Seth Weintraub

We were the first to report that iOS7 notifies users that they were using non-certified 3rd party Lightning cables in iPhones and likely iPads and iPods as well. Apple currently still allows these cables to charge and sync data with iOS devices but if Apple can detect these cables, that means they could also disable iOS 7 from using these cables in a future version of iOS.

One third party company called iPhone5mod (coincidentally, the company that made the cable used to demonstrate iOS7 warnings in the images here) says it has a way around Apple’s warnings and theoretically around detection at all…
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Apple is clearly in inventory clearance mode with the iPhone 5 at this point. Just a few hours ago, we reported that Walmart would be carrying the iPhone 5 for $129 with a two year plan. That’s not a promotion, that’s the new in-store price. Earlier yesterday, Virgin Mobile a pre-paid subsidiary of Sprint announced it would be carrying the iPhone for $549 unsubsidized – which is $100 off of retail. Add Best Buy’s “Free iPhone 5 with earlier iPhone Trade in promotion” and you start to see a pattern.

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As noted by 9to5Toys this morning, AT&T started a 50% off promotion off of smartphones across the board which isn’t really newsworthy because Android/Windows/Blackberry phones go half off all the time. But this time, the sale includes the iPhone 5, which now comes in at an all time low of $99.99 (free shipping/activation, price drops in cart) with a 2 year plan. Also, iPhone 4S prices drop to $50 but we’d recommend buyers dropping a little extra on the iPhone 5.

At $100, that’s the lowest price on record for a new iPhone 5 (we’d seen refurbs at this price but now refurbished iPhone 5 starts at $75, below) available online.

Verizon is also expected to have a $100 iPhone promotion though we haven’t yet heard word on that, just yet.

The bigger picture is that, as it does every year, Apple is clearly trying to move iPhones late in the cycle to clear inventory for the next iPhone, likely called the 5S.

We’ve just received word that Virgin Mobile will be carrying the iPhone 5 next week on its Beyond Talk plans with unlimited 3G/4G LTE data and messaging starting at $35/month (with $5 discount for auto-payments).

The 16GB iPhone $549.99 pricing plan + $30/month for unlimited data is extremely competitive with what’s out there but this comes late in the update cycle. Virgin, a pre-paid division of Sprint which also uses the carrier’s CDMA 3G and LTE 4G networks, will also offer the 32GB and 64GB versions of the iPhone for $649.99 and $749.99 respectively.

For instance, a 16GB iPhone 5 on the $30/month plan will cost $360+$550=$910 over a year or +$360= $1270 over 2 years.

Virgin Mobile USA will launch the iPhone 5 on Friday, 6/28/12 on its Beyond Talk plans, with unlimited 3G/4G LTE data and messaging* starting at $35 per month but customers can also receive a $5 per-month plan discount when they register and sign up for automatic monthly payments [“Auto Pay”]  with a credit card, debit card or PayPal account, making the iPhone 5  available on Virgin Mobile for as low as $30 per month**. 

The 16GB iPhone 5, available in Black and White,  will be available at www.virginmobileusa.com, at participating Virgin Mobile dealers, and at RadioShack, our exclusive national retail distributor,for $549.99 [excluding taxes].  The  32GB and 64GB, also in Black and White, will be available online only for $649.99 and $749.99, respectively. 

*All plans include 2.5GB/month of 3G/4G full speed data. 

^**Requires registration for automatic monthly payments and Virgin Mobile Service is subject to Terms of Service found atvirginmobileUSA.com. 

Virgin has been offering the iPhone 4 and 4S for quite some time and recently began discounting the devices by 15% with the same $30/month unlimited plans…

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It appears that some developers have been posting iOS 7 on iPad (emulator) usage shots on the web. Aside from Apple’s somewhat hidden official images, there aren’t any other official images of the iPad running iOS 7 that are public. We’d heard even before the keynote that Apple was behind in releasing iOS 7 for iPad and as such initial iOS 7 betas are only for iPhones and iPod touches.

You’ll note the flashlight option on the Control Center which is probably just a leftover since the iPad doesn’t yet have a Flash.

