iOS devices refer to any of Apple’s hardware that runs the iOS mobile operating system which include iPhones, iPads, and iPods. Historically, Apple releases a new iOS version once a year, the current version is iOS 10. Here is the complete list of iOS 10 compatible devices.
Japanese blog Macotakara, which often publishes accurate information about unreleased Apple products and company news, today claims to have some reliable information on the yet-to-be-announced, upcoming iPad mini 4. Today’s report claims that the iPad mini 4 will look a lot like a smaller version of the current iPad Air 2. Expand Expanding Close
While Activation Lock has dramatically reduced iPhone thefts in some cities, with reductions as high as 50%, police data collated by the WSJ shows that the effect isn’t as great as expected in others. iPhone thefts fell by only 11% in Oakland, by 17% in Austin and actually increased by 32% in Seattle … Expand Expanding Close
Apple’s plan to establish 500 mobile-focused reseller stores in India is reportedly well underway, with NDTV Gadgets reporting that more than 100 of the partners for its Authorised Mobility Resellers (AMR) program have already been signed-up.
Apple seems to have already identified the cities, and indeed the areas within these cities where it wants to open the new stores, as a job listing on Apple’s website says the responsibility of Program Manager – AMR is to select store locations “within identified micro markets within a city” (emphasis ours).
An Apple-appointed contractor is building the stores’ interiors to ensure that they conform to Apple’s design and size requirements, before handing them back to the third-party resellers to operate. The partners are reportedly being selected by Apple on the basis of their track-record in selling Apple products.
Apple is said to be focusing on building market share in the company, and will, unusually, allow AMRs to discount iPhones below the official retail price.
Beijing police have raided and closed down a factory which employed hundreds of workers on six production lines to make more than 41,000 counterfeit iPhones – some of which made it to the United States, reports Reuters. The total value of the fake phones was estimated at 120M Yuan ($19M). While the raid took place in May, Chinese authorities only shared details yesterday.
Police arrested nine people, including a married couple who led the operation, after a raid in May on the factory, run under the guise of a gadget maintenance shop on the northern outskirts of the Chinese capital.
The investigation was prompted by a tip-off from U.S. authorities after some of the fake phones made it to the USA … Expand Expanding Close
Following up on its newest TV ad campaign, “If it’s not an iPhone,” Apple has launched a new web page dedicated to explaining what sets its smartphone apart from the competition. The page is titled “Why there’s nothing quite like iPhone,” and breaks down many key features, like iMessages, the camera, and the built-in security features.
IDC has just released its smartphone market share data for Q2 2015, and at least one thing is clear: Samsung is still struggling, and Apple is still doing really well. The Korean company’s smartphone market share dropped from 24.8% to 21.7% year-over-year, a 3.1 percentage point drop. Conveniently, while other manufacturers made gains as well, Apple’s numbers are up about the same number — 2.4 percentage points year-over-year to 14.1%… Expand Expanding Close
Apple is today launching its Back to School promotion for 2015. This year, it will give away a free pair of Beats Solo2 headphones with the purchase of an eligible Mac. Customers must either purchase an iMac, MacBook, MacBook Pro, MacBook Air, or Mac Pro with education pricing to qualify, including build-to-order configurations. The Mac mini does not participate in the deal.
Alternatively, customers can upgrade for an additional $100 to a pair of wireless Beats Solo2 headphones, rather than the usual $299 price. The announcement is not yet being advertised on Apple.com apart from a small mention on its rebates page. It is surprising that there appears to be no Back to School promotion for iPads this year, despite Apple pushing the tablet into education markets.
Apple and IBM today unveiled 10 new enterprise apps across several industries including tools for government inspectors, business travelers and managers, and field service professionals for the first time. The latest apps bring the number of iPhone, iPad, and Apple Watch apps built for the enterprise under Apple’s IBM MobileFirst for iOS partnership to 32 in total. Here are the new apps joining the list today: Expand Expanding Close
With Apple due to report its fiscal Q3 (calendar Q2) earnings later today, Fortune notes that the company has beaten Wall Street expectations for eight straight quarters – and strong iPhone sales mean that today’s earnings report is likely to make it nine.
iPhone sales typically drop in June as consumers hear more rumors about the next model and many decide to wait. But with Q3 sales estimated at close to 50M phones, representing a massive 40% year-on-year increase, that would put Apple’s revenue well in excess of the company’s own guidance of $47B and above the Wall Street consensus estimate of $49.5B … Expand Expanding Close
The possibility of Apple embedding the Home button into the display of a future iPhone model got a step closer today as a third-party company announced technology that allows fingerprints to be read through Gorilla Glass.
TNW reports that Sonavation has developed ultrasonic fingerprint sensors capable of 3D scanning from beneath the Gorilla Glass Apple uses for its iPhone displays.
Though details on how it will work are sparse, Sonovation says its sensors are “capable of capturing fingerprint data into the ridges and valleys.” It also says 3D scanning can take place if a finger is wet, dirty or oily — all without compromising accuracy.
There’s nothing to suggest any link between Apple and Sonavation – this is merely an indication that the type of technology required to replace a physical Home button with an embedded one is already out there. A sketchy report last month suggested that Apple is working on this type of technology.
