After spending a month with the iPhone 11 Pro, let’s look closer at the top features of the new top-of-the-line Apple smartphones.

A13 Bionic

Apple’s A13 Bionic processor uses the same 7nm architecture as the A12 Bionic and has four high-efficiency cores and two high-performance cores.

But they’ve upped its power. The high-performance cores are 20% faster and consume 30% less battery while the high-efficiency cores are 20% faster and use 40% less battery.

Both the GPU and the neural engine are 20% faster and use less battery.

New colors

For the iPhone 11 line, Apple has mixed up the color scheme once more.

Some colors, such as space gray and silver have been around but now sport the svelte matte finish on the back coupled with the highly-polished sides.

Then we have midnight green that is entirely new to the iPhone line.

USB-C Fast Charge

To go with that “pro” moniker bestowed upon the latest iPhone, Apple has included the same 18W USB-C fast charger and USB-C Lightning cable that was included with the 2018 iPad Pro.

Apple touts that you can use it to charge your iPhone 11 Pro’s battery 50% in only 30 minutes.

Apple’s U1 chip

As a new addition, Apple has included the ultra wideband U1 chip. UWB is useful for location tracking in your immediate surroundings. Right now, not much supports that but Apple is utilizing it for AirDrop prioritization.

Point your iPhone 11 Pro at another iPhone 11 Pro and it jumps to the top of the AirDrop list.

We’re sure Apple has more in store for this in the future.

Wi-Fi 6

Up from 802.11ac, Wi-Fi 6 — or 802.11ax — will allow for faster speeds thanks to improved performance in crowded networks. Apple says on a Wi-Fi 6 network users will see up to 38-percent faster download speeds.

Of course, you will likely need a new router to take advantage of that.

Faster LTE 4G

It isn’t 5G, but iPhone 11 does feature 18-percent faster 4G LTE speeds on existing networks.

There are a lot of variables to test this out, but we will always take faster versus the alternative.

Battery

Battery life is outstanding on the new iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max. iPhone 11 Pro gets four hours more than iPhone XS and iPhone 11 Pro Max can get up to five hours more than the XS Max.

Those are some huge numbers and day-to-day, we’ve noticed it.

Super Retina XDR display

iPhone 11 Pro’s display clocks in at the same resolution as its predecessor, but ups all the other specs versus the iPhone XS. The new model now has a 2,000,000 to 1 contrast ratio, sustained brightness of 800 nits, and max brightness of 1200 nits for HDR content.

Live wallpapers

As is often the case, new iPhones mean new wallpapers.

With iPhone 11 Pro, we have a series of four new wallpapers that all feature a live animation as well as dark/light mode support. They are also somewhat color-matched to the different iPhone 11 Pro finishes.

Improved water resistance

Apple gave iPhone XS an IP68 water resistance rating, meaning it could be submerged in one meter of water for up to 30 minutes and it would be protected against harmful dust.

iPhone 11 Pro takes it a step further with the same IP68 rating, but can now be submerged up to four meters for a maximum of 30 minutes.

Along the lines of durability, we have water resistance.

Apple is claiming iPhone 11 Pro has the strongest glass on a smartphone. While we aren’t prepared to put that to the test on our own devices, stronger glass means that the front and back of your iPhone 11 Pro should be less prone to cracks and shattering than the year-ago models.

Ultra-wide lens

Ultra-wide angle lenses are becoming more popular, showing up on more flagship devices. That includes iPhone 11 Pro. It joins the existing wide-angle and tele lenses already outfitted.

This new lens can capture 170-degree shots which is great for epic landscapes or intimate close quarters.

Faster tele lens

Alongside the new ultra-wide, Apple has beefed up its other lenses. Starting with the telephoto lens. It now has a faster f/2.0 aperture. That will result in a quicker shutter in lower light which in turn means less grain.

Improved wide angle lens

The wide-angle lens was updated too with 100% coverage of Focus Pixels which means faster autofocus, particularly in low light.

Capture Outside the Frame

Now that Apple has three lenses to shoot from, they’ve created a new feature called “capture outside the frame.”

Here, when you are shooting on the wide-angle lens, it captures an extra image using the ultra-wide lens. These are merged, so when you need to level the photo, you can do so without losing image quality.

The same applies to shooting with the tele lens.

Night mode

With the new cameras and powerful A13 Bionic, new photo modes have come to the iPhone 11.

Most prominent is night mode. It couples a series of long and short exposure shots to create a combined image with much more detail and much less noise.

Deep Fusion

Deep Fusion is Apple’s name for its new computational photography tricks coming to the iPhone 11 with iOS 13.2.

The feature isn’t fully available yet, but we have gotten to try it out on the beta and in a middle-to-low light, photos should see much more texture than when shot without Deep Fusion.

It is automatically used and not a feature to toggle on or off, and the early looks are promising.

Portrait mode

Portrait mode uses two cameras to capture depth and create the amazing shots we’ve come to love. On iPhone XS, it used the tele and wide-angle lens, resulting in always a 2X zoom when taking these pictures.

With iPhone 11 Pro, portrait shots can now be captured at 2X, as well as 1X combining the wide and ultra-wide cameras.

QuickTake

In the camera app of iPhone 11 Pro, holding the shutter button no longer just captures burst photos. Rather, it instantly starts recording a video.

It records as long as you hold the button, or you can swipe to the right to lock it into recording. Alternatively, holding and immediately swiping to the left will trigger burst mode capture.

