News tagged ‘iPhone’

The long-awaited white iPhone 4 started selling yesterday. At first glance it looks like the regular black model. While Apple doesn’t list any size difference in their Tech Specs page, Ryan Cash of Marketcircle notes on his personal blog that the white iPhone is actually slightly thicker (0.2 mm) than the black iPhone. It’s not the steel enclosure that’s thicker on the white version; it’s the plastic (see the photo above). Ryan came to that result then he’d experienced some problems when trying to fit the white iPhone in older iPhone cases. Though the difference is very minimal and visible only when comparing the devices, and not so many cases will probably have this problem.

Before the release of the iPad 2 various Chinese and Taiwanese sources provided us with several “leaked” case designs that gave us indication of what the device would look like. These cases were all based on the same design principles such as tapered edges, thinner body and flat back, clearly suggesting manufacturers had access to the same design documents that were quickly spreading across the tech industry.

Several online shopping retailers in China were able to sell iPad 2′s protective case products before the iPad 2 was even launched, leading Foxconn to suspect that there might have been some employees leaking the design of iPad 2 which it reported to the local police.

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Ina Fried of The Wall Street Journal yesterday published a telephone interview with Apple's executives Steve Jobs, Phil Schiller and Scott Forstall. CEO of the company again explained Apple's further policy related to recently found algorithm of collecting anonymous data about iPhones' locations.

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Brian White, an analyst at Ticonderoga, believes the delay in the white iPhone’s release and its “mystique and scarcity value” could drive sales to 1-1.5 million units per quarter. White said:

The purchase of consumer electronic devices is not always a completely rational decision, and people buy Apple products for many different reasons, including status, aesthetics, functionality, quality and the ‘cool factor.’ In our view, this delay has created a certain mystique and scarcity value around the white iPhone 4 that we believe could drive incremental iPhone 4 purchases in the range of 1 million to 1.5 million units per quarter until the iPhone 5 potentially comes to market in September.

We still don’t know whether Apple realizes or not the iPhone 5 until September or early fall.  But we’ve tried to sum up all possible reasons why Apple might officially launch the iPhone 5 this fall. First of all, Apple announced Verizon iPhone only in February and the white iPhone’ has stared selling today. An October shipping date of new iPhone would give Verizon and the white iPhones time to enjoy their purchases without temptation from the next model of Apple’s smartphone. The second reason is that Apple typically updates the iPod line in late summer/early fall. This encourages back-to-school sales and jump-starts the all-important Holiday shopping season. By bringing the iPhone into line with its iPod refresh cycle, Apple could better position new iPhone sales so that giving an iPhone for Christmas doesn't feel like you're committing to last year's technology. And the last reason is firmware update. The iPhone 5 and iOS 5 may be presented simultaneously showing us more revolutionary than evolutionary changes.

GigaOM reports that Apple has acquired the iCloud.com domain, used for online data storage, for $4.5 million.

My source, who is familiar with the company, says that Xcerion has sold the domain to Apple for about $4.5 million. Xcerion hasn't responded to my queries as yet. At the time of writing, the Whois database showed Xcerion as the owner of iCloud.

The purchase of iCloud.com could be a sign confirming Apple’s intention to rebrand MobileMe. With Apple’s new cloud services preparing for launch, the purchase of iCloud.com could indicate that new services from Apple may be arriving sooner than later.

A third party iOS developer FutureTap has posted a tweet where he reveals he got a crash log from a device running iOS 5.0 and then published a screenshot (above). The image indicated Apple is testing its new version of iOS using third party apps.

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Apple has finally begun selling the rumored white iPhone 4 after a 10-month delay since the original unveiling at the WWDC 2010. Steve Jobs and Phil Schiller told in an interview to Mobilized’s Ina Fried that the white iPhone was really “challenging” to make because of “unexpected interactions” of the white color with several internal components. Moreover, the white model of iPhone 4 indeed has a different proximity sensor than the black one.

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Recently Fortune discovered that according to Form 4 filing with the Securities Exchange Commission Bob Mansfield, who is Senior Vice President at Apple, sold 38,863 shares of Apple stock. Average price stock was $351.89, thus he got almost $13.7 million. Currently Mansfield owns 501 shares of Apple, which is roughly 1% of his Apple portfolio.

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After a week of discussions around the discovery that the iPhone has an inbuilt algorithm of keeping track of users' locations in unencrypted file, Apple finally shed light on the subject.

Before we repost the company's official statement, here is a short summary. Apple says it's not tracking the location of iPhone users. It maintains a database of celltowers and Wi-Fi hotspots that allows to calculate your location when requested much more quickly than it can be made with the help of GPS only. The location data is being sent to Apple in anonymous form, and users' iPhones download only the necessary part of the database.

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Nikkan, Japanese newspaper, reports that Apple and Sharp may have entered into agreement on manufacturing displays for the sixth-generation iPhone. Rumors are based on the fact that Sharp has already begun preparation for the start of manufacturing in Spring next year at its plant in Japan for an iPhone display using next-generation technologies.

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Yesterday The Wrap reported that Google is going to launch a Video on Demand movie rental service on YouTube, which will obviously become a rival for Apple's iTunes movie store.

Actually, YouTube started offering movie rental last year, but only independent studio movies have been available yet. Now Google plans to partner with major Hollywood studios.

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Apple is found not to officially support any more the iTunes Store for older G3 iMacs and any Macs that need to run older versions of iTunes. Apple created a new page for latest version of iTunes Store and redirected older versions to this one, asking customers to install iTunes 10. Though, it is not surprisingly. It seems that the company is not going to support software for those older computers. Otherwise it bothers to make sure that its store is compatible with them. But it is really strange that only the iTunes Store is not compatible; other iTunes services work well (see the shot of iTunes 8.2.1 above).

There are some rumors claiming that the next revision of Apple's MacBook Pro line will utilize a brand new case for the first time in several years. Macrumors.com pointed out a February iLounge piece that asserted that 2011 will see the “all new design” described as “a big milestone” for the MacBook Pro family. iLounge reported that this new design was under development at the time at Quanta Computers, a contract manufacturer. There no specifics on what the next MacBook Pro might look like, though many have previously speculated that Apple will take cues from the MacBook Air line that offers an iMac-inspired design with a black-bezel and aluminum unibody casing.

M.I.C. Gadget posts two images of the co-called “iPhone 4S” - an iPhone they’re pretty sure isn’t an iPhone 4, but possibly an updated model that includes a 3.7″ display, and the same proximity sensor as the white iPhone 4. The new display is nearly edge-to-edge. The photos show us the new screen to be slightly taller and slightly wider. If the image is legitimate, it appears to be closer to 3.7 inches than 4 inches. M.I.C. Gadget also speculates that it may have an A5 processor (a prototype model) that game developers are using to build games. Strings in iOS 4.3 revealed that the iPhone was slated to receive the updated processor, and recently a white iPhone was rumored being tested on T-Mobile’s network packing an A5 processor.

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