Wesley's Tool-Box

One of the sore spots in using an Apple device (iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch in particular) in Korea was the Apple Maps. Sure, you could use the natively developed map apps from the likes of Kakao or Naver, but regular apps using map function generally resort to the default Apple Maps data, leading to sub-par experience.

This had largely to do with the lack of map updates. When Apple Maps initially launched in September 2012, map data for Korea was sparse at best. It then received a major update in March 2014 that looked more complete at a first glance. However, delving into details revealed that the actual map data was from around latter half of 2012. This was clearly evident for Bitgaram City as you can see above. Roads weren't completed until 2013, and Apple Maps had much of the major roads missing.


Interestingly, there was another map update for Korea in April 2015. It showed all the major roads in Bitgaram City, as well the street of Juwol-ro in Gwangju that was completed in early 2015. This meant that the map was quite up to date at the time, but you could see it only if you were outside South Korea. The Korean server for the iOS Apple Maps that sends the data to users within the borders never received the update, leaving the Korean users with severely outdated map for several years. The screen caps shown here were made while I was on a trip to Mongolia a few months ago.

I actually asked Apple's technical support about this issue back in June. Sadly, no resolutions came out of this even though the staff did acknowledge the problem. Then, out of the blue, Apple Maps received yet another major update for South Korea yesterday afternoon. The new map data was fairly recent - judging from the building data, it seemed to be from early to mid 2017.


Speaking of which, yes, there were now outlines of most of the buildings. This didn't exist for South Korea before this update. The building data also contain height information, which enabled this nice flyover-style view of the map in 3D. With the updated road and building information, I felt that it finally became good enough for in-app uses, such as location-based arrangement of photos in the Photos app. With a few more feature additions and beefing up of POI data, it should be good enough for stand-alone uses as well.

This summer is proving to be particularly lightning-prone around this area. About two weeks ago (July 14), a lightning strike set fire to an empty house near my home. This afternoon, between around 17:10 and 17:25, lightning was striking left and right every few seconds. The two photos you see here were taken at 17:18. As a result, the internet connection at my apartment complex was down for about an hour and a half (and subsequently this website was not accessible at the time), and a small village near the city experienced a power outage.


Just as the lightning started to subside, we were met with heavy downpour for about 15 minutes. The rain eventually subsided about half an hour later, but not before filling the then-empty company pond and creating pockets of water on the road around the city. What a strange weather to be had for the last day of July.

As I dropped by Gwangju to catch a movie (I'll be posting a comic tomorrow), the western sky was adorned with an alignment of some of the bright bodies of the solar system as seen from the Earth - the Moon, Mars, and Venus. The occurrence was relatively well-publicized, but I forgot to carry a dedicated camera tonight. Luckily, the telephoto lens of the iPhone 7 Plus pulled through and I was able to capture this sight over the neighbourhood just before Venus dropped behind the buildings.

Device: iPhone 7 Plus
Settings: 56mm - ISO 1000 - 1/12s - f/2.8
Filters: None
Time: 2017-02-01 21:12 KST
Location: Gwangju, Korea

Much has been talked about this year's so-called Supermoon owing to the fact that it's the largest since January 26, 1948 and won't be surpassed until November 25, 2034. Closest approach was made on 22:52 KST on November 14 at a distance of 356,509km, about 28,000km closer than average. The resulting difference is hardly noticeable to the naked eye, but is nevertheless a nice occasion to look at the Moon again. Sadly, heavy clouds hid the Moon entirely at that time, so I saw the Moon the next evening, about 20 hours later and used the telephoto lens on the iPhone 7 Plus to take a photo of it. This is perhaps the most detailed shot of the Moon taken using only an iPhone's native camera module.

Device: iPhone 7 Plus
Settings: 56mm - ISO 20 - 1/60s - f/2.8
Filters: None
Time: 2016-11-15 19:06 KST
Location: Naju, Korea

In Korea or Japan, loud camera shutter sounds from smartphones are a fact of life due to the voluntary standards for the camera-equipped cellphones meant to ease privacy concerns. Issues had already been raised as far back as 2001 in Japan and Korean government started taking action in 2003. These standards call for a mandatory shutter sound of certain loudness even in silent mode. In Korea, sound level is set to be between 60 and 68dBA.

Note that this is not mandated by law in either countries, so there is no legal repercussion for not honouring the standards. Still, it poses an annoyance in many legitimate circumstances, something that users in other countries would never encounter. Imagine that the phone will make a loud sound whenever you take a photo or a screenshot(!) even in silent mode. There are 3rd party camera apps that try to avoid the sound, but for the screenshots you would ultimately need a system-level hack. This means jailbreaking or finding an obscure bug/feature.

I noticed that this problem has been exacerbated on the iPhone 7 series because it is using two speakers instead of one. You'll now get to hear the noisy shutter sound even louder, in stereo. To get an objective picture of the situation, I brought out my iPhone collection for a round of sound level measurement for the camera shutter sound. Here's how they stacked up.


The test was done by measuring the sound using the "Decibel 10th" app on the iPad Pro 9.7". Tested iPhone was 40cm(16") away from the iPad's microphone. To human ears, an increase of 10dB is felt as the sound being twice as loud. This means that the integrated speaker got roughly two times louder since iPhone 5 onwards. Incidentally, this would've been necessary to meet the aforementioned Korean standards. The 60dB level must be attained at a distance of 1m(3.28'), and there is a decrease of 8dB for moving from 40cm to 1m. Taken together, it becomes obvious that the iPhone 4S and earlier models wouldn't be loud enough.

And as expected, iPhone 7 I bought in Japan was the loudest, even though the second speaker was facing away from the iPad's microphone. One consolation is that the sound heard by the subject isn't much louder than before; you only hear it as being much louder because the second speaker is facing you.

Meanwhile, the iPhones bought in the United States turned out to be relatively quieter even when the volume was set to the loudest. In fact, my iPhone 7 Plus had a very quiet shutter sound even though music playing on it was quite loud in contrast. This shows that Apple is intentionally boosting the speaker output beyond normal levels when the shutter sound is made on the Korean and Japanese models. It would be difficult for those who haven't used these models to realize how loud they are.

If you want to hear the difference for yourself, here's the video of the test that the results are from. If anyone had been wondering why I still try to get iPhones from the United States, this should be the answer.

With the official release of the iPhone 7 series in Korea set to be on October 21, just a week away as of this writing, I've been asked about how different the iPhone 7 and 7 Plus are. This is because I own both. If we disregard the obvious differences that come due to the size (e.g. screen resolution, weight, and battery), the camera is still a key differentiator. It used to be that only the Plus got the Optical Image Stabilization (OIS). This year, the smaller model got that as well, so the perk for the Plus model is an additional camera module in telephoto mode that provides 2x optical zoom. Naturally, I wanted to see how good it was. I should note that the wide angle camera on both 7 and 7 Plus are identical. Keep reading if the extra camera is worth the trouble.



When there is sufficient light, the telephoto camera provides excellent results. You can basically zoom into stuff and see it closer in more detail. I've been using this a lot outside with satisfactory results. But after a while I began to see a lot of limitations as well.


For one thing, it won't work with an object that's too close to you. This isn't surprising at all if you've used zoom lenses on a camera. Longer focal length tends to come with longer minimum focusing distance. The wide angle camera can focus on an item as close as 8.5cm (3.3") away, but the telephoto camera can only do up to 28cm (11"). To get a macro shot, always stick to the wide angle.