Don’t look for this in the iPhone 6S, though. While a recent leak confirmed our report that the new iPhone would get Force Touch, it also revealed that the external appearance of the phone will be almost identical to the iPhone 6.
A report from Clammr collected data on podcast listening habits shows that iOS dominates Android on mobile usage. Despite Android having a larger install base of smartphone devices than iOS, the iPhone is responsible for the vast majority of podcast listening. According to the study, 82% of smartphone podcasting listening takes place on an iPhone with the iTunes Store podcast directory being a significant reason for uptake.
In addition, despite the vast array of third-party podcast apps available for the iPhone, the report says that over three-quarters of users listen to podcasts on the iPhone with Apple’s built-in native Podcasts app.
MIC Gadget is claiming that retail versions of the next-generation iPhone 6s and iPhone 6s Plus do not come in 16 GB variants. Instead, the report suggests that the new iPhone will start at 32 GB, with 64 GB and 128 GB available as the higher tier options.
The report is based around sources within Foxconn that have supposedly seen product packaging. Apparently, stickers for a 16 GB phone simply do not exist.
With earnings coming tomorrow, analysts are focusing on Apple Watch reception as it will be the first time Watch sales are included in Apple’s financial results. Apple won’t be reporting Apple Watch sales numbers but that doesn’t stop investors from guessing the figure. In a note, Gene Munster says that Apple has sold 3 million units in the quarter. This is slightly below KGI’s estimate which quoted 3.9 million Apple Watch device sales.
Munster says talks with investors have shown general disappointment and concern about the ‘long-term opportunity’ for the Apple Watch. In the short term, he believes supply constraints and lack of availability in Apple retail stores have limited early sales. Munster, however, remains confident that the Watch will ramp up in sales slowly with a ‘breakout year’ in 2017.
Apple, just a week and a half after initially introducing its new ad campaign, has today shared another new iPhone ad. The video advertisement is part of the “If it’s not an iPhone, it’s not an iPhone” campaign and focuses on the App Store that comes along with owning an iPhone. In the ad, Apple touts that there are more than 1.5 million apps available for iPhone, all of which are “hand-picked, awe-inspiring, and just plain surprising.”
A new report out from KGI’s Ming-Chi Kuo includes some interesting details about Apple’s planned fall product releases. Firstly, Kuo expects iPhone shipments to fall in the current quarter as anticipation builds for the new iPhone dubbed the ‘iPhone 6s’, although apparently ‘Force Touch yields are low’ which may constrict availability at the beginning. For Apple Watch, following a report earlier in the year to expect new materials for Apple Watch casings, Kuo claims Apple will launch new Apple Watch Sport color options to match the new iPhone.
This includes anodizing aluminum in either yellow gold or rose gold to match the gold options on the iPhone 6s and create a faux-Edition Sport model. Third-party coating services already exist for the Apple Watch (pictured above), but Apple’s additions would seemingly be for the aluminum, not steel models. KGI believes Apple shipped a “tepid” 3.9 million Apple Watch units to date.
There is also news of a new iPad mini covered in KGI’s report, as well as sales estimates for all of Apple’s products ahead of the earnings calls on Tuesday.
Apple introduced a new iPod touch on Wednesday as we expected after selling nearly the same model for almost three years, and today iFixit has shared its routine teardown to grade the device’s ability to be repaired and catalog exactly what’s inside Apple’s newest iOS device.
While the exterior of the new iPod touch remains largely the same aside from new color options and the removal of the Loop camera strap, the teardown does confirm the RAM upgrade caught in benchmarks earlier this week and a slightly larger battery than the previous model… Expand Expanding Close
As smartphones grow in popularity in emerging markets, Hugo Barra has very publicly spoken for Xiaomi, the Chinese-based technology company that he left Google to join as Vice President of International in September 2013. Today, he sat down with Bloomberg to talk about many topcis, including accusations that the Chinese company has stolen Apple’s design, Android as one of the best decisions Google ever made, and Xiaomi’s eventual plan to bring its devices stateside… Expand Expanding Close
With the launch of the latest iPad model, Apple debuted its own SIM card that allows users to choose between three different cell carriers and change service on-the-fly. Rumors that such a card could be included in the next iPhone appeared almost immediately, and now a new report confirms that Apple is in talks with cellular carriers and other handset makers to bring this type of system to all cell phones.
First pitched by Steve Jobs in 2007 as “an iPod, a phone, and an Internet communicator,” the iPhone has since evolved into a medical device of sorts as software has gotten smarter and sensors have become more advanced in recent years.
Apple embraced this with iOS 8 and the rollout of HealthKit, a framework which allows medical and health apps to share data with each other and your doctors with your permission. Apple’s open source ResearchKit took it a step further by allowing developers to turn apps into scientific health and medical research tests.
Scientific American recently profiled three smartphone apps in development that point to how the iPhone could become even better at monitoring our health. The apps in development aim to determine what a patient’s cough means, diagnose sleep apnea, and even predict a bipolar episode before it starts… Expand Expanding Close
The iPod shuffle and nano lines got new colors but otherwise are the same internally with the 2GB and 16GB storage inside and same skeuomorphic UI for the nano. To me this is Apple saying the long goodbye to these products the same way the iPod classic was ushered out. Expect these to last as long as whatever inventory Apple decides to build.
