iPhone 5s

Supposed posters from China Mobile promoting the iPhone 5s and 5c have leaked out, touting “the strongest iPhone in China” (via UnwiredView). The ‘100’ visible on the poster indicates the network’s 100Mb/s maximum speed will be supported by the iPhone. Naturally, the iPhone will be China Mobile’s flagship 4G phone.

Apple has already received the necessary certification to put the iPhone on all Chinese spectrum, including the TD-LTE strand used by China Mobile, earlier this month. Now, the only holdup is getting permission from the MITT governing body to let China Mobile use the spectrum on a commercial basis.

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http://vimeo.com/75324765

The German hacker who successfully defeated Touch ID using a fingerprint lifted from the back of an iPhone has posted a video showing exactly how it was done.

While the hacker – who goes by the nickname Starbug – described the attack as “very straightforward and trivial,” he revealed in an email interview with arsTechnica that it required 30 hours of work using a scanner, high-res laserprinter and a printed circuit board etching kit.

It took me nearly 30 hours from unpacking the iPhone to a [bypass] that worked reliably. With better preparation it would have taken approximately half an hour. I spent significantly more time trying to find out information on the technical specification of the sensor than I actually spent bypassing it.

I was very disappointed, as I hoped to hack on it for a week or two. There was no challenge at all; the attack was very straightforward and trivial.

Should 5s owners worry that, now that the technique is known, it could be replicated in 30 mins? The answer is ‘it depends, but probably not’ … 
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Last time Apple checked in during its Q3 2013 earnings report it announced the App Store was home to 900,000 apps and over 375K designed specifically for iPad. Today, the App Store has now reached 950,000 apps and quickly approaches 1 million with Apple accepting 50K new apps in the last two months alone. The news comes from app discovery service Appsfire, which regularly tracks new and updated apps added to the App Store.

Apple often celebrates milestones for its App Store with some type of giveaway or contest for users. Earlier this year it made a number of premium apps available for free to celebrate the 5th anniversary of the App Store and also gave away a $10,000 App Store gift card to announce the 50 billionth app download. We wouldn’t be surprised to see Apple do something similar for the 1 millionth app on the App Store.

Apple has likely seen an increase in new app submissions in recent weeks, as a long list of developers update and release new apps to accompany last week’s launch of iOS 7 and the new iPhones. At the current rate, it will take Apple just another couple of months to hit the 1 million mark.
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How many of those 9 million first weekend sales were for the iPhone 5s vs the iPhone 5c? There’s been a lot of speculation about how many of each device Apple is selling, and whether or not lack of availability of the gold iPhone 5s is due to low supply or simply the higher demand. Apple is staying quiet on the breakdown of 5s units vs 5c, but today we get some solid insight from Localytics after the research firm tracked over 20 million unique active iPhones since launch day on Friday.

72 hours after the launch of the new devices, Localytics found that China, not the U.S., had the highest relative share of iPhone 5s vs 5c sales.

Globally an average of 78% of new iPhones sold were iPhone 5s models, while China came in at 91% 5s. It’s somewhat surprising considering analysts have largely expected the 5c to do well in China and other emerging markets, but the report speculates that the fact that gold is a popular color in the country could be driving higher demand for the 5s.That compares to the U.S. at 76% and an average of 82% in other countries. It appears the UK has the highest share of 5c sales as “the only country that didn’t have at least a 3 to 1 ratio of 5s  to 5c activations.”

Localytics also tells us that currently “the U.S. accounts for 68% of all active iPhone 5s and 5c devices worldwide, with Japan in second place with 13% of 5s and 5c’s: 
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Update: On Twitter, Tim Cook has tweeted, for the second time, to thank customers for the “amazing” sales.

[tweet https://twitter.com/tim_cook/status/382172377569689600]

Apple has just announced first-weekend sales figures for the iPhone 5s and 5c. Sales for both phones total 9 million. In comparison, the iPhone 5 shipments topped 5 million in the same period. These numbers come in at the higher end of analyst estimates, with many predicting bearish sales similar to the iPhone 5 launch last year. As expected, Apple did not reveal the breakdown of sales between the different iPhone models.