Audio zoom

This feature allows the microphone on your iPhone to match the audio with the amount of video zoom. As you zoom in closer to the subject, the accompanying audio will get louder as well.

TrueDepth Camera system

Lastly, the front-facing camera and TrueDepth Camera system were updated. It has a new 12MP sensor —up from 8MP.

It also has a wider field of view, up to 85 from 70 degrees for those group selfie shots.

4K video

The rear shooter is just as capable as it was on the iPhone XS. But, on iPhone 11 Pro, the True Depth camera system is now able to record 4K video at 60 frames per second.

Slofies

Apple’s newly-coined term seems fairly straightforward. Use the TrueDepth Camera system of the iPhone 11 Pro to capture slow-motion selfie videos at up to 120 frames per second at 1080p.

Total package

All of these features make the phone great. But, like we said when we reviewed the iPhone 11 Pro, most of the examinations have come down to that camera, and maybe the battery life.

Getting an iPhone 11 Pro for one, or all, of these features is absolutely a jump worth taking if the iPhone is integral to your daily life and your iPhone is feeling pokey.

Where to buy

Ready to purchase an iPhone 11 Pro? There are a variety of iPhone deals going on now at top wireless carriers.

iPhone 11 deals

• AT&T Wireless: Switch to AT&T and get up to $700 off with trade-in of eligible smartphone.
• Verizon Wireless: Get up to $500 off a new iPhone with select trade-in and Unlimited. Plus, switch with Unlimited and get $200 more.
• Sprint: Starting at $12.50 per month with Sprint Flex lease and select trade-ins.
• T-Mobile: Save up to $1,000 on the iPhone 11 Pro when you switch and trade in a qualifying iPhone.
• Walmart: Save up to $100 on the iPhone 11 Pro. Offer valid only on purchase with installment plan.
• Sam’s Club: Get a $150 Sam’s Club gift card when you buy and activate the iPhone 11 by Nov. 8.
• Visible: Get up to a $200 Prepaid Mastercard Virtual Account when you buy an iPhone 11 Pro and bring your phone number to Visible. Plus get 0% financing, no money down, no upgrade fees, and free overnight shipping for well-qualified customers.

Earlier this year, we introduced Automated Machine Learning (AutoML) in Power BI as Public Preview. Now, we’re happy to announce that AutoML in Power BI is generally available in all public cloud regions where Power BI Premium and Embedded is available.

Using AutoML in Power BI, business analysts without a strong background in machine learning can build ML models to solve business problems that once required data scientists. Most of the data science behind the creation of the ML models is automated by Power BI, while giving visibility into the process used to create your ML model to provide you with full insight. Since AutoML targets analysts who may not have prior experience building ML models, we have made a significant investment in adding automatic guardrails such as class balancing, training-test data split, cross-validation, missing value imputation, and high cardinality feature detection to ensure that the model produced has good quality.

Macaw, a Dutch full-service digital company, deployed automated machine learning in Power BI to quickly ingest sales data and train, validate, and invoke machine learning models directly in Power BI.  Dave Ruijter, Principal Consultant Data and AI at Macaw, shared that “The automated functionality within Power BI helps us scale how we infuse our solutions with AI capabilities. Now Macaw Power BI analysts can include machine learning in their solutions without involving a data scientist.” One of their customers, Mitch van Deursen, the Co-owner and Chief Information Officer at Shoeby says, “We now get answers to key business questions within five days, where normally modelling would take months. “ Read about their story here.

With the Public Preview release, AutoML in Power BI enabled users to:

• Train a machine learning model to perform Binary Prediction, General Classification, and Regression
• View the model training report
• Apply the ML model to their data, and view predictions and explanations

Since then, we have been improving and adding new capabilities to AutoML in Power BI.

Binary prediction support for non-Boolean outcomes

Earlier, AutoML expected the outcome field for a binary prediction model to be a Boolean value. We now also support non-Boolean values in the outcome field. In the wizard, you can directly choose the target outcome that you’re most interested in, saving you the preprocessing steps of converting it to Boolean.

Improved Feature Recommendation

We improved the statistical methods that suggest input fields that can be used for training the ML model. Auto ML now analyzes a sample of the selected entity, recommends fields, and shows the reasons for fields that are not recommended. If a certain field has too many distinct values or only one value, or low or high correlation with the output field, it would not be recommended.

Controlling training time

AutoML now allows you to control the time for training a model.

You can choose to decrease the training time to see quick results or increase the amount of time spent in training to get the best model. The former is useful when you are building a POC or for making sure that you have selected the right fields.

Improved training reports

Training reports have been improved to make them more readable. Additionally, reports are now generated two times faster.

Binary prediction reports now include a Cost-Benefit analysis tool. Given an estimated unit cost of targeting and a unit benefit from achieving a target outcome, it helps you identify the subset of the population that should be targeted to yield the highest profit.

Explainable AI

AutoML emphasizes the explainability of predictions to provide visibility into fields that are most important. It provides top predictors during training as well as explanations for each prediction that the ML model produces during scoring.

The Top Predictors section has been improved to show comprehensible feature breakdown so that you can easily validate that the model aligns with your business insights about the outcome field. In the house price prediction example below, the feature breakdown chart for “sqft_living”(on the right) shows that higher “sqft_living” values have higher house prices.

In addition to this, we have added support for text features in top predictors.

Explanations for predictions are now surfaced as a separate entity to make them easily accessible and readable. In order to make the model predictions interpretable, we show the contribution of every feature towards the prediction, and these contributions add up to the predicted value.