Reader Phillip describes how to get iOS 7 iPad emulator running in Xcode 5:
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I’ve been curious about the 21:9 display format since it started to creep into mainstream displays last year. Originally developed to display cinema grade movies natively, computer users are now snapping these up to give themselves a sort of wide ‘Bloomberg terminal’ without the break (and the swivel between displays).

I received the Philips 298P4 29-inch 21:9 display a few weeks ago and have set it up as my display at my desk.  It has an unusual 2560×1080 pixel display which is the same amount of pixels across as traditional 30 inch 16:10 displays or 27-inch 16:9 displays (like Apple’s 27-inch iMac or Thunderbolt Display). The 1080 pixels high however matches up with a typical 1080P display. I didn’t use it like a traditional desktop computer or with a laptop off to the side.

For me, I saw an opportunity to add a display on top of my Retina MacBook Pro whose keyboard/trackpad layout I find more usable than anything else out there including Apple’s Wireless Keyboard/Trackpad combo. The Philips’ stand (and this is the key part) allows the display to grow over the top of even the 15’inch Retina MacBook Pro so that I can continue to use the MBP keyboard and display even while looking up (for much improved posture) at the Philips display. It is also great for watching movies while working :D, unless productivity is a priority.

For this it was great, but how was the quality of the display?

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The Haswell processor has allowed Apple to do some pretty amazing things with its MacBook Air computers. Usually we see incremental improvements in specs but this time around we are seeing game-changing spec bumps.

Most amazing is Apple’s claims of battery life that is almost double from the previous MacBook Airs (and which will be further enhanced by Mavericks).  The MacBook Air goes from 5 hours to 9 hours while the 13-inch model goes from 7 hours to 12 hours. Also helping is the 7150mAh battery where the previous 13-inch model was 6700mAh.  As we know real world is often less than what manufactures deliver as the 3 hour battery in my Retina MacBook Pro can attest.

Engadget’s test gave it 12 hours and 51 minutes of life vs. last year’s model which came in at just 6:30. Laptop Mag clocked 10 hours and Forbes wasn’t quite so generous giving an estimated 7 to 9 hours of real battery life. Geek.com, PCMag and TechRadar didn’t run battery tests.

Another big area of improvement we’ve seen is in PCIe SSD which allows speeds (via MacBidouille and AnandTech) approaching 800GB/second which amazingly is the fastest disk speed you can now get on any Mac (outside of RAID/Fiber Channel 3rd party solutions). That’s over a 50% improvement over last year’s machines and some of the fastest results we’ve seen in laptops of any kind. Reviews seemed to confirm these speeds with Engadget noting a boot time of 12 seconds down from the higher clocked previous version clocked at 18 seconds. Laptop Mag somehow measured a quicker 10 second boot time.

CPU and GPU’s also showed marginal to moderate improvements (on the low end machines tested) even with the amazing power drops. Prices also dropped on some of the configurations, while specs (like SSD doubling on the base model) were in many cases bumped, so it really is a no lose situation here.

As noted in the 9to5Mac Products Pages: For US consumers a number of third party options have sprung up including Amazon, MacMall, Best Buy, B&H and MacConnection which often offer tax advantages over the Apple Store. MacMall, which charges Tax in just 4 states, also offers build to order models and a small $5 discount.

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I’ll admit this is a hard report to take at face value. Reuters is reporting that Apple has plans to release a $99 iPhone in a variety of colors later this year. While we’ve heard the plastic/color option on many occasions from analysts, leakers, and reports, it would seem impossible for Apple to reach the $99 price point without subsidizing the phone somehow. All but the very cheapest Android phones even cost above $100. Apple recently introduced an iPod touch without a rear camera for $229.

For this year, Apple is expected to launch two new models, widely referred to as the iPhone 5S, with new fingerprint technology, and a cheaper version in plastic casing, supply chain sources have said. Apple plans to dress up the cheaper phone in a range of 5-6 colours to differentiate it from the more expensive model that has traditionally come only in black and white.

The U.S. firm has discussed a price of $99 for the cheaper phone, the timing of which could slip to next year, one of the people said.

