space all the way around that is pretty much air. Cutting off the chin and forehead of the iPad Pro did a lot to balance the design out and make it more holdable.On the Liquid Retina display: Apple's doing all the color management and individual color calibration you expect here, so iPad Pro looks dead accurate — so much so that, like iPhone XR, it can be hard to tell Apple LCD from Apple OLED in anything but the deep blacks and the off-axis. And yeah, that's still impressive. Apple keeps saying the iPad Pro now has an "all screen design" that "goes from edge to edge," but let's just be honest: nothing about these bezels is edge-to-edge. It is, however, an extremely nice 264ppi LCD screen, and I continue to be a fan of Apple’s fancy technique to round off the corners of LCDs.On Face ID: It works well, and doesn’t require that cut-out notch on the screen like the iPhone. It’s not quirk-free, though. We usually hold our iPhones in a portrait (vertical) orientation because that’s just how they fit in our hand. With an iPad like this, you almost always use two hands, and that means there isn’t really a "right" or "wrong" way to hold it. From time to time, my hands would sometimes accidentally block the Face ID camera when I held it in landscape (widescreen) orientation. And if I’m lounging around, my face may also be out of view. As I’ve gotten used to keeping my head in front of the tablet screen, and my hands away from its front-facing camera, Face ID evolved from a hindrance to a helpful, secure aid.On the second-generation Apple Pencil:
The new Apple Pencil has the same tip and core technology as the original but just about everything else has changed. There's no cap on the back to lose anymore and no Lightning plug either. It charges inductively now by magnetically piggy-backing right onto the side of the iPad Pro. It uses a series of magnets carefully arranged with alternating poles to force precise alignment and, when it gets it, locks into place with a satisfying, AirPods style thunk. We had a few issues with the Pencil. The first is with synchronisation: when it clips on magnetically, it's supposed to pair with the iPad Pro (which ours did) and then be ready to use when removed (which ours did not always do). It also came unclipped easily when the iPad Pro was taken out of a rucksack, with the Pencil slipping off into some dark recess rather often.On the USB-C port that replaces a Lightning connector: Included in the box is a 18W USB-C charger that means you can charge much faster and if you're a heavy user you'll need it. Using USB-C means you can charge it with your MacBook charger and it also supports reverse charging - so you could use it to charge your iPhone if your battery is low.
I tried a handful of USB-C hubs with an assortment of USB-A, HDMI, card readers, and Ethernet ports, and everything worked as intended... other stuff didn’t work, though: printers didn’t do anything. A Native Instruments Maschine mk3 audio controller sat in silence. A Beyerdynamic USB-C microphone only worked when we used an A-to-C cable plugged into a hub. USB-C is still kind of messy and weird, so you’ll just have to try things and see what works for you.On the iPad Pro's battery life: Battery life is also as excellent as on previous iPads. Apple advertises "up to 10 hours" for mixed usage and I got just about exactly that for reading, playing some games, watchings lots of YouTube and Netflix, and typing out some of this review. More intensive apps like Rush CC and iMovie will drain your battery quicker, so keep that in mind. But even still, I still got around 7-8 hours while working with pro-level apps.On an iPad Pro replacing a laptop computer:
It doesn’t feel like the world is ready to treat my iPad as an equal to a PC yet—even if that iPad is a lot more powerful and user friendly. Now that Apple has declared the iPad is a PC, it should take more of the guardrails off of iOS.The iPad Pro can be purchased from the Apple online store and it will be available in retail locations starting on November 7. Pricing on the 11-inch iPad Pro starts at $799 for 64GB of storage, with 256GB of storage available for $949, 512GB of storage available for $1149, and 1TB of storage available for $1549. Models with cellular connectivity are available for an additional $150 over the base price for each storage tier. |
| iPhone XR demand reportedly forcing Apple to cut production expansion plans Posted: 05 Nov 2018 05:04 AM PST Apple, after seeing allegedly poor demand for the iPhone XR, has reportedly told assembly partners Foxconn and Pegatron to stop any preparations the firms are making for new smartphone production lines specifically for the recently-launched model.  Apple CEO Tim Cook at a Chinese Foxconn factory. The iPhone XR, Apple's latest iPhone release from late October, has been available for only a short amount of time. While the manufacturing of major products could prompt an expansion of production to cope with increased demand, similar plans to do the same for the new iPhone are said to have been scrapped. A source familiar with the situation told Nikkei Asian Review "For the Foxconn side, it first prepared nearly 60 assembly lines for Apple's XR model, but recently uses only around 45 production lines, as its top customer said it does not need to manufacture that many by now." It is claimed the reduction would mean Foxconn would produce around 100,000 fewer units per day, which the source claims is between 20 percent and 25 percent lower than the "original optimistic outlook." Pegatron, Apple's other main iPhone XR assembler, is also said to be suspending its plans to increase production, and is waiting for more information from Apple. "The utilization for the XR production is not reaching its maximum capacity now," advised the source. Third iPhone assembly partner Wistron was also previously asked to stand in for a rush of orders if necessary, but the supply chain source suggests no orders will be provided to the company over the holidays. A month ahead of the iPhone XR's release, a report claimed Apple was planning to increase production after the initial launch period and into December, with the model anticipated to make up 50 percent of production. Analysts have estimated initial sales of around 9 million units in the first weekend, beating the iPhone 8's launch, but Rosenblatt Securities' Jun Zhang advised to investors he believed there to have been "weak pre-orders" and would start reducing production in November and December for all of its new models. While the iPhone XR orders are allegedly dropping, Apple is apparently asking for more iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus handsets to be produced. "Suppliers of iPhone 8 and iPhone 8 Plus are getting a combined order of around 5 million more units," a report source advised. Previously set for 20 million units, the report claims this now brings the total orders to Foxconn and Pegatron for both older models up to 25 million units. Apple is now said to be reviewing the demand for iPhones on a weekly basis, the source added, in order to quickly adjust orders to match the market. Changes in production levels after launch are not an unexpected phenomenon, as manufacturers typically try to produce enough to cover demand without making too many or too few units. As the source of such stories stem from unnamed sources within the supply chain, and sometimes with varying accounts between publications, there is no guarantee that the reduction claims are in fact true. Specifically, the Nikkei Asian Review has a mixed track record on details of Apple's manufacturing plans. It also isn't clear how any "cutbacks" now compare to previous seasonal adjustments.</span> |
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