In the house price prediction example below, you can see that some features have a positive influence (in green), and other features have a negative influence (in red). Adding these contributions to a base value (average value of the house price in the training data in this case), gives you the predicted house price of $379,738, thus allowing you to easily explain these model predictions.

Using this explanations entity you can quickly build reports explaining model predictions. Automatically generated explanation reports will be available shortly.

Get started building you own ML Models

Here is a step-by-step tutorial that shows how to build your machine learning model using Auto ML. To learn more, refer to the documentation. If you have any questions or would like to get in touch with us about your use cases, pain points, please reach out to automlpowerbi@microsoft.com. We’d love to hear about your experiences, feedback, and ideas on how you’d like to use Auto ML in Power BI.

The latest Nintendo Download update for North America has arrived, and it’s bringing new games galore to the eShop in your region. As always, be sure to drop a vote in our poll and comment down below with your potential picks for the week. Enjoy!

Nintendo Switch

Disgaea 4 Complete+ (NIS America, Tue 29th October, $49.99) When the ruling powers of Hades are revealed to be corrupt, Valvatorez must spark a rebellion to bring them down! Armed to the teeth with dynamic, over-the-top gameplay and a horde of special features, this is the ultimate Disgaea!

Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD (SEGA, Tue 29th October, $39.99) Hold onto your bananas, because Super Monkey Ball: Banana Blitz HD is rolling your way! Experience the magic of one of the most beloved titles in the series, now remastered in HD! Head back into the fantastical world of Super Monkey Ball and take back your bananas from the space alien pirate king, Captain Crabuchin. Race through over 100 colorful stages and challenge your friends and family to 10 fan-favorite Party Games! Feeling like the fastest, most maneuverable monkey around? Try out Time Attack mode or the grueling Decathlon endurance run! Will you make it onto the scoreboard?

Atelier Ryza: Ever Darkness & the Secret Hideout (Koei Tecmo, Tue 29th October, $59.99) The concept of this title, the latest in the series to depict a new “Atelier” world, is “True-to-life youths that develop together, even if just a little bit”. It is the story of a girl and her friends who are about to become adults, discovering what is most important to them. To depict the story of the main characters discovering things they’ve never seen before, we’ve created fields with natural shadows that allow you to feel the breath of the world.

Close to the Sun (Wired Productions, Tue 29th October, 2019, $29.99) It’s 1897. Deep in international waters, the Helios stands still. Dark clouds loom overhead as unforgiving waves crash against the hull. Colossal effigies of gold, decorated with magnificent finery, stretch as far as the eye can see. Born of Nikola Tesla’s vision, the Helios serves as a haven for the greatest scientific minds. An unbound utopia for research, independent from state and isolated from the gaze of society.

Disney Classic Games: Aladdin And The Lion King (Disney Interactive, Tue 29th October, $29.99) Two of the most beloved Disney games of all time make their long-awaited return to modern consoles in Disney Classic Games: Aladdin and The Lion King! This unforgettable package of Disney classics is filled with tons of new features, enhancements, game modes, and display options, plus multiple versions of the games!

Harvest Moon: Mad Dash (Natsume, Tue 29th October, $29.99) Go solo or take along a few friends in this fast-paced farming frenzy! Harvest, fish, milk, and more as you fulfill orders to complete each level, but watch out for molten lava, raging boars, and other obstacles! Can you and your friends try to clear all the levels to restore the broken lighthouse?

Vampyr (Focus Home Interactive, Tue 29th October, $49.99) London, 1918. You are newly-turned Vampyr Dr. Jonathan Reid. As a doctor, you must find a cure to save the city’s flu-ravaged citizens. As a Vampyr, you are cursed to feed on those you vowed to heal. Will you embrace the monster within?

Switch eShop

Resident Evil 5 (Capcom, Tue 29th October, $29.99) Featuring Chris Redfield and his partner Sheva Alomar, as they venture to the heart of Africa to investigate an outbreak. Featuring single-player and co-op modes, this fully-loaded release includes all previously released DLC (Lost in Nightmares and Desperate Escape story expansions, Versus mode, extra figures and 4 costumes), No Mercy mode, as well as the new mode “The Mercenaries United” which combines the two fan-favorite modes, The Mercenaries and The Mercenaries Reunion for an even more intense experience.

Resident Evil 6 (Capcom, Tue 29th October, $29.99) Blending action and survival horror, Resident Evil 6 is a dramatic horror experience that cannot be forgotten. The game spans across various areas of the globe starring multiple playable characters, including fan favourites and new faces. Jump into the fray either solo or up to 4-player co-op in 4 dramatic chapters of the campaign or head into one of multiple extra modes such as Survivor that pits up to 6-players against one another in a heated battle.

〇× Logic Puzzle 1000 ! (Success, Today, $14.00) Simple but addictive! The Stick-out of brain training puzzle playing only with 〇 and ×! Simple logical puzzle with easy rules, filling 〇 and× in the cells ! There are 1000 quiz in 4 difficulties levels, try gradually the more difficult one, then fully enjoy the depth of LOGIC PUZZLE !

Anthill (Thunderful, Today, $9.99) Join the ranks of Anthill, a gorgeous strategy game from Image & Form – the studio behind the SteamWorld series! By drawing pheromone trails, you direct your ground forces to different destinations, working with streams of units rather than individual ants. Much like a tower defense game, your mission is to protect the hill as wave upon wave of enemy bugs are thrown at you.

