iphone 4

iPad 3 price matrix will be the same as iPad 2, above

One of the remaining mysteries ahead of the iPad 3 launch next week are the prices and configurations.  If you don’t like surprises we have good news.

There was a rumor last week that gained traction which indicated that the US prices would increase by $70-$80.  That doesn’t appear to be the case.

We’ve gotten word that iPad pricing is going to be the same across the board as the current iPad 2 models which should be no big surprise given Apple’s history – they rarely raise prices.  Even better, some countries with currencies doing better than the US dollar should expect to see marginal drops in prices.

While we’re squashing, the configurations appear to be the same as current 16/32/64GB.  One of the strange succession of posts from Digitimes this week said that Apple would move to 8GB/16GB/32GB.  That appears even less likely than before, if that is even possible.

Update: This has no bearing on LTE one way or another

As always, thanks to Mr. X!

iPad Model numbers are as follows:
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The nation’s fourth-largest wireless carrier T-Mobile USA just reported it lost 802,000 contract customers during the holiday quarter, causing revenues to dip 3.3-percent to $20.6 billion. For comparison, the company reported 186,000 net contract customer losses in the third quarter of 2011 and 251,000 in the year-ago quarter. The Deutsche Telekom-owned carrier put the blame for such a huge decline in customers and mindshare on Apple’s iPhone 4S that bypassed T-Mobile to launch last October on AT&T, Verizon Wireless, Sprint and regional carriers C Spire Wireless and Claro Puerto Rico, the largest Puerto Rican telecommunications services company.

A statement from Deutsche Telekom said:

For T-Mobile USA, the past year was characterized by significant challenges, particularly in the fourth quarter, following the market launch of the new Apple iPhone model by the three major national competitors in October. […] However, not carrying the iPhone led to a significant increase in contract deactivations in the fourth quarter of 2011. […] Sequentially, the decline in branded net contract customers was driven primarily by higher branded contract deactivations as a result of the launch of the iPhone 4S by three nationwide competitors in mid-October.

The Bellevue, Wash.-headquartered firm contemplated for far too long whether to invest big bucks into 4G LTE deployment, and it clung to a hopeful merger with AT&T to solve its capital investment issues. With that deal off the table now, the company is promising to launch 4G LTE service sometime next year, tapping $1.4 billion of its own investment, re-farmed frequencies, and extra spectrum acquired from AT&T.

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Apple Daily today has images of what it claimed is the next iPad compared to an iPad 1 and an iPad 2. You will notice increased tapering and a bigger camera lens. The publication said the camera is a whopping 8-megapixels, which would likely mean it is the same Sony camera found in the iPhone 4S that CEO Howard Stinger first leaked in April of last year. Apple will likely bring some of its optics over, as well.

We first heard reports of 5- to 8-megapixel cameras in the next iPad at the end of last year in a wide-ranging set of reports.

Apple.pro grabbed some images of the print version that seem to show the tapering better.

The iPad 3 picture seems to be coming together but that does not mean there are not going to be some surprises.

Apple Daily also noted new cabling (pictured below):
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=tNmXrVNeGzs&start=75]

CNET reported that Apple settled 18 suits bundled as a Class-action lawsuit over the “Antennagate” “scandal.”  Each iPhone 4 owner (it is not clear if Verizon iPhone 4 users who had different radios/Antenna are exempt) is entitled to a $15 cash settlement or a bumper. Apple began offering bumpers to users shortly after the release and the subsequent press conference to address the issue (as well as returns, no restocking fee or questions asked).

The settlement found:

Apple was “misrepresenting and concealing material information in the marketing, advertising, sale, and servicing of its iPhone 4–particularly as it relates to the quality of the mobile phone antenna and reception and related software.”

The settlement has its own Web site, www.iPhone4Settlement.com, which will be up in the coming weeks (the site doesn’t go anywhere right now). There, customers will be able to get information about the settlement and how to make a claim. As part of the arrangement, e-mails will also be sent alerting original buyers to the settlement before April 30, 2012. The claims period is then open for 120 days.

“We believe that the Apple iPhone 4 settlement is fair, adequate, and reasonable,” said co-lead counsel Ira Rothken, who represents the class, to CNET. “We believe that it allows members of the class to choose, and they can get $15 of cash or a bumper, so we believe that type of choice is proportional to the circumstances.”