“Trial production was originally planned to start in June, but the mixing of colours is taking longer than expected as Apple has very high and idealistic standards,” said one source in Asia, adding 20 million plastic iPhones are expected to ship in the October-December quarter.

The iPhone 5S with fingerprint technology has been reported before and seems on track for later this year. We’ll have something more on that shortly.

But next year gets even crazier if the Reuters report is to be believed. 
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xVCmv0h3QLI

Long story short, sign in with a US iTunes account and iTunes Radio will show up in iTunes upon re-launch. We’re not sure if this easy ‘hack’ will make it to Gold Master but Radio might be in your country by then anyway.
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Apple probably chose to save some money and, rather than design a smaller case for their new Airport Extreme, they just used the case for the new Time Capsule with the hard drive and connectors pulled out. That means the Airport Extremes (we’re still saying ‘Extremes’, huh?) have a 3.5 inch drive bay empty as confirmed by iFixit in their ritual teardown.

That means DIYers can open the enclosure, much like iFixit did, and insert their own drives. The question is: Did Apple put the SATA/Power connectors on the board like the Time Capsules? From the first look, it doesn’t appear that they did. In the worst ‘case’ scenario, DIYers could use the USB port and wire a bus-powered 2.5 inch hard drive (up to 2TB currently) or SSD around inside the case.

A quick look on 9to5Toys reveals 1TB USB drives starting at $60 but most people have a USB Flash or HDD laying around. Most of us however will probably pay the extra $100-$200 for an Apple Time Capsule, though if you .
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The Ashton Kutcher led JOBS biopic will debut on August 17th according to a press release.

Open Road Films will release JOBS – the highly anticipated film chronicling the story of Steve Jobs’ ascension from college dropout to one of the most revered creative entrepreneurs of the 20th century – nationwide on August 16, 2013. JOBS details the major moments and defining characters that influenced Steve Jobs on a daily basis from 1971 through 2001. The film plunges into the depths of his character, creating an intense dialogue-driven story that is as much a sweeping epic as it is an immensely personal portrait of Steve Jobs’ life. Directed by Joshua Michael Stern, written by Matthew Whiteley, JOBS was shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Russell Carpenter and produced by Mark Hulme. JOBS stars Ashton Kutcher, Dermot Mulroney, Josh Gad, Lukas Haas, J.K. Simmons and Matthew Modine.

The release got mixed reviews at Sundance earlier this year and was delayed from an original April 19th release date.

As Mark mentioned in his WWDC 2013 roundup, Apple appears to behind the iPhone in development of iOS 7 for the iPad. For now at least the iOS 7 betas are only available for a smaller list of iPhones and current iPod Touch. Our weblogs before the event showed tons of iPhones running iOS 7 but only a few iPads (below) suggesting that Apple is further behind in development for the larger screens.

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Mark’s already run down much of what we think will happen at WWDC.

I’ve been given a quick peek at an early beta of iOS 7 and can only describe what I’ve seen. I’m told I can’t post the screenshots because Apple embeds little watermarks that could land the source in some trouble.

The whole OS has that ‘skinny jeans’ Helvetica Neue Ultra Light or similar that you’ve seen in those posters. At the top, instead of carrier signal bars, Apple now has 5 dots that are white or gray to represent the signal.

The app icons are different across the board, similar but not quite the same as the one we tweeted earlier.

https://twitter.com/9to5mac/status/341370303022256128

Yes, they are flat. Our in-house Photoshop guru Michael Steeber has mocked up (Above) the icons based on descriptions which closely match what I believe we’ll see tomorrow. A full mockup of a home screen is at the bottom of this post.

• iTunes is Purple-ish with white (iSync-like arrows instead of a music note).
• Camera is Gray gradient and icon is same shape as you see on the lock screen
• Facetime is like it used to be without the gray. and flat.
• The Maps icon is a different place. Perhaps near the Spaceship campus?
• Compass icon is darker and flatter.
• Safari icon is like the Mac circle icon without the silver frame.
• Photos icon is a color wheel
• Game Center is similar to the photos icon – totally different than before.