Cat Quest II (PQube, Today, $14.99) CAT QUEST II is a 2D open-world action-RPG set in a fantasy realm of cats and dogs. Under threat from a continuing war between the cats of Felingard and the advancing dogs of the Lupus Empire, CAT QUEST II tells the tail of two kings, brought together against their will, on a journey of paw-some discovery to reclaim their thrones. Read our Cat Quest II review.

Creepy Brawlers (Mega Cat Studios, Today, $4.99) After a spectral hand pulls you out of your seat and into the silver screen, you become the underdog in an underworld championship. Lace up your gloves and get ready to duck, bob, and weave as you go toe to toe with a marathon of monsters. Better train like hell…

Dark Devotion (The Arcade Crew, Today, $19.99) Explore the secrets of a mysterious fallen temple and put your Templar faith to the test in Dark Devotion, where no sacrifice is too great in praise of your God. Measure your devotion and your bravery by journeying into deepest darkness for answers to questions that will challenge your very existence.

Dark Veer (Forever Entertainment, Today, $4.49) From the creator of Bedtime Blues and The Childs Sight “Time for bed sweetheart, it’s very late. But I won’t be able to sleep if you are away! I will be home before you wake up, it’s only for one week…” You try to sleep, but strange things keep happening.

Deep Space Rush (Ratalaika Games, Fri 25th October, $4.99) Join the DeTeam! A top-secret security force that protects the scientific space stations from virus contaminations! Take on randomly generated levels to save everyone before they all get infected. Avoid traps and monsters to survive the sweep!

Door Kickers: Action Squad (Killhouse Games, Mon 28th October, $14.99) Door Kickers: Action Squad is a crazy old school side scroller action game that puts you in the role of a SWAT trooper and sends you to deal with the bad guys in Nowhere City USA. Choose your gear, then kick the doors down and face the action.

Dusk Diver (PQube, Tue 29th October, $39.99) When an unstable dimensional rift brings together Gods, Phantoms and Humans – headstrong highschool girl Yang Yumo must step up to protect the neighbourhood. Fight alongside your guardians as part of a dynamic action-oriented combat system and expand your abilities by immersing yourself in the bustling streets, stores, personalities and even cuisines of Taipei.

Earthfall: Alien Horde (Nimble, Tue 29th October, $19.99) Earthfall is a 4-player co-op shooter where you team up with friends or play alone to save the world from invading aliens. Search for over 20 different kinds of weapons, or use 3D printers to print your own! Automatic turrets, deployable barricades, or mounted guns let you set up defenses to channel the enemy into kill zones.

Fear of Traffic (BitService, Today, $5.50) Designed to find its sweet spot among families and infants, you will have great moments with Fear of Traffic. With its colorful world and a magical soundtrack, you will play in this game where your mission will be that of finding the way out, avoiding blocked roads, animals, odd objects on the way and dramatic accidents with other drivers.

Ghost Blade HD (eastasiasoft, Today, $14.99) Ghost Blade HD is an intense Bullet-Hell top down shoot ’em up, composed by frenetic and addictive score-based gameplay. With its inspiration going back to the shooting games of the 1990s era, Ghost Blade HD ties old memories to current tones and techniques.

HAUNTED: Halloween ’86 (Today, $9.99) The mind-melting sequel to our first game. The side-scrolling, platforming, beat-em-up adventure takes players back to the town of Possum Hollow on Halloween night when Harry & his haunts wreak havoc again. This time Donny has his tag team partner Tami to help kick the crap out of those mindless wastoids that stand in their way of saving the town.

Home Sheep Home: Farmageddon Party Edition (Aardman Animations, Fri 18th October, $9.99) Join Shaun the Sheep and his friends Timmy and Shirley on this epic adventure journeying through underground caverns, negotiating the busy streets of London and teleporting through outer space all in search of the green, green grass of home.

Horror Pinball Bundle (SuperPowerUpGames, Fri 25th October, $8.99) Enjoy 3 games in one with the perfect reproduction of real pinball machines, with all kinds of graphic details and sounds. Discover all the secrets, in these thrilling games, witches, werewolves and mummies awaits you.

Into the Dead 2 (Versus Evil, Fri 25th October, $34.99) Journey through the zombie apocalypse in a race to save your family. Arm yourself with an arsenal of powerful weapons and do whatever it takes to survive. Maim, mow down, and massacre the Dead – anything to keep moving! In a world where no one is safe, how far will you go to make it out alive? Read our Into the Dead 2 review.

Lethis – Path of Progress (Plug In Digital, Today, $19.99) The Game: Lethis – Path of Progress is an old school 2D city builder set in a Victorian Steampunk universe called Lethis. You will have to build and manage cities, provide resources for your inhabitants while making sure there are enough workers to sustain your production lines.

Let’s Sing Country (Fri 25th October, $44.99) All begins with the first tone! Create your own spotlight with the hottest tracks in country music courtesy of Let’s Sing Country and follow in the footsteps of cutting-edge artists and perform songs like: Bebe Rexha ft. Florida Georgia Line with “Meant to Be”, Rascal Flatts with “These Days”, Chris Janson with “Buy Me A Boat”, Joe Nichols with “Sunny and 75” and more!

Party Treats (QubicGames, Fri 25th October, $1.99) Party Treats is a funny and innovative local multiplayer game that can be played by up to 4 players.

Pixel Gladiator (Drageus Games, Fri 25th October, $6.99) You’ve been sent to an abandoned planet as one of the participants of the most popular Gladiator show. Your goal is to survive as long as possible, fighting back deadly creatures in the focus of billions of viewers.

