January/February 2017

“For Students, By Students”

After a hugely successful launch issue, here’s your next instalment of all things CCS. From technology issues to photography tips and Sports Award winners, we’ve got something for everyone. Looks like we’re here to stay…..!

SECOND

ISSUE!

Whole School celebrates

World Book Day! In other News: Photography Top Tips (what is the golden hour?!)

Samsung goes up in flames!

World Book Day

Sports Award

Winners

Editorial Page 2

Inside this issue:

2 Editorial

3 Photography Top Tips

Welcome back!

So, here’s your next issue!

Thanks for reading the first

issue, we’ve had lots of

positive feedback!

This issue features a new

regular ‘top tips’ section on

photography, so get

involved and send us your

pictures!

Remember, CCS Chronicle is for

students, by students—so we

need your input.

See you next time!

4 ‘Are Apple prices too high?

5 continued...

6 Samsung goes up in flames

7 continued...

Don’t forget, briefings are held every Monday lunchtime in C22 Email schoolnewspaper@ccs.northants.sch.uk for more details or to submit content for the next issue!

Competition Time! Deadline extended! We need a new logo for the student newspaper!

Hand in your entries to Mrs Vince The top 3 entries will be published in the next issue

and the winning design will become our logo!

8 In other news...

Photography Page 3

Reported by E. Delafield

Hello I am Eloise and my favourite hobby is photography, however it is

very difficult to get the perfect photo in the right place at the right time.

Well these tips and tricks will ensure that you will have the perfect photo!

Tips on how to get the best picture

With the golden hour :

Without the golden hour :

With this photo that I took in

the garden, I had to go outside

at the golden hour. What is the

golden hour you may ask ?

Well the golden hour is a

certain hour where the sun

hits the object, plant or thing

that you are taking a picture of

perfectly. If you don’t take the

picture at the golden hour then

the picture can sometimes

look dull and dark, like the

bottom photo.

More tips next time!

Are you keen on photography? Send us

your pictures! Try out the golden hour tip!

Are Apple prices too high? Page 4

I was recently looking through tech news and

noticed an article that caught my attention

more than any other did, most probably

because I could relate to it. The article

discussed the issue of cheap IPhone chargers.

The BBC reported that the Chartered Trading

Standards Institute (CTSI), a UK association

that represents trading standards, tested 400

substitute chargers for Apple products. Of the

400 chargers tested only three were sufficiently

insulated to protect against electric shocks, this

was a pass rate of below one percent.

I went browsing on the app store just to see

the types of accessories you cans buy and the

price ranges. I found some of the prices

ridiculously high, to say the least. There were

numerous add-on products for iPads and

Apple TVs. A Belkin stand for an Apple

pencil cost £20! In the description, it says that

its purpose is to hold the pencil and keep it at

an easy distance for use. It specifically states

that it does not even charge the Apple pencil!

For £20 and its purpose, I feel as though this

accessory is quite overpriced. Wouldn’t you

agree? Focusing on chargers specifically, a

lightening to USB cable costs £20 for a

1-metre cable (£30 for a 2-metre cable). The

USB power adaptor plug costs £20. Let’s say

someone wanted to buy a new adapter and

cable, let’s also say they would like to

purchase a 2-metre cable. Collectively both

items would cost around £50!! This is a lot of

money and it’s certainly not money everyone

has spare to spend on chargers.

Some say they use planned

obsolescence so that their products have

a limited life span and customers have to

purchase new items. There have been

notices that that as new software and

hardware come out, and updates to the

operating systems occur, the older

generation products start to fall apart and

start lagging. However even new

iPhones have this problem. They also

put new features on their products, which

mean you have to buy more add-ons.

For example with the new iPhones, you

have to buy a new adaptor since the

headphone jack ports are not on them.

In addition, the new MacBooks have

headphone jack ports and the iPhone 7

does not. This means you cannot plug

your iPhone 7 into the new MacBook

using Apple's iPhone charging cables;

you get dragged into spending

extortionate amounts on accessories to

make certain devices compatible with

each other. Some say it often feels like

Apple went backwards with their

innovations.

