iPhone 6

Apple’s sapphire processing plant in Mesa, AZ

The Wall Street Journal has cast some more light on recent reports that Apple’s sapphire supplier had declared bankruptcy earlier this week. According to the Journal’s report, Apple withheld a payment of $139 million from GT Advanced, though currently there’s no indication of why this decision was made.

In another interesting revelation, the Journal also discovered that the CEO of GT Advanced, Thomas Gutierrez, unloaded all of his stock in the company in a sale just one day before the iPhone 6 was unveiled. The device was widely expected to use sapphire supplied by GT for its displays. GT Advanced had enjoyed a rising stock price that had nearly doubled since initial rumors of a collaboration on the iPhone 6 started swirling.

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Ray Ozzie, who used to be Microsoft’s Chief Technical Officer and Chief Software Architect, has come out with a new app for the iPhone. In an extensive profile, Steven Levy explains the premise behind the app, dubbed Talko. You can read the full overview on Medium. The app has been in development for more than two years.

A new take on phone calls, the app shows if your recipient is currently walking or driving — giving a hint at attentiveness of the speaker before the conversation even begins. It’s a nice use of the Apple M7 and M8 coprocessors. Any voice communication is archived into the growing thread … to organize a conversation like any other modern chat app really. Talko seems best as an app for modern meetings, like a conference call replacement, although Ozzie insists it can be used beyond business.

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Following some statistical analysis from yesterday that indicated the iPhone 6 usage ratio was beginning to favor iPhone 6 Plus, Digitimes now reports that Apple is following through on market shifts with production schedule adjustments.

Digitimes says that with iPhone 6 Plus exceeding expectations, Apple has asked the supply chain to move some production away from its 4.7 inch phone. This will mean that shipments for iPhone 6 will fall by 3-4 million units to accommodate the change in production lines.

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A modified version of the Facebook Messenger has revealed that person-to-person payment interfaces and other elements are already integrated into the app. The discovery was made by iOS developer Andre Aude.

Just like sending a message or sending a photo, Facebook’s payments implementation is integrated into the chat window. The idea being, that if you talk to a friend about getting coffee, you can pay your half of the bill in the same place. A history of payments appears in the settings pages.

Facebook has not confirmed that the feature is coming any time soon. Zuckerberg has floated the idea of Facebook tying mobile payments before, but warned it was a long way off.

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Need to learn how to replace your iPhone 6 or 6 Plus’s battery, display, or other components? Our friends over at iFixit, the same ones that regularly tear apart the newest devices to have a look inside, today published its latest iPhone repair guides for the recently released iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus.
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What can I say about the iPhone 6 that you don’t know or haven’t already assumed? Not much, actually. It’s running iOS 8, has a great camera, thinner design, and a handful of features that make it different from last year’s iPhone.

This year, Apple has bumped up the display size and released two models. We have the 4.7-inch iPhone 6 and 5.5-Inch iPhone 6 Plus, but if you were paying attention to the rumor mill leading up to the launch, these two models probably weren’t a surprise. That being said, there are still some points I’d like to make about both devices, but instead of creating two reviews, I think it’s safe to combine them so that you can find out which one is right for you…

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Yesterday, Chinese iPhone 6 reservations were stated as 2 million in six hours, a rather stunning statistic. Today, an update from the Chinese media press Tencent now says that reservations have topped 4 million. If all these reservations convert into orders, China alone may beat out the iPhone 6’s launch numbers, which — at the time — were considered to be impressive.

What’s more interesting is that Tencent claims it has exact order numbers from one of the main companies offering reservations. This gives some insight into how sales will be split between the 4.7 inch iPhone 6 and the 5.5 inch iPhone 6 Plus.

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A new report by Digitimes says that, contrary to public opinion, the iPhone 6 Plus is receiving more orders after beating initial demand expectations. The report says 60% of iPhone production is iPhone 6 Plus units, which may be interpreted as the iPhone 6 Plus being the more popular model. It also says that Foxconn is responsible for iPhone 6 Plus supply, whereas Pegatron is taking up iPhone 6 output.

However, Digitimes doesn’t have the best track record and this information sort of defies other evidence. Firstly, it is important to note that production does not correlate proportionally to demand. It was well publicised that the iPhone 6 Plus was supply-constrained in the runup to release. The burst of iPhone 6 Plus production now may simply be restoring the balance, clearing the backlog of orders.