Consumer Reports, who could not recommend the iPhone 4 based on the problem, demonstrated above, said the iPhone 4S was free of this issue.

Apple still sells the iPhone 4 with what we believe is the same design as the one used above, so it is not certain how this settlement will affect those sales.

Update: Statement from Apple via the Loop:

“This settlement relates to a small number of customers who indicated that they experienced antenna or reception issues with their iPhone 4 and didn’t want to take advantage of a free case from Apple while it was being offered in 2010,”

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Macrumors claimed to have obtained one of the screens floating around on the Internet from iPad 3 production. Putting it under a microscope, the publication indeed discovered it has 4 times the pixels as an iPad 2 or double the horizontal and double the vertical, which yields 2,048-by-1,536 pixels.

Physically, the purported iPad 3 display is the same size as the current iPad 1 and iPad 2 display at 9.7″ in diagonal, and looks quite similar to the naked eye.

However, when comparing the iPad 3 display to one from an iPad 2 under a microscope, the difference in resolutions becomes readily apparent, with the iPad 3 display’s pixels appearing to be one-quarter the size of those on the iPad 2.

We are just a few weeks away from the anticipated March 7 announcement. While the Retina display was expected for some time, there might still be some surprises.

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Apple usually disables jailbreaks in new software releases. That is part of the reason why it took so long for Absinthe to debut for the iPhone 4S. It appears that Apple is also trying to break Siri running on unsupported devices, such as the iPhone 4. Many people who use Spire, the popular Siri port for the iPhone 4, have reported Siri is now disabled on their unsupported device. Has another cat and mouse game begun?

Historically, to get Siri working on an older device, you only need a server host and an iPhone 4S certificate. However, Apple apparently added a “SetActivationToken” that breaks services like Spire.

Just as quick, hackers have found a temporary workaround to get Spire working again. The fix is simply to delete “com.apple.assistant.plist” and the service should work again.

A demo of the issue, video after the break:

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Apple iPad 3 rumors indicate a March 7 announcement with a 2,048-by-1, 536-pixel Retina display, quad-core A6 processor, improved cameras, and now LTE chip. The over-all design of the tablet will remain the same, according to the consensus, but the big new feature  will obviously be the new Retina display. Rumors also indicate LG and Samsung are manufacturing the display. ChinaTimes said in a new report this evening that Apple ordered a whopping 65 million 264PPI Retina displays from both LG and Samsung. Both have reportedly already begun production, as well. It is not clear if this number includes orders from Sharp, who is rumored to be building displays from the iPad 3.

For comparison, Apple ordered 40 million displays for the iPad 2. Today’s report indicates a substantial 60 percent to 70 percent increase over iPad 2. If these reports are true, Apple is thinking big for its new tablet.

The iPad 2 is currently the world’s hottest tablet due to selling 15.4 million during the holiday quarter. With a big feature like the Retina display, Apple could potentially blow these numbers out of the water. China, and other emerging markets, could contribute to the influx of sales.

So, when can you get your hands on one?

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iMore‘s Rene Ritchie reports that Apple currently plans to announce their next-generation iPad on Wednesday March 7th. We recently noted that March 7th was an open day for events at San Fransisco’s Yerba Buena Center (and the first Wednesday of the month). This is the hall in which Apple introduced both the first iPad and iPad 2.

iMore also adds its voice to the string of iPad 3 Retina Display confirmations, and also says the new iPad will have a quad-core A6 processor. This agrees with both our own code findings and Bloomberg’s report. iMore says Apple is working on LTE mobile devices, they mention the iPhone 5 specifically, but LTE is noted as a possibility for this new iPad.

Notably, iMore provided correct iPhone 4S launch and feature information.

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Typically a solid indicator of an Apple product refresh is when the previous model of that particular product begins to see constraints and shortages. We saw this process prior to the launch of the iPad 2 in March of 2011, and we typically also see this process to prior to launches of Apple’s new Macs. Some examples from recent memory include MacBook Air, MacBook Pro, and iMac constraints prior to their 2011 refreshes. Now, the same situation is starting to occur with the iPad 2, a device that will most likely be succeeded by a third-generation iPad in about a month.

