There has been an unusual amount of excitement surrounding Apple’s new iOS 9.3 update, which the company just released this past Monday. Of course iOS updates are often pretty exciting, but not the minor incremental ones. Apple will give the world its first look at iOS 10 this coming June, and that will undoubtedly generate plenty of excitement. But iOS 9.3? Really?

Really. Apple’s new update fixes some bugs and patches a severe security hole, but the big news is the new features. We already told you about all the best new features in iOS 9.3 but in this post, we’re going to focus on two in particular.

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In our earlier post on iOS 9.3’s new features we covered all of the best new additions for the iPhone and iPad. Night Shift is obviously the biggest new feature in the latest iOS build, so we don’t have to go over it again with you. There are two other features that we mentioned in that post that are a bit lesser known though, and now it’s time to change that.

We get a lot of emails here at BGR from people looking for help with their gadgets or for help finding an app to suit their needs. We wish we had the time to be everyone’s private tech support staff, but there’s simply aren’t enough hours in the day. OK, maybe we don’t really wish that.

One common question we get is from people looking for a good secure note taking application. There are several good options out there, but now the answer is simple: Apple’s Notes app.

Beginning in iOS 9.3, Apple has added protection to its Notes app that lets you lock your notes behind a password or Touch ID. Setting it up couldn’t be simpler — just go to Settings > Notes > Password and configure your password. If you have a recent iPhone or iPad, you can also toggle Touch ID to on so you can unlock the Notes app with your fingerprints.

The second feature we wanted to draw extra attention to is a change Apple made to Live Photos on the iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus. Many iPhone users who email us are also on the hunt for an app that will let them strip the animation from a Live Photo quickly and easily. This way, the image can be shared with the sound of a TV or something else blaring in the background.

Running Live Photos through an image editing app was always an option, but now there’s an easier way to do it. Open any Live Photo in the main Photos app and tap the share button. Then tap “Duplicate” and select “Duplicate as still photo.”

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The iPhone generates plenty interest among designers, with many people trying to imagine what next-gen iPhones might look like as well as predicting the innovative features future models will offer customers. Currently, it’s the iPhone 7 that’s capturing the imagination of designers. Some of them come up with quite believable concepts while others have more outlandish iPhone dreams.

Glaxon Paul’s iPhone 7 and iPhone 7 Pro concepts are gorgeous, but they’re also devices Apple definitely won’t be building, at least not this year.

DON’T MISS: All the best new iPhone and iPad features in iOS 9.3

The designer imagined a sleek iPhone that has an edge-to-edge display and a very thin profile. The phone also packs a redesigned home button that can be customized by the user to show either photos, the Apple logo or differently colored circles.

Paul listed proposed specs for the device, including a 4K screen, octa-core 2GHz processor, 16/64/128/256GB storage versions, 20-megapixel rear camera, 12-megapixel front-facing camera and an improved 3D Touch experience. The full video can be seen below.

It’s unlikely that Apple will significantly increase display resolution on the next iPhone, or that it’ll equip it with an octa-core processor. Similarly, we don’t expect major resolution changes for the iPhone 7’s cameras, though the iPhone 7 Pro model might have a dual camera setup on the back. A 256GB iPhone option might be in the cards, and some wild rumors say the phone might lack a home button altogether.

Here’s an iPhone 7 concept that looks a lot more believable – or is at least in line with what current rumors say about the handset.

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Samsung’s Galaxy S7 and Galaxy S7 edge are two of the best smartphones the world has ever seen, but are they innovative? Are Apple’s latest iPhones innovative in any way? Were last year’s iPhones? Innovation and sales clearly don’t go hand in hand, but things need to change and technologies need to progress in order for industries to move forward.

The original iPhone was innovative. It changed an entire industry and destroyed mobile phone giants Nokia and BlackBerry in the process. LG’s new G5 is innovative, though it remains to be seen if the phone’s innovations are in fact something users want.

Now, new details have emerged on a device that Samsung is seemingly working on behind closed doors, and it has the potential to be the most innovative phone the world has seen in quite some time.

DON’T MISS: We asked every member of Congress with a computer science degree about Apple’s war with the FBI

A new Samsung patent application was published on Wednesday, and it describes technology that would facilitate a foldable smartphone. We’re not talking about a flip phone like the good old days here, we’re talking about a smartphone with a single large display that can be folded in half.

Here are some drawings from the patent application — the last two are of particular interest:

Patent applications are dug up all the time and the devices described in them don’t always see the light of day. So what makes this one any different? As noted by Dutch Samsung news blog Galaxy Club, the application was filed just recently on March 11th and published less than two weeks later. That accelerated schedule could be an indication that the phone is in advanced stages of development; you’ll recall that earlier rumors stated Samsung was working to release a smartphone with a bendable screen sometime in 2016.

Now, Samsung has a mixed history when it comes to innovation. The company often takes a while to get things right. This is particularly true when it comes to bendable smartphone screens — the company’s first phone with a curved screen had absolutely no reason to exist. The more recent Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy S7 edge feature nice designs, but the utility of the curved screens doesn’t extend very far beyond differentiation and making the phones more comfortable to hold.

