The Morning After: Tuesday, September 5th 2017
Get in.
This morning: The future of your kitchen, why Apple might not fix your iPhone, and the world's top how-to requests for Google.
The smart-kitchen revolution is a slow one
Of all the spaces in our homes, the kitchen is the one that has seen the least change in the last few years. Sure, that countertop CD player has given way to an Echo, but you've probably not invested in a smartphone-controlled oven or DRM-enabled juicer. Look hard enough, however, and you can see more radical shifts in the appliances world on the horizon. IFA offered up a glimpse of what we might see -- eventually.
If you try to take your iPhone apart, forget about Genius help.
It's pretty tough for individuals and even third-party shops to repair Apple products, and it's often hard to predict whether Apple itself will repair, decline to fix or replace a busted iPhone. However, Business Insider has unearthed a 22-page Visual/Mechanical Inspection Guide, or VMI, which shows what qualifies as an "eligible repair." It's reportedly used to conduct a physical damage inspection and assess cost, "basically half the training for iPhone techs," an anonymous Genius told BI.
Fitness wearables will live or die by their apps
Wearables are back again. From Fitbit's debut Ionic smartwatch to Samsung's Gear Sport, these fitness-focused watches also run the companies' own proprietary platforms, each offering their own app selection. For them to succeed, Samsung, Fitbit and Garmin, which also unveiled a new watch at IFA 2017, must now race to stock their stores with the best apps. That's good news for smartwatches in general because the influx of wearable apps could do for smartwatches what it did for smartphones years ago.
Highest-paid 'Overwatch' pro lands $150,000 salary deal
eSports teams are now trying to outbid each other for the industry's rising stars. One of these hotshots, North American Overwatch player Jay "sinatraa" Won, just signed a $150,000-per-year contract, reports ESPN. As a result, sinatraa will be earning $100,000 more than the league minimum, with revenue-sharing options available. He also happens to be 17 years young.