Pizza Bar Tycoon (Baltoro Games, Fri 25th October, $4.99) Look out, this pizzeria will soon become the best one in town! Well… at least that’s your plan. The clients are already standing in line, and you have to serve them as soon as you can. It’s harder than it sounds though!

Soul Searching (QubicGames, Fri 25th October, $9.99) Soul Searching is a narrative survival game where you control a lone traveler who sails from homeland to an endless sea. On the way, you’ll visit different islands, discover stories of their people, and learn about souls and dragons.

Spaceland (Ellada Games, Wed 30th October, $14.99) It is probably the most dynamic turn-based strategy in the spirit of the old school. Fewer shelters, more work to do. Land on a lost planet and show the mutants what you are made of. Shoot, kick, blow up and destroy. You will put together the most reckless team of fighters and unravel the mysteries of the mystical planet following the best traditions of science fiction.

Tennis Go (Sabec, Today, $8.99) A fun and simple to play Tennis game for everyone! Now you can play Tennis anytime, anywhere with Tennis Go. simply use the stick to control your character around the court to hit the ball and with a blend of speed and control win the crucial point and become the grand slam champion Chose between many fun characters to play with to defeat your opponent with. Tennis GO is for all ages and has been made so anyone can easily play.

Ultra Off-Road 2019: Alaska (Ultimate Games, Fri 25th October, $18.99) Ultra Off-Road 2019: Alaska is an exciting game in which you’ll have the opportunity to drive around Alaska. Take on the role of a driver who tests his driving skills to the maximum. Advanced destruction system, dynamic time flow and great routes – everything is ahead of you!

Vortex Attack EX (KaleidoGames, Today, $9.99) Galaxy is in danger with hostile ships swarming from the opening vortex. Blast the swarming hordes with huge variety of upgradeable ships. This frenetic arcade space shooter featuring worldwide leader-boards and intense local multiplayer mode will keep you playing until all ships are unlocked and galaxies saved.

Winter Sports Games (Joindots, Today, $24.99) Off to the snow! It does not matter if you prefer to ski, bobsleigh or sled down the ice rink, or relax curling the stones over the ice when curling – there is certainly something for everyone here. There are six exciting disciplines to win tournaments and master challenges.

Xeno Crisis (Bitmap Bureau, Mon 28th October, $19.99) Xeno Crisis is an arena shooter in which one or two players take control of battle-hardened marines embarking on a deadly mission to confront an alien menace and get home alive! Run and gun your way through thousands of adversaries as you explore the devastated research outpost, searching for survivors, and ultimately facing the origin of the outpost’s demise.

Activities

Enter the My Nintendo Luigi’s Mansion 3 Sweepstakes! – This year, the spookiest holiday of the year is extra spooky because the Luigi’s Mansion 3 game arrives on Oct. 31. Want to help us celebrate the game’s launch? You can enter the My Nintendo Luigi’s Mansion 3 Sweepstakes, exclusively for My Nintendo members. Redeem your My Nintendo Platinum Points for a chance to win spooky-fun prizes. The statues are incredibly detailed – seriously, check out the design of the ghost-sucking Poltergust G-00. It even matches the design seen in the game’s trailers.

Nintendo eShop Sales

Check out the full list of deals available this week here.

So that’s your lot for this week’s North American Nintendo Download. Go on, be a sport and drop a vote in the poll above, and comment below with your hot picks!

 

By Christine McKee
Wednesday, October 23, 2019, 11:02 am PT (02:02 pm ET)

Today only, Amazon-owned Woot is knocking up to $420 off current 11-inch iPad Pro devices. These refurbished units start at just $599 while supplies last.

Flash iPad Pro deals

Now through 10 p.m. Pacific Time, Woot is discounting Late 2018 iPad Pro models by $200 to $420, with prices as low as $599. These tablets are in refurbished condition, but come with a 90-day Woot limited warranty for added peace of mind.

According to our 11-inch iPad Pro Price Guide, these iPad Pro deals deliver the lowest prices available, with models in new condition costing $75 to $170 more at Amazon.

Latest 11-inch iPad Pros (refurbished)

iPad Pro deals (new condition)

Additional Apple Deals

AppleInsider and Apple authorized resellers are also running a handful of additional exclusive savings this month on Apple hardware that will not only deliver the lowest prices on many of the items, but also throw in instant savings on AppleCare and accessories. These deals are as follows:

Interested in additional Apple hardware? See if there is a Mac, iPad or Apple Watch deal that will save you $100s by checking out prices.appleinsider.com.

Google’s Pixel 4 is the ideal, undiluted Android experience, and has features to separate itself from the rest of the pack. AppleInsider puts it side-by-side versus Apple’s iPhone 11 lineup to see how they compare in specs and benchmarks.

Size and display

The 2019 iPhone line is split into three handsets —iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro, and iPhone 11 Pro Max. iPhone 11 sports a 6.1-inch LCD display with a resolution of 1792by828 pixels at 326 ppi. iPhone 11 Pro has an updated OLED Super Retina XDR display measuring 2436by1125 at 458 ppi and iPhone 11 Pro Max measures up at 2688by1242 at 458 ppi.

Pixel 4 is 5.7 inches and has a 16:9 aspect ratio at full HD+ (2,280 x 1,080) and a pixel density of 444 ppi. Pixel 4 XL is Quad HD+ at 3,040 x 1,440 and 537 ppi. Both Pixels sport OLED displays.

Pixel 4 beats the iPhone 11 contrast ratio (1400 to 1) at 200,000 to 1 but falls far behind that of the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max which bost 2,000,000 to 1 contrast ratios.