The new iPod touch is much more interesting. It got the same new color palette and otherwise is the same externally – except losing the unpopular Loop strap. However, internally it gets supercharged with the same A8 processor as the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus but running about 15% slower, the M ‘motion’ coprocessor, Bluetooth 4.1 – an Apple first and 1GB of RAM. Techcrunch was the first to run some benchmarks on a review unit:
We’ve got some of the new iPods here to play with and we ran an initial benchmark on the iPod touch. The processor appears to be running at 1.10GHz per core, vs the iPhone 6’s A8 processor, which clocks in at 1.39GHz. The Geekbench scores clock in at 1379 and 2440 right out of the box with as much idle state as I could manage. This means that the iPod touch A8 processor is under-clocked slightly from the iPhone 6, which is not surprising given the battery constraints I mentioned above. It also appears to have 1GB of RAM.
Starting at $199, the iPod touch costs less than the margins Apple makes on even its cheapest iPhones. Almost every human has or will have a phone and Apple surely wants everyone who buys a phone to buy an iPhone. But there are some important features to consider here: Expand Expanding Close
As we reported this morning, Apple has today launched a new version of the iPod touch, featuring a 64-bit A8 CPU. This breaks a long run of neglect for Apple’s cheapest iOS device, which last received an update way back in 2012. It will be a huge leap in performance over the previous iPod touch which featured an A5 SoC. Both the front and back cameras have been improved, with the back shooter now featuring 8 megapixels of resolution.
The new iPod touch is also available for the first time in gold matching the iPhone and iPad in addition to new dark blue and pink case options. The iPod touch is also getting a storage bump at least at the higher end — there is now a $399 128 GB model. The base $199 iPod touch remains the same with 16 GB of onboard storage, the 32 GB model is $249 and the 64 GB version is $299.
There are also updates to the iPod shuffle and iPod nano, although these are merely cosmetic changes to fascia of the products. The shuffle and nano now come in dark blue, pink and gold variants.
The Apple Store has gone down ahead of new iPods expected later today, which 9to5Mac exclusively reported on this morning. The new iPod touch will feature a faster 64-bit processor with an 8 megapixel camera. The other iPod updates to the Nano and Shuffle are likely purely cosmetic, with new dark blue, pink and gold colors available across the lineup.
Logitech recently announced a new branding and marketing strategy and its BLOK family of iPad cases are the first products released under the company’s new Logi brand. The Logi Blok are highly protective, colorful, square cases and keyboard covers for your iPad.
The Logi BLOK family is made up of the Logi BLOK Protective Shell, the BLOK Protective Case and the BLOK Protective Keyboard case. All have square corners, designed to protect the precious rounded corners on your iPad. What’s more, they have been tested to ensure you can drop your iPad from “up to six feet high”, on to surfaces as hard as concrete, without killing your tablet. Unlike some other ultra-protective cases, Logitech promises that these aren’t bulky or heavy.
With Logi BLOK, you get drop protection without the bulk and weight that is often associated with ultra-protective cases. Additionally, the Logi BLOK family reflects the colorful and bold new Logitech look, so you’ll see a sleek design and bright colors on each case.
The two different case options are incredibly similar to each other. From the images, it seems the BLOK Case is the same as the BLOK Shell, except with the addition of a cover and a kickstand similar to that on the keyboard case. BLOK Shell ships with a screen protector and is available for iPad Air 2 and 2nd/3rd gen iPad mini in blue or black mini for $39.99. BLOK case costs $69.99 and is only available for the iPad Air 2.
The BLOK Protective Keyboard looks to transform your iPad Air 2 in to a Microsoft Surface. It adds a versatile and adjustable kickstand to the back and a magnetic detachable keyboard to the front. Like most iPad keyboards, it connects via Bluetooth, ensuring you can continue to type even if you don’t have it physically attached to the case.
It’s available in black, teal/blue and red/violet color combinations and will set you back $129.99. You can take a look at the new keyboard accessory in the promo video:
All three BLOK products are available to order from today at Logitech.com.
The new Nanos and Shuffles won’t get new features, but the iOS-based iPod touch will see a considerable upgrade. Here’s what we’re hearing is coming to the touch:
Major camera upgrade from 5 megapixels to 8, matching the count on the iPhone 6 and iPad Air 2.
New 64-bit chip for faster operation and better graphics for gaming. Will also help it plow through future iOS versions beyond iOS 9.
“M” chip from the iPhone for fitness, steps, and elevation tracking.
Pre-loaded with iOS 8.4 and Apple Music following the June 30th launch.
New 128GB model for $399, still starting at $199 for 16GB. There will also be a $299 model with 64GB of space.
As indicated by the references last month in iTunes 12.2, the overall designs and screens of the new iPods will remain the same as their predecessors. These are the first major iPod upgrades since 2012, and with Apple’s focus on the iPhone and iPad, these will likely also be the last for some time. Expand Expanding Close