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Although benchmarks have already shown that the iPhone 6 has raw performance gains over the current competition, this video by PhoneBuff highlights what this advantage means in a real word test of loading a variety of apps and switching between them. Due to the differences between Android and iOS, the tester uses equivalent apps as closely as possible.

In total, the iPhone took 1 minute 55 seconds to load and multitask between the 30 apps tested, whereas the M8 was about 10 seconds slower. The Galaxy S5 lagged significantly, taking over a minute longer than the iPhone to complete the test at 2 minutes 58 seconds.

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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrhCz6PnT78]

You might have thought the whole iPhone 6 Bendgate controversy had been put to bed following extensive testing and responses from Apple, but Samsung wants you to know that, unlike the new iPhones, its new Galaxy Note 4 won’t bend in your back pocket:
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The CarPlay situation has been murky. Since being announced in the spring, most manufacturers have been quiet on when CarPlay equipment will actually be available to purchase. Pioneer is the first company to deliver on its promise, adding CarPlay as an update to its aftermarket dashboard panels (unless you count Ferrari’s integration into its high-end Ferrari California T).

Existing Pioneer device owners may not need to purchase any extras, as the CarPlay update is free for supported devices. Aforementioned units include the AVIC-8000NEX, AVIC-7000NEX, AVIC-6000NEX, AVIC-5000NEX and the AVH-4000NEX with prices ranging from $700 to $1400.

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Tweetbot, the incredibly popular iPhone Twitter client, has just been updated with support for the new iPhone 6 and iPhone 6 Plus displays. The update includes interactive notification banners that allow you to quickly favorite, retweet, or reply to tweets as they come in.

The new version also includes the ability to login to an account using the new 1Password extension introduced in the newest update to that app. Other third-party extensions will also be supported through native iOS 8 share sheets. Other miscellaneous bug fixes are included to round out the update.

You can grab Tweetbot 3.5 for iPhone on the App Store for $4.99. It’s free for existing users. The full change log is below.

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One of the problems the new iPhone 6 models present is where to put it when you’re in the car. You may not want to keep it in your pocket for obvious reasons, especially the iPhone 6 Plus, and the new models are larger and slipperier than ever. Keeping it in the seat next to you probably means it’ll end up on the floor. With the larger displays and new features introduced with iOS 8, using a car mount is more useful than ever. I’ve been trying out Kenu’s Airframe+, which supports even the 5.5-inch iPhone 6 Plus (with a case too), and I’ve found using a car mount offers up a number of benefits.
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The iPhone 5c is often criticised in light of its beefy powerful cousins, acting as a bit of a laughing stock for the technology industry. However, it is often reported as one of the top phones by sales volume in many countries (usually beating out Samsung’s offerings).

In fact, for August the iPhone 5c was the best selling smartphone in the UK, even outselling the iPhone 5s, according to Kantar World Panel.

The iPhone 5c was the best selling phone in Britain in August with 8.9% share, outselling the flagship iPhone 5s with 7.6% and the Samsung Galaxy S5 with 6.0%.

Normally, Apple phone sales drop in the runup to the next-generation devices, as customers hold off on iPhone purchases until the new versions are announced. However, Kantar says that the success of the iPhone 5c meant that Apple’s decline was much lower than in previous years.

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Go beyond Photo Booth’s fake ‘Thermal’ filter with this iPhone accessory by Seek Thermal. The company now sells a real thermal imaging camera attachment for $199 on its website. The gadget plugs in using a Lightning port, so it works with any iPhone 5, iPhone 5s, iPhone 5c, iPhone 6 or iPhone 6 Plus you may have lying around.

The product will also work with Lightning-equipped iPads, but the company says the accessory is not optimized for iPads, which probably means be prepared for some wiggling.

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Last week, #BendGate took the Internet by storm. I’m sure you’re all familiar with it by now, but if not, BendGate was created from an alleged bending issue with Apple’s iPhone 6 Plus. There’s a specific weak point on the inside of the chassis right beneath the volume buttons that allows it to bend very easily with pressure added in the right place. To most, it may seem like a non-issue, but a single video sparked one of the biggest viral moments this year in tech…
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h-DcUASffHU]

Computer Bild, Europe’s best-selling computer magazine, has had its PR accreditation pulled after posting a video of one of its journalists bending an iPhone 6 Plus.

The german PR department of the company reacts in a disturbing way: Instead of answering the questions about why the iPhone 6 Plus is so sensitive, a manager called Computer Bild and told us, that Computer Bild will not get any testing devices and no invites to official events any more …

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