For brightness, the iPhone 11 is 625 nits, Pixel 4 is 445 nits, and the iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max are 800 nits —though the latter two can go up to 1200 nits during HDR content playback.

Apple’s iPhone 11 has True Tone on its displays but Pixel 4 now has Ambient EQ. This is very similar in that it dynamically changes the white balance of the display to match the room it is in, but in our testing, it is so subtle we can barely tell a difference.

The Pixel 4 also now has a new 90Hz refresh rate on the phone that kicks in when there is a lot of movement, particularly noticeable while scrolling. It does make scrolling and the OS as a whole more smooth, but most of the time it drops down to 60Hz to save on battery life —something very much needed.

But, that 90Hz isn’t universal. We’re seeing a lot of problems with stuttering in Chrome. Yes, the Android flagship browser.

Forehead versus notch

The Pixel 4 is sporting a bit of a forehead, encroaching from the top and pushing the display down. It houses hardware such as the speaker and camera system.

The hole-punch cutout of the Galaxy S10 is less intrusive, and Apple’s iPhone 11 notch lies somewhere between. There’s little point in debating which is better, a forehead, a notch, or a hole, because they are all compromises for the sake of technology. All are better than something protruding from the top of the phone.

Facial recognition for authentication

All of the iPhone 11 models and both of the Pixel 4 units have face-based biometric authentication. Apple calls its Face ID while Google simply calls it “Face Unlock.”

Face Unlock works very similar to Face ID in that it projects a series of infrared dots on your face then scans them to match against its saved 3D profile of your face. This is in stark comparison to Samsung which was able to have its facial recognition fooled by a video of a user.

Google’s Face Unlock in the Pixel 4 has one severe drawback, one that has been highly publicized leading up to the full launch —a user’s face can be used to unlock a device when the owner’s eyes are closed. That has serious security implications because a phone can be unlocked when a user is asleep, unconscious, or in the worst-case scenario —dead.

Google says that they’re fixing this “in the coming months.” There is no timetable other than that, though.

Face ID tracks a user’s eyes and can even require them to be looking at the camera for it to authenticate. This is somewhat unnerving as apps such as banking ones can all be authenticated this way and a lapse in security in this regard can be very dangerous.

Face Unlock is exceptionally fast, unlocking before you even have to worry about whether the phone is unlocked or not because of the radar in the phone detecting when the user is moving the phone to unlock. Compared to iPhone 11, we’d say the Pixel 4 is faster —but only by a hair.

But, that lack of attention detection is a giant problem right now.

Performance

Apple is rocking its custom-made A13 Bionic processor in all three of the iPhone 11 models. It has six cores and is blazing fast. The Pixel 4 and Pixel 4 XL is outfitted with the eight-core Snapdragon 855 processor —the same as in the Samsung S10 and S10+.

Using each of the phones, you aren’t going to notice huge differences day-to-day. At this point in the smartphone story, all phones ship fast —but the real question is how long they will stay that fast. These processors aren’t built for now, they are built for a couple of years in the future when computational photography, AR, and other intensive applications start to be prolific.

When we do run these through our usual barrage of tests, the iPhone clearly wins out.

In Geekbench 5, our iPhone 11 garnered a 1335 single-core score and a 3523 multi-core score. That’s compared to the 641 and 2540 scores from Pixel 4.

In the Antutu benchmark, iPhone 11 earned a cumulative score of 452039 whereas Pixel 4 earned a 408475.

Lastly, in our Speedometer browser benchmark, iPhone pulled out a 157.3 and Pixel 4 nabbed a 55.3.

If you are one of the few editing a RAW photo or exporting a long 4K video on your phone, you will notice the extra power of the iPhone 11 compared to the Pixel 4, but in daily use, you won’t see the speed benefits pay off for a year or two. At that point, the iPhone 11 will be better suited.

What we did notice, was that the battery life on the Pixel 4 was pitiful. We never made it a full day —even with normal non-benchmarking use —compared to the iPhone 11, iPhone 11 Pro and iPhone 11 Pro Max that all made it through the day with power to spare.

On an average day, we got about four hours of screen time on the smaller Pixel 4. This is less of an issue with the larger 3,700mAh battery in the XL compared to the 2,800mAh in the smaller Pixel 4 but it still barely seems like enough.

We found ourselves disabling the 90Hz display, turning on dark mode during the day, and lowering the screen brightness on the Pixel 4 to stretch it out but this isn’t something a user should have to do or even think about. We’re hoping this is software inefficiencies on the new hardware, but phones with the same processor from Samsung don’t seem to have this problem at all.

Motion Sense

One of the most headline-grabbing features of the Pixel 4 is Motion Sense. It is a new radar system built into the front of the phone that can detect motion around the phone. Google says that there is much more coming down the line for Motion Sense, and customers need to get acclimated to using it before tacking on additional features.

Right now, though, some applications of Motion Sense are gimmicky. Waving your hand to skip songs or navigate a podcast is excessive and when it doesn’t work, it is far more frustrating than just tapping on the next button on the display.

We like the idea behind other features, such as dismissing a call with the casual wave of a hand. But it doesn’t always work.

Where Motion Sense came into play was with its proactive features, like the display turning off when the user walks away. Of course, we don’t often set our phone down, leave it on, and walk away —but it is still a cool idea.

It also will quiet your alarm as your hand approaches the phone. And when it sees you reach for the phone, it automatically fires up face unlock. That, in part, is why Face Unlock on the Pixel 4 is so darn fast.