According to a source familiar with Apple’s product distribution channels, the iPad 2 WiFi + 3G is constrained. Supply shortages span beyond Apple’s own distribution channels, though, as major retailers are reporting “out of stock” status for the 3G iPad 2. This includes, but is likely not limited to, Carphone Warehouse and Orange in the United Kingdom. Carphone Warehouse is reporting shortges of five out of six of their 3G iPad 2 models (everything but the black 64GB unit), and Orange UK is reporting shortages of half of the 3G iPad 2 SKUs: both 32GB models and the white 64GB unit. Read on for all of the details:

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The next iPad will have the name “iPad 3,” according to the consensus of rumors, and it features a faster processor/GPU while remaining the same size as the current iPad 2. Its unveiling is in a month (March 7th is the first Wednesday) and will be available (in Wi-Fi certainly) almost immediately after.

The big differentiator this year is the “Retina Display” with a staggering 2048-by-1536 pixel screen, likely made by Sharp/Samsung/LG. An Apple employee told The New York Times that the display was “truly amazing” and it must be with a pixel count that lies between the 21- and 27-inch iMacs squeezed into a 9.7-inch display. Consider: You can watch a Blu-ray movie at native resolution with over 100 pixels on the side and nearly 500 pixels below to “play with.”

Oh, by the way: How many megapixels is 2048-by-1536? Just over 3.

That screen sounds like it might take more juice to power, but Apple will add some extra battery capacity, which might make the iPad 3 slightly thicker. The battery life will likely continue with 10 hours as the baseline (why make the case slightly bigger or smaller otherwise?).

One of the unanswered questions is whether the Samsung S5L8945X inside will be a dual or quad core processor. While this is mostly a “speeds and feeds” type of question and will not relate too much to real-world performance, it would seem that the overwhelming evidence points to quad-core. Apple’s iPad 2 was one of the first dual core tablets and with NVIDIA getting set to announce a group of quad core phones, Apple’s once a year upgrade would suggest a quad. As the S5L8945X name implies above, there will be some extra horsepower on the GPU side as well.

LTE capability is also a big question. The radios for LTE will add some weight and cost, while also acting as a harder hit on the battery. However, with Apple’s once a year release cycle and the overwhelming amount of evidence that has tied Apple to LTE, it would seem that Apple will have a LTE iPad—but perhaps one not available at the launch. Next generation lower power LTE chips are just coming off the assembly lines at Qualcomm.

More, including Bluetooth, Camera, NFC, Gig Wifi, and Thunderbolt is available below:

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Since a purported iPad 3 back-shell image leaked earlier today, we have dug into the story to uncover where it originally came from and some of the intricate details behind the part. For one, there are not only a few of these back-shells floated to repair shops, but there are sizable amounts of these parts built-in China. This gives credence to reports about the iPad 3 is in production, and it likely means things are moving full steam ahead of the rumored-March launch.

Next, the original image comes from a Chinese supplier who provides parts to iPad repair shops across the globe.

Perhaps the best news of the night is that we have a very high-resolution version of the image. Click the image below to view the full super high-res version. The iPad 3 rumors include the device to have a Retina Display, faster processor, improved graphics, and better cameras. As hinted by these back-shells and earlier rumors, the iPad 3 will likely sport a design that closely mirrors the iPad 2 design.

Update: Our friends at Apple.pro also obtained photos of the iPad 3 back shell, and they have a photo of the outer back portion. It appears that the camera lens is larger than the iPad 2 camera lens, and they confirmed the iPad 3 would feature magnets to support the Smart Cover. You can catch that photo after the break as well.

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(Updated with higher res image. Click to enlarge)

Repair Labs (via MacRumors) said it got ahold of an iPad 3 case that has numerous differences from an iPad 2—listed below:

A. You can see here that the mounts for the logic board are very different, which means the logic board shape will be different allowing for . . . .

B. More battery. The width of where the logic board sits on the iPad 2 appears much larger than that of the iPad 3. We have long heard that the iPad 3 was going to provide longer battery life, and this back housing seems to support that. [Ed: Actually, this could be to compensate for the additional power draw of the screen and possibly a faster processor]

C. The camera is different. It is hard to make a judgment just by looking at the casing, but what we can expect is a different camera on the iPad 3 than what we had on the 2.

D. LCD will be different than what we have had before. Whether or not it will be the super screen we have seen reported will have to wait. But the different mounting does mean that the LCD has been redesigned at the very least.

The report said the iPad 3 case was not noticeably thicker than the iPad 2, countering previous rumors that the new iPad would be thicker.

