Apple rumour mill fires up

Juha Saarinen questions the need for an iPad pro. Photo / Getty

Apple has gone characteristically quiet ahead of September, leaving geeks and industry observers to pore over the beta or preview releases of its iOS 9 mobile and the desktop/laptop OS X "El Capitan" operating systems to figure out what's coming up.

One thing that would make sense is for Apple to take technology such as Force Touch that's already on its MacBook and MacBook Pro laptop trackpads, and add that to iPad and maybe even iPhone screens, to provide further features and a better, more physical experience — and something new for developers to play with.

iPad Mini 4 looks a goer, with the new Split View for display, a peek into beta operating system files reveal.

The rumoured iPad Pro though seems ... well, why? The current iPad Air 2 is excellent, about the right size so a bigger Pro doesn't seem to add anything useful in that respect, but maybe Apple has other ideas?

Sharp-eyed mobile analytics firm Fiksu spotted two new iPhone identifiers in July. They believe this shows that there will be an iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus released in September, but not an iPhone 6c as there's no trace of it being tested.

I think it make sense that there won't be an iPhone 6c — last time around, Apple's 5c got a lukewarm reception as a mid-range device, and people bought the 5s instead in much larger numbers. Can't see Apple wanting to repeat the 5c with the 6c, in other words.

One feature that'll be controversial with media companies and website operators is the ability for iOS 9 to run ad blockers. Not from Apple, but ones developed by third parties.

Advertising over the Internet is difficult to earn enough from to keep sites going, and given that large amounts of visitors use iOS devices, this won't be a welcome move for publishers.

That said, maybe it's time for them to re-think internet advertising? If people are willing to install and even pay for ad blockers, that's more than a hint that they find the commercial content irritating.

Broadcasters can meanwhile take a breather — a short one — as it appears the launch of Apple's Live TV has hit money negotiation snags with content networks, reports Bloomberg.

Whether or not this means there won't be a set-top box released on September 10 remains to be seen. I doubt even Apple could launch a Live TV over the internet service worldwide, so don't hold your breath to see it in New Zealand any time soon.

Slammin' Sammy droids released

Apple rival Samsung meanwhile released two new high-end handsets with impressive specifications, and large, 5.7-inch (measured diagonally) screens.

One of them is the curved screen Galaxy S6 edge+, which is meant to show off Samsung's expertise in display technology.

The other is the Galaxy Note 5 "phablet" with a new S Pen, which also has a 5.7-inch screen. Both devices feature wireless charging (which is not tied to Samsung-made chargers), improved 16 megapixel/5megapixel rear/front cameras with high dynamic range, optical image stabilisation for stills, and anti-shake for videos.

Inside the two, Samsung's squeezed in a quad + quad core (eight in total) 64-bit processor and 4 gigabytes of memory, and up to 64GB of storage — there's no 128GB model like Apple has though.

I know it's 2015, and pricing for the devices isn't available yet, but that's an impressive amount of computing power packed in a handheld device; am hoping to review the Galaxy S6 edge+ and Note 5 soon to see how well they perform in real life.