In the case of the foldable phone described in this patent application though, Samsung could really be onto something. Imagine a phablet with a large 6-inch display that’s more compact than the iPhone SE when you put it in your pocket. And this just the beginning when it comes to foldable screens — a wide range of new form factors should be coming down line.

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SMS Audio might not have made 50 Cent a billionaire like Beats did with Dr. Dre, but believe it or not the company actually makes some pretty good products. In fact, since entry-level products from Beats are more about image than they are about quality, some SMS Audio headphones are even better than options from Beats. And then there are some SMS products that do things no Beats headphones can pull off.

Here’s a perfect example: the SMS Audio BioSport Earbuds cost just $51.40 on Amazon with free shipping, and they can monitor your heart rate in addition to delivering good sound quality, a comfortable fit and much-needed noise isolation.

Some key details from the Amazon product page:

Biometric Earbud with heart rate monitor
Professionally tuned 12mm drivers deliver tight bass and dynamic mid-tones.
No need for uncomfortable straps or multiple devices.
IPX4 rated for resistance to sweat and water.
3.5 mm gold-plated audio jack delivers all the power you’ll ever need for biometric monitoring. Nothing to replace or recharge.
Intel Inside

SMS Audio BioSport Earbuds: $51.40 with free Prime shipping

Follow @BGRDeals on Twitter to keep up with the latest and greatest deals we find around the web

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When news first broke that the FBI wanted Apple to build an insecure version of iOS to help the agency access the iPhone used by San Bernardino shooter Syed Farook, I wrote that Apple needed to be careful to avoid the government’s clever public relations trap. It seemed that law enforcement officials wanted to use a high-profile act of terrorism as a way to create political pressure on Apple to comply with its demands and set a precedent for future cases. While I believed Apple was right to resist such demands, I also thought there was a chance this could backfire since no one wants to be seen as impeding an investigation that could prevent future terrorist attacks.

However, Apple stared down the FBI and won this fight for the best possible reason: It had the facts on its side.

RELATED: We asked every member of Congress with a computer science degree about Apple’s war with the FBI

From the start, I was skeptical that the FBI had really exhausted all avenues for unlocking Farook’s iPhone 5c. After all, the FBI wasn’t even asking Apple to break encryption on the device or anything nearly as complicated. Rather, it was just looking for a way to bypass the security protocol that would have erased all of the device’s data after more than 10 incorrect passcode entries.

Given all the things that the NSA has proven itself capable of, I couldn’t believe that none of its hackers could figure out how to crack a three-year-old iPhone. It seems, however, that the NSA doesn’t like to share what it actually knows even if it’s sharing this knowledge with other government agencies.

Even without the NSA’s help, I still thought that some company out there in the private sector would have the know-how to help the FBI bypass the device’s security protocols. And sure enough, it looks like Israeli company Celebrite has stepped up to the plate with a solution to help the FBI that doesn’t involve forcing Apple to make an insecure version of its own software.

While I’m sympathetic to the need to gather as much intelligence as possible while investigating terrorist attacks, the precedent that the government was trying to set in this case was truly dangerous. If it had succeeded in using the All Writs Act as a justification to force Apple to design a “GovtOS,” it could have done the same thing to other companies and pretty soon there would be compromised versions of every operating system out there.

All that said, I tend to agree with Mark Cuban that this case shows that Congress needs to step up to the plate pass laws that offer specific guidelines for what law enforcement officials can and cannot ask tech companies to do to help with terror investigations. Given how badly our legislators have been at doing their jobs lately, however, it’s unlikely we’ll see anything like that occur.

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After a report said earlier this week that Apple is readying ultra-thin 13-inch and 15-inch MacBooks for the second quarter, possibly similar in design to the 12-inch Retina MacBook, code discovered inside OS X suggests there’s at least one new MacBook in the works, supposed to be launching soon.

DON’T MISS: All the best new iPhone and iPad features in iOS 9.3

Listed as “12-inch MacBook (Early 2016)” in Apple’s System Image Utility feature (see the following image), the device is yet to be unveiled. The same MacBook model is also spotted in the OS X Server application under the NetInstall section, 9to5Mac reports. Other new MacBook models have not been listed at this time.

The fact that Apple calls it an “Early” model might suggest the device will launch in the first four months of the year, MacRumors says.

Additional investigation of OS X 10.11.4 by Pike’s Universum unearthed details about the low-power Intel Skylake processor Apple will probably use in the new 12-inch MacBooks. Here are the purported Intel Core M chips supposed to go inside the new laptops:

Intel® Core™ m3-6Y30 Processor (4M Cache, up to 2.20 GHz)
Intel® Core™ m5-6Y54 Processor (4M Cache, up to 2.70 GHz)
Intel® Core™ m7-6Y75 Processor (4M Cache, up to 3.10 GHz)

Apple launched the first 12-inch Retina MacBook laptops last year, during a special event, but it might quietly upgrade the laptop this year, given that it made no mention of upcoming MacBook models at this week’s iPhone event.

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It’s been years since anyone was excited about a small-size iPhone, but Apple managed to recycle the 4-inch form factor into a device that’s on par with what the larger iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus have to offer.