Alongside phone sales, the company’s press release also highlights iOS 7’s successful launch. Apple has announced that 200 million devices have been updated to iOS 7 since it was released last Wednesday. This is double the rate at which iOS 6 was adopted.

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I managed to pick up an iPhone 5s yesterday and have been trying out its new features and enhancements. Here’s my review of the device after using it for 24 hours…

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The WSJ reports that Apple has instructed suppliers to increase production of the gold model of the iPhone 5s by one-third after seeing high demand for the color. Availability for the gold model was into October within 30 minutes of orders opening on Apple Store sites around the world, with retail stores also reportedly selling out quickly and carriers getting few in the first place … 
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Update:

In the UK, the iPhone 5s has just gone on sale. Shipping estimates stand at 7-10 days. At the time of writing, all models are expected to be delivered in the first week of October.

The iPhone 5s has just gone on sale in Australia. However, as has been noted several times, supply of the 5s is extremely constrained. As a result, Apple is already quoting 7-10 day shipping estimates for the device. The prolonged availability applies to all models and all colors. 5s cases are similarly low in supply, to a similar extent, quoting 3-5 day shipping times.

Supply issues seem to apply to all countries. In the UK, O2 has announced that they will have no 5s’ in stock, but will order it for when it becomes available. Via CZ on Twitter, for the Apple Store in Hong Kong, the 5s has already lapsed into October for shipping.

@markgurman if you check HK apple online store. 5s available to ship in October

— CZ (@CSZhang) September 19, 2013

The iPhone 5s becomes available in the US at 12.01 Pacific Time tonight.

Thanks Sonny Dickson.

Morgan Stanley is estimating that iPhone sales for Q3 (Apple’s fiscal Q4) will hit 34.5M, 28 percent higher than the 26.9M sold in the same quarter last year, reports Fortune.

Apple had only just begun taking iPhone 5C pre-orders Sunday when Morgan Stanley’s AlphaWise Smartphone Tracker closed the books on Q3 2013, but the survey had already registered a bump in buyer interest in the company’s line of smartphones … 
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Apple announced last week that Burberry would be capturing its London fashion show that took place yesterday entirely with its new iPhone 5s, and today Burberry has posted the full video of the event. There’s no mention whether or not the full 15 minute long video above has been retouched after being shot on the iPhone, but Apple and Burberry say the entire show, including photos and video, was “shot exclusively on iPhone 5s.”

We’ve seen a few shots leak throughout the week already, but Pocket-Lint has an inside look at how Burberry’s photographers shot the show using 14 different iPhones and an interview with Burberry’s creative director Christopher Bailey:
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Unlike the rest of the world, China and Hong Kong can reserve the iPhone 5s starting today. However, just minutes after the phone became available, most models and colors sold out across the country.

At the time of writing, only the 16 GB ‘space grey’ SKU’s remain available for reservation. All other models have sold out and are “currently unavailable” according to the online store. Sina reported on the phenomenon, noting that the gold model, in particular, was in high demand…
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Touch ID is far, far more important than most people have realised – the core message behind a Quora post by the CEO of a card payment service. We can expect to learn far more “in the next few months, and that’s likely to eventually include both Touch ID Macs and use of the fingerprint system for mobile payments.

In the torrent of the billions of words already written about Touch ID very, very few people have really understood just how revolutionary this really is.  Apple not only has developed one of the most accurate mass produced biometric security devices, they have also solved critical problems with how the data from this device will be encrypted, stored and secured.

Brian Roemmele, CEO of 1st American Card Service, said that Apple’s attempt to solve the problem of how to develop a truly secure access system goes all the way back to a patent application in 2008, but it was only through the A7 chip – specifically created by ARM with mobile payment security in mind – that the company finally had a gold-standard solution. And its applications will go far beyond iPhone unlock and iTunes purchases … 
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Poor old Siri doesn’t seem to get much love from many users. When I recently mentioned it as the reason I upgraded from the iPhone 4 to the 4S, quite a few disparaging comments were made about the service. Our finding this weekend that Apple now considers Siri good enough to lose the beta tag caused Gizmodo to wonder who actually uses it.

I thought its reclassification as a fully-fledged iOS feature would be a good time to persuade those who’ve abandoned the assistant to give Siri another chance … 
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