It is hard to vouch for the authenticity of the case above, but the changes mentioned do seem to mesh with what’s floated around.

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Siri is an AI-driven virtual assistant that launched last October as an iPhone 4S exclusive, and it currently speaks English (United States, United Kingdom, and Australia), French, and German languages. The official Siri FAQ from the onset made it clear that in 2012: “Siri will support additional languages, including Japanese, Chinese, Korean, Italian, and Spanish.”

9to5Mac discovered job openings last December indicating possible Siri enhancements, including a prettier interface and a Siri API to extend the functionality to third-party iOS programs. We also uncovered this LinkedIn profile belonging to Apple’s language technologies engineer Chen Zhang that proves Apple’s been at work completing Siri support for the Chinese market. According to today’s article by Tech Asia, Mandarin-only support for the Chinese language could be released as early as next month…

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We saw the Android-iOS duopoly coming last summer. Now, the effects of this incredibly tight chokehold are becoming painfully evident to virtually every handset maker sans Apple and Samsung. According to a fresh NPD survey from this morning, during the fourth quarter of 2011 Android and Apple together accounted for over 90 percent of smartphone sales in the United States. No wonder RIM is sliding fast. The remaining 10 percent is up for grabs.

Apple, which seized the No. 1 crown from Samsung last quarter, and leapt past Samsung and LG to become the best-selling U.S. handset brand, according to NPD. The iPhone maker grabbed 43 percent of all U.S. smartphone sales, while Android devices accounted for 48 percent of devices. First-time buyers prefer Android (57 percent) to iPhone (34 percent). Smartphones in Q4 represented 68 percent of all cell phones in the U.S., up from 50 percent in the year-ago quarter.

Some perspective: HTC today reported fourth-quarter results and blamed Samsung and Apple for a 26 percent income drop. What’s more, HTC devices are nowhere to be seen on NPD’s list of the top five best-selling devices in the U.S.

Read below for more highlights…

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Update: 8PM ET: Apple has updated the store and all 3G devices are again available.

Just this morning Apple was dealt a patent blow by a German court that ruled Apple’s 3G products outside of the iPhone 4S were in violation of Motorola patents. The “Fair, Reasonable, and Non-Discriminatory” (FRAND) nature of the patents means Apple should be able to purchase licensing rights to those patents at market rates (i.e. what Nokia, Samsung, and others pay). According to Apple, Motorola has not offered those types of terms.

Fast forward to a few minutes ago: Apple stated the 3G devices in question would be back on sale “shortly”…

Slashgear reported:

Apple has been granted a suspension of the German injunction against 3G-enabled iOS devices, with the iPad WiFi + 3G, iPhone 4 and other gadgets back on sale through the company’s online store. ”All iPad and iPhone models will be back on sale through Apple’s online store in Germany shortly” the company told us in a statement. “Apple appealed this ruling because Motorola repeatedly refuses to license this patent to Apple on reasonable terms, despite having declared it an industry standard patent seven years ago.”

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We heard earlier today that the next iPhone may have a bigger screen which could make the chassis slightly bigger.  How do you feel about this?  What size would you prefer?

Unsure? Check here (via Tim Bray).
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Apple announced monster sales of 37 million iPhones yesterday for the holiday quarter that spanned 14 weeks and ended Dec. 31, 2011. It’s a 128 percent unit increase and 133 percent revenue increase, annually, and enough to knock Samsung off the No. 1 spot it briefly held in the previous quarter. However, it appears that the popularity of the iPhone 4S also helped Apple thrive over Google’s platform, especially with Android backers such as Motorola Mobility, HTC and Sony Ericsson reporting disappointing results.

According to research firm Kantar Worldpanel ComTech (via Reuters), iPhone sales gave iPhone a lead over Android in smartphone sales in the United States. Specifically, Apple’s share of the U.S. market during October to November of last year doubled from 22.45 percent a year ago to 44.9 percent. Meanwhile Google’s Android smartphones dropped from 50 percent to 44.8 percent in the same period. Kantar’s global consumer insight director Dominic Sunnebo:

Apple has continued its strong sales run in the U.S., UK and Australia over the Christmas period. Overall, Apple sales are now growing at a faster rate than Android across the nine countries we cover.