Apple has a similar feature with its True Depth camera system. It watches your eyes and whenever you look away and the iPhone loses your focus, it dims the screen a bit. This is in the same vein as Motion Sense but far more limited —at least at the moment.

Cameras

Cameras —a critical feature that you probably didn’t expect to be sure far down this list in the comparison. For the past several years, cameras have been a large driving factor in which phones people bought.

A ton of effort goes into diligently comparing shots on one phone versus another. In fact —we will be doing a deep dive in a future piece.

But, today, we will keep things short. The iPhone has three 12MP cameras —ultra-wide, wide, and tele. Google, defiantly chose not to include an ultra-wide lens like Apple and Samsung but instead added a 16MP tele lens to its existing 12.2MP wide angle.

Google says that people care more about zoom than they do going ultra-wide, and we can see its point of view. By making the tele lens 16 megapixels we can see a huge boost in quality when looking at zoomed-in shots. There is easily more detail on the Pixel 4 than the iPhone. However, it cannot take wider portrait shots nor the stylized ultra-wide variety.

We’d just preferred Google went all-in and gave it an ultra-wide lens alongside the new tele lens, but for now, it is a compromise.

Both cameras take amazing shots as it stands. Pixel 4 has its own style that you can easily recognize and the iPhone 11 attempts to be a bit more neutral.

The biggest drawback of the Pixel 4 is video. It can only shoot 4K video at 30 frames per second, and is limited to only 1080P on the selfie cam. Apple can do 4K on iPhone 11’s selfie camera and 60 frames per second on the rear cameras.

Unless you are focused on video features, don’t let the camera be the deciding factor for you between these two handsets because both sets of photos are great and they take better photos than any other smartphones out there.

The best smartphones

Undoubtedly, these are the best set of smartphones we’ve compared yet. The iPhone 11 line is the most powerful, full-featured iPhone yet and the Pixel 4 is the best Android phone to hit the market if you want a 100% Google experience.

We’ve compared a lot here, but it mostly comes down to the user experience and a preference for iOS or Android.

Where to buy

Special incentives are already in effect on the Google Pixel 4, with both Best Buy and B&H Photo offering a $100 store gift card with the purchase of the unlocked device.

Those that choose to opt for the iPhone 11 can also find savings on new models at the following wireless carriers:

iPhone 11 deals

• Verizon Wireless: Get up to $500 off the iPhone 11 via bill credits with select trade-in and Unlimited plan. Plus switch to Unlimited and get $200 more.
• AT&T Wireless: Get up to $700 in bill credits with trade-in on a qualifying smartphone. Port-in and new line required ($300 in bill credits without port-in). Unlimited plan required.
• Sprint: iPhone 11 starts at $0 per month with Sprint Flex lease and select trade-in.
• T-Mobile: Save up to $700 on the iPhone 11 when you switch and trade in a qualifying iPhone.
• Visible: Get up to a $200 Prepaid Mastercard Virtual Account when you buy an iPhone 11 and bring your phone number to Visible. Plus get 0% financing, no money down, no upgrade fees, and free overnight shipping for well-qualified customers.
• Sam’s Club: Get a $150 Sam’s Club gift card when you buy and activate by Nov. 8.

iPhone 11 versus Pixel 4 specifications

	Pixel 4	iPhone 11	iPhone 11 Pro
Display	5.7″ & 6.3″	6.1″	5.8″ & 6.5″
Pixel density	444 and 537 ppi	326 ppi	458 ppi
Display type	OLED	LCD	OLED
Brightness	445 nits	625 nits	800 nits (1200 max)
Refresh rate	90Hz, normal 60Hz	60Hz	60Hz
Authentication	Passcode or face unlock	Passcode or Face ID	Passcode or Face ID
Rear cameras	12.2MP wide, 16MP telephoto	12MP wide, 12MP tele, 12MP ultra-wide	12MP wide, 12MP tele, 12MP ultra-wide
Front-facing camera	8MP —90 degree FOV	12M —85 degree FOV	12M —85 degree FOV
Processor	Snapdragon 855	A13 Bionic	A13 Bionic
RAM	8GB	6GB	6GB
Storage	64, 128 GB	64, 128, 256 GB	64, 256, 512 GB

You may already be familiar with using the ssh command to access a remote system. The protocol behind ssh allows terminal input and output to flow through a secure channel. But did you know that you can also use ssh to send and receive other data securely as well? One way is to use port forwarding, which allows you to connect network ports securely while conducting your ssh session. This article shows you how it works.

About ports

A standard Linux system has a set of network ports already assigned, from 0-65535. Your system reserves ports up to 1023 for system use. In many systems you can’t elect to use one of these low-numbered ports. Quite a few ports are commonly expected to run specific services. You can find these defined in your system’s /etc/services file.

You can think of a network port like a physical port or jack to which you can connect a cable. That port may connect to some sort of service on the system, like wiring behind that physical jack. An example is the Apache web server (also known as httpd). The web server usually claims port 80 on the host system for HTTP non-secure connections, and 443 for HTTPS secure connections.

When you connect to a remote system, such as with a web browser, you are also “wiring” your browser to a port on your host. This is usually a random high port number, such as 54001. The port on your host connects to the port on the remote host, such as 443 to reach its secure web server.

So why use port forwarding when you have so many ports available? Here are a couple common cases in the life of a web developer.