Reported by N. Ebulubu

In addition to all this, the price of getting an iPhone screen replaced and fixed by Apple could cost you up to £250 but going to a local kiosk will cost way less. However, there can also be problems with getting it fixed cheaply.

From an economic view, Yes Apple have to

make profits being a big company, however charging such prices will make people go to cheaper options and Apple could lose consume demand and hence lose some of their profit. Lowering prices and maybe selling things as a package that seem reasonable (for example, a charger plug and cable for around £15-£20) would make more people want to buy and therefore increase their profits.

Despite all that, Apple products do have many good features. To name a few, they have very high quality apps on the Appstore and offer a great user experience as they focus on the details of what they create. They have great privacy controls and an enhanced security system with the added touch ID. One of my friends has a music teacher who has said they prefer using Apple applications to edit music than any other option; Apple music provides an excellent quality of sound. With all its great features, some would argue that the prices are not too high at all.

Continued... Page 5

With all its great features, some would argue that the prices are not too high at all

Join the debate! Do you think Apple

products are worth the price?

Are you throwing your money away?!

Samsung goes up in flames…. Page 6

Reported by J. Legg

Samsung creates the world’s first Smartphone hand warmer... The aftermath of one of the biggest controversies of 2016 and the future

If you haven't heard already I am talking about

Samsung’s new handset called the

Galaxy Note 7 that caused quite a concern

when the batteries began to explode.

So why are they exploding and if you own one

how can you stop it becoming a pocket

rocket? Well the biggest factor is HEAT most

phones nowadays have Lithium ion batteries

that are highly reactive and very sensitive to

changes in heat and voltage. The phone in

particular has been exploding through these

two methods and usually modern handsets

are supposed to turn off if they get too hot and

prevent too much voltage being stored inside

the battery itself but in this case, not at all. The

best way to prevent this for any phone really is

to keep it relatively cool and don't leave it on

charge for extended amounts of time, e.g a

whole day.

Samsung achieved this feat of excellence by

using cheap suppliers that had less consistent

quality and different suppliers to meet the raw

demand and to keep buyer power. Its been a

horrible occurrence for them, the handset has

been banned in many countries for flights, its

been recalled TWICE and eventually

Samsung pulled the plug on the phone, killing

the brand along with it.

This fiasco is estimated to cost just under £14

Bn in lost reputation, lost sales and lost future

sales across all their products. But and this is

a strong but; unlike its competitors,

Samsung’s profits don't depend on a single

product. Samsung sells a lot of different things

and therefore is more resilient to this kind of

event until of course your TV explodes, then

they're really finished. A company such as

Apple would have been hit a lot harder by an

incident like this as their performance is

heavily dependent on the success of the

iPhone brand.

So What Does This Mean for the Smartphone

World?

I think personally this opens up a new avenue

for potential business, customers will now

have to concern themselves about the safety

of the devices they buy. Especially parents

who buy products for their children as gifts.

This generates a USP, so if a company like

Google was to incorporate “safer batteries”

into their brand new phone line, this would be

making the product unique against its

competition and with the current events, be

quite a powerful one.

Continued... Page 7

Customers will now be a lot more interested

in the features and components of new

handsets. Companies will have to try even

harder to squeeze new features out of a

heavily saturated market. Apple is a great

example of this as over the past 3 years they

have produced the same phone design with

very little change year on year simply

because the technology is plateauing. This

year Apple tried to woo customers over by

removing features while retaining the flagship

price a clear example that businesses will

literally try anything to retain their market

share.

As for Samsung, I don’t think many people

will be buying their phones for a while. No

amount of marketing and added value will

rejuvenate the brand for at least two years.

Although I don’t believe this would happen

again and you’d probably be safe too. It’s a

tough time ahead for Samsung and I’ll be

interested to see how this stirs up the market. Have you or someone

you know been affected by this? Let us know!

In other news...

Page 8

This year’s annual CCS Sports Awards celebrated some fantastic achievements! Here are just a few of the winners!

If you enjoy creative writing, why not send us something for the next issue? Get involved! Email contributions to: schoolnewspaper@ccs.northants.sch.uk See you next time!

Don’t forget to use your World Book Day token and enter the competition!