Another way to look at iPhone numbers: The iPhone business generated $24.42 billion revenue. During the same quarter, all of Microsoft raked in $20.89 billion revenue. In fact, all of Apple’s holiday-quarter revenues and profits were two times higher than Microsoft’s.

Yet another look at iPhone numbers: Apple sells more iPhones in a day than babies born.

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=TrCK0ya097Q]

We have seen Siri clones in the Android Market trying to pass themselves off as the real thing, and some Siri alternatives making their way to the Windows Phone Marketplace. Evi, on the other hand, might actually be the first true Siri competitor/alternative for Android and non-iPhone 4S iOS users.

Available on the App Store for 99 cents and free to Android users on the Android Market, Evi is the work of True Knowledge and its “core semantic search technology” better known as The True Knowledge Answer Engine. The 99-cent price tag on iOS is apparently to cover the cost of using Nuance voice recognition (the same voice recognition tech as Siri), which is not used in the Android version.

The app’s iTunes page explained Evi is capable of returning local data for the United Kingdom (along with the United States), which has been a complaint from U.K. Siri users since the iPhone 4S launch. According to TechCrunch, the app uses “an ontology of tens of thousands of classes into which” every possible user command can be recognized. True Knowledge said the app contains “almost a billion ‘facts’ (machine understandable bits of knowledge)” with the ability to infer trillions if necessary. It also reportedly uses all the expected sources, such as local results from Yelp, third-party websites, traditional web searches, and APIs.

While as of yet Evi is incapable of integrating with Calendar and Reminders like Siri, TechCrunch pointed out it sometimes provides more accurate and useful results for certain types of questions. Siri requests to search the web for an answer when users ask certain questions, such as “How do I make apple pie?” Evi, however, would provide a list of recipes with relevant links to that specific question. TechCrunch highlighted another example where Evi excels:

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UPDATE: If you’re getting the “Error establishing a database connection” when launching the jailbreak tool, hacker PlanetBeing tweeted a simple workaround solution: Go to Settings and enable VPN under Network.

According to hacker p0sixninja, the jailbreak community just posted an untethered jailbreak solution for A5-driven devices running iOS 5.0 or iOS 5.0.1. The software is a long expected follow-up to an untethered iOS 5.0.1 exploit for non-A5 devices, released last December. According to a blog post, the new jailbreak is called “Absinthe A5,” and it was not exactly a walk in the park.

The updated greenpois0n tool is now available for download here. It’s Mac-only, but Windows version is “coming soon”. The application lets iPad 2 and iPhone 4S owners finally jailbreak their device without the need to tether it to a computer upon each reboot. This jailbreak can be used with both iPhone 4S running iOS 5.0 build 9A334 and iOS 5.0.1 (builds 9A405 and 9A406) and iPad 2 running iOS 5.0.1 build 9A405.

Video tutorial is right below…

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iTunes U (Click to enlarge):

iBooks 2:

Thanks @sonnydickson for the images 

We have been finding references to 2X iPad images for well over a year (including iBooks 1.2), but with the next iPad expected soon, these images found in the iBooks 2 file have some importance:

We’re still expecting a 2X Retina iPad in the coming months.

Thanks Brenden!
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The above image is used for illustrative purpose and does not represent iPad 3 case mockup.

iLounge editor Jeremy Horwitz, who at last year’s Consumer Electronics Show scooped an iPad 2-mockup case that eventually proved legit, is back with another exclusive. According to his article, yesterday he was shown what purports to be a next-generation iPad at the CES 2012 show in Las Vegas, Nevada.

Even though he did not snap a photograph of it (the above image represents just a pair of iPad 2s), he published some interesting observations that largely support what iLounge heard in November. For starters, iPad 3 might in fact be a bit thicker than the current-generation tablet to make room for new parts:

The new iPad’s body is so slightly thicker than the iPad 2 that the change is unnoticeable on first inspection; a roughly 1mm increase will barely be perceptible to users. We’ve heard that the only accessories that might have issues are cases, and then, only cases that were precisely contoured to fit the iPad 2’s back. […] Switch, button, speaker, and other elements located on the side edges are all the same, as are the headphone and Dock Connector ports. In other words, last year’s accessories should generally work properly with the new model, which is great.

The editor got the impression that what he saw “seemed to be more than half a year old” rather than just manufactured. It is conceivable Horwitz was holding in his hands a pre-production prototype. Looking at the back, Horwitz noticed visual changes that suggest an enhanced camera system…

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