Aside from 3D Touch support, a second-gen Touch ID sensor and the front-facing camera, the iPhone SE is practically a version of the iPhone 6s packed in a smaller body.

Announced on Monday, the iPhone SE is available for preorder. Similarly, the new 9.7-inch iPad Pro, the first such device, is also ready to be ordered.

DON’T MISS: All the best new iPhone and iPad features in iOS 9.3

Available in four colors, including gold, silver, gray and pink, the iPhone SE costs either $399 (16GB) or $499 (64GB), making it the cheapest new iPhone you can buy. In case you want to trade up to iPhone SE, you might pay as low as $10 per month for the iPhone SE, but you have to go to an Apple retail store to do it while carrier financing starts at $13.30 per month, Apple’s website says.

The iPhone SE will be available in stores on March 31st.

The new iPad Pro, meanwhile, is also available for preorder today. But it will hit stores on March 31st only.

The tablet is available in the same four colors as the iPhone SE, and comes in three storage versions, including 32GB, 128GB, and 256GB, which retail for $599, $749 and $899, respectively. You can add cellular support to either model for an extra $130.

Both devices will be available for purchase from other retailers and carriers in the U.S. and various other international markets.

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If you’ve heard Tim Cook speaking about virtual reality lately, you might not think that Apple as plans to dive into VR anytime soon. Like with many of its other product launch decisions, Apple might play it safe when it comes to launching VR products – say, a VR headset similar to what Oculus, HTC or Sony propose.

That said, Apple has a sneaky way that it could get into VR without releasing a new product and it all has to do with the iPhone.

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Investment firm Piper Jaffray’s analyst Gene Munster, who believed for years that Apple would make an HDTV of its own, now says that Apple will indeed include both virtual and agumented reality features in its plans, but it’ll do so at first with the help of strategic partnership.

The company will not make a Gear VR headset of its own like Samsung did with its top Galaxy devices, but it might partner up with other third parties to enable iPhone-powered VR headsets, Munster explained in a note seen by AppleInsider.

The analyst believes that Apple will extend its Made for iPhone accessory certification program to include VR headset makers in the next two years. Even without official Apple support, these manufacturers are expected to release iPhone-ready VR headsets this fall.

“Although it’s too early to say what the transition to VR/MR will mean to Apple’s model, we are confident Apple will be a significant player in creating the next computing paradigm,” he wrote.

At the same time, we’ll note that Apple is rumored to have a dedicated team in place already working on “next-generation headset technologies,” according to a late January report.

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Of all the original content scheduled to hit Netflix this year, there’s one movie that has me more intrigued than anything else: Special Correspondents. Written and directed by Ricky Gervais, Special Correspondents is about a radio journalist and his sound tech faking war reports from Ecuador while holed up in New York City.

DON’T MISS: New on Netflix: Every movie and TV show being added in April

It’s the first feature length production from Gervais since Cemetery Junction in 2010, at which point he transitioned to cameos and secondary roles in several movie and TV projects, as well as becoming a regular host of the Golden Globes.

In that time, he was developing two projects — Special Correspondents and Life on the Road. You can see exactly what Special Correspondents is about in the trailer below, but Life on the Road is a movie about David Brent, Gervais’s clueless boss character from The Office. That movie won’t release until the summer at the earliest.

Special Correspondents, on the other hand, releases exclusively on Netflix on April 29th. It stars Eric Bana, Vera Farmiga, Benjamin Bratt, America Ferrera and several other big names. You can watch the official trailer for the movie below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3kKTFAEQgSY

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One of the things Apple unveiled during its iPhone SE event on Monday was a cute WALL-E-like robot that knows how to do just one thing: Fully disassemble old iPhones into their base components so they can be recycled.

At the time, we thought the video Apple showed was pretty interesting, but it looks like Liam is more than an eco-friendly gimmick. This smartphone-disassembling machine was something so secret inside Apple that only a few engineers who were hired specifically to build it knew about it. Furthermore, it’s a machine so unique that no other companies have it.

DON’T MISS: 12 paid iPhone apps on sale for free right now

A few days before Apple’s keynote, Mashable got an early access to Liam at a secret location close to Apple’s headquarters in California. First, we learn that Liam for the time being is only able to take about the iPhone 6s, although it will be programmed to take apart older models in the future.

We also learn that Liam isn’t an acronym — rather, it’s just the name the robot was given while it was in development.

The robot was designed by a group of engineers, while a second team wrote the code for the disassembly process. The robot is still in development, and Apple is looking to improve it so that it can take apart other gadgets that it makes. Plans to deploy a Liam in Europe are also underway.

Three years in the making, Liam is a large-scale robot that has 29 freestanding robotic arms which help it take apart various components of the iPhone 6s with high precision. These elements are then stored in bins, and they can be recycled in a more efficient manner than standard recycling practices.

Liam can complete an iPhone disassembly process in 11 seconds, with dozens of units running through the system at all times. Some 350 units are turned out each hour, or about 1.2 million per year.

Mashable’s full inside look at Liam is worth a read – check it out at this link.

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