Perhaps most interesting: There are two color schemes for many of these apps – one black-ish and one white-ish. We’re not sure if they are A/B decoys, if white iPhones and Black iPhones will have their own color schemes or as someone else suggested, the different color schemes might be invoked by the amount of ambient light or the time of day. But it is super-interesting, especially since we’ve heard whispers that the whole UI might shift slightly based on external factors similar to the way the music volume icon switches based on how you hold the iPhone.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wDlCkE1mewk&start=4]

When in “Black mode”, the keyboard is black with gray letters. In “white mode”, gray keys with white letters – a little like Android.

We’ve heard that maps has a new walking directions functionality. Also, grouped table views no longer have spaces on the left and right now – rounded rectangles give way to more rectangular like the Twitter app UI update.

On Airdrop, we’ve now heard “the share menu has a sideways scrollable row on top of the device and and computer airdrop photos like the circles with a pic of them”. The next row has sharing services Facebook, Twitter, Flickr and Vimeo. Next row has copy/paste/cut/etc.

We’re updating this post. Stay tuned for more information in the coming hours as we count down to WWDC and our Liveblog. 

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You can now download Adobe Lightroom 5 from Adobe for $149.99/$79 upgrade as an individual license and via Adobe Creative Cloud. The upgrade to the professional photo organization and editing tool is significant:
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We’ve got a pretty good idea of what Apple intends to give us at WWDC. Even the things we’re not so sure about seem on the radar.

But what does Apple need to do long term to tighten up the ecosystem and bring some excitement back into its hardware, software and services? I’ve got a few things…

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Just off the wires, Apple appears to be ready to offer trade-ins on iPhones for the first time according to Bloomberg. Apple currently offers a free recycling program for older devices but this would seem to follow efforts by companies such as Gazelle, Amazon and others who offer big bucks for older iOS devices and Macs.

Apple Inc. is starting an iPhone trade-in program this month aimed at getting users to upgrade to the iPhone 5 and turn in older models, people with knowledge of the plans said.

Apple has teamed up with Brightstar Corp., a mobile-phone distributor, to run the exchange program, said the people, who asked not to be identified because Apple hasn’t publicly announced the plan.

The trade-ins will only be done at Apple Retail Stores and will allow customers to recieve credit instantly. Recently, Best Buy began offering Free iPhone 5s with plan for an iPhone 4 or 4S trade-in. Apple apparently liked the idea – Brightstar counts both Best Buy and Apple amongst its client list. Apple also worked with Brightstar to help AT&T and T-Mobile with their recent trade-in promotions.

Used iPhones collected in the U.S. will only be resold in emerging markets, where Apple’s share is lower and demand for cheap devices is greater according to the report.

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Update: You can now pick up the SoundLink at Amazon

Bose had a little event today at Grand Central Station just footsteps away from the Apple Store to announce and demonstrate their new portable products.

We’ve rated the Best Portable Bluetooth Speakers on the market (TL;DR: Overall winner, Best Value, Best sound, Best Portable/Sound, Apps/Updates, more) but clearly there is some room for the $199 Bose SoundLink Mini Bluetooth speaker at the top end. Bose gave us a listen and I don’t think I’ll ever be the same after hearing such rich sound out of a small device (which weighs about as much as an original iPad and can be stowed away in a coat pocket). It certainly gives the much larger Logitech Boombox a run for its money in volume and edges it in clarity. The downsides are that it is bigger/heavier than the Beats Pill or the Logitech Mini Boombox, it charges via a proprietary AC adapter and it isn’t Bluetooth 4.0.  The sound quality will make those little things melt away, I promise.

The Soundlink speaker will be released on July 11th but pre-orders begin today at Bose retailers.

Bose also introduced a new level of noise canceling headphones called the QuietComfort 20 and 20i. We got to put some on and hear aircraft level noise disappear while noise canceling features were activated. Bose also has a mid-level noise cancellation mode that can be activated with a switch on the cord and still allows you to hear voices and other important noises you might want to be alerted to. Music is amazing as you’d expect and the buds fit incredibly comfortably in my ears.

The QuietComfort 20 and 20i headphones will be available starting in the summer of 2013 for $299.95.

Both products are highly recommended. Details in the Press release that follows…

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