Local port forwarding

Imagine that you are doing web development on a remote system called remote.example.com. You usually reach this system via ssh but it’s behind a firewall that allows very little additional access, and blocks most other ports. To try out your web app, it’s helpful to be able to use your web browser to point to the remote system. But you can’t reach it via the normal method of typing the URL in your browser, thanks to that pesky firewall.

Local forwarding allows you to tunnel a port available via the remote system through your ssh connection. The port appears as a local port on your system (thus “local forwarding.”)

Let’s say your web app is running on port 8000 on the remote.example.com box. To locally forward that system’s port 8000 to your system’s port 8000, use the -L option with ssh when you start your session:

$ ssh -L 8000:localhost:8000 remote.example.com

Wait, why did we use localhost as the target for forwarding? It’s because from the perspective of remote.example.com, you’re asking the host to use its own port 8000. (Recall that any host usually can refer to itself as localhost to connect to itself via a network connection.) That port now connects to your system’s port 8000. Once the ssh session is ready, keep it open, and you can type http://localhost:8000 in your browser to see your web app. The traffic between systems now travels securely over an ssh tunnel!

If you have a sharp eye, you may have noticed something. What if we used a different hostname than localhost for the remote.example.com to forward? If it can reach a port on another system on its network, it usually can forward that port just as easily. For example, say you wanted to reach a MariaDB or MySQL service on the db.example.com box also on the remote network. This service typically runs on port 3306. So you could forward it with this command, even if you can’t ssh to the actual db.example.com host:

$ ssh -L 3306:db.example.com:3306 remote.example.com

Now you can run MariaDB commands against your localhost and you’re actually using the db.example.com box.

Remote port forwarding

Remote forwarding lets you do things the opposite way. Imagine you’re designing a web app for a friend at the office, and want to show them your work. Unfortunately, though, you’re working in a coffee shop, and because of the network setup, they can’t reach your laptop via a network connection. However, you both use the remote.example.com system at the office and you can still log in there. Your web app seems to be running well on port 5000 locally.

Remote port forwarding lets you tunnel a port from your local system through your ssh connection, and make it available on the remote system. Just use the -R option when you start your ssh session:

$ ssh -R 6000:localhost:5000 remote.example.com

Now when your friend inside the corporate firewall runs their browser, they can point it at http://remote.example.com:6000 and see your work. And as in the local port forwarding example, the communications travel securely over your ssh session.

By default the sshd daemon running on a host is set so that only that host can connect to its remote forwarded ports. Let’s say your friend wanted to be able to let people on other example.com corporate hosts see your work, and they weren’t on remote.example.com itself. You’d need the owner of the remote.example.com host to add one of these options to /etc/ssh/sshd_config on that box:

GatewayPorts yes # OR

GatewayPorts clientspecified

The first option means remote forwarded ports are available on all the network interfaces on remote.example.com. The second means that the client who sets up the tunnel gets to choose the address. This option is set to no by default.

With this option, you as the ssh client must still specify the interfaces on which the forwarded port on your side can be shared. Do this by adding a network specification before the local port. There are several ways to do this, including the following:

$ ssh -R *:6000:localhost:5000 # all networks

$ ssh -R 0.0.0.0:6000:localhost:5000 # all networks

$ ssh -R 192.168.1.15:6000:localhost:5000 # single network

$ ssh -R remote.example.com:6000:localhost:5000 # single network

Other notes

Notice that the port numbers need not be the same on local and remote systems. In fact, at times you may not even be able to use the same port. For instance, normal users may not to forward onto a system port in a default setup.

In addition, it’s possible to restrict forwarding on a host. This might be important to you if you need tighter security on a network-connected host. The PermitOpen option for the sshd daemon controls whether, and which, ports are available for TCP forwarding. The default setting is any, which allows all the examples above to work. To disallow any port fowarding, choose none, or choose only a specific host:port setting to permit. For more information, search for PermitOpen in the manual page for sshd daemon configuration:

$ man sshd_config

Finally, remember port forwarding only happens as long as the controlling ssh session is open. If you need to keep the forwarding active for a long period, try running the session in the background using the -N option. Make sure your console is locked to prevent tampering while you’re away from it.

Sega and Two Point Studios’ critically acclaimed hospital management sim Two Point Hospital has been delayed on all platforms, including Nintendo Switch. The original 2019 release date is no more, with the game now scheduled to launch in the “first half of 2020”.

Two Point Studios has shared more about the delay in a blog post, saying that the team is dedicated to making the game be “the best it can possibly be”. Here’s a snippet explaining the decision:

Put simply: making a management simulation game on three consoles (and making it the best it possibly can be on all three), is a tricky programming puzzle. We have to take the game apart and figure out how to fit it into what is essentially a smaller box. That takes a bit more time and engineering work. So, we’re going to take a bit longer. We expect a new release date for Two Point Hospital Console to be in the first half of 2020 and we’ll be sure to keep you right up to date with our progress.

We know you’ll be a bit disappointed by this news, but hopefully you understand why we’re doing it: quality is the most important thing and we want you to have the very best experience.

Mark Webley, Game Director at Two Point Studios, has also shared the following in a press release:

“Our community have asked for Two Point Hospital on consoles for a while now and we want to make sure we deliver a game that can be enjoyed to the fullest on all platforms. This means we will need a little bit more time to optimise the game to ensure the best possible experience across all platforms.”

We shared screenshots and further information on the title earlier this year when the game was first announced for Switch.

Were you hoping to get stuck into this one this year? Saddened by the delay, or happy for the date to be pushed back to ensure the game is as good as it can be? Let us know below.