iPhone 6

Keeping to the ‘Hey Siri’ theme of the event, the day before the big show, Apple has added a new set of reply phrases to Siri teasing the event tomorrow. There’s about a half-dozen new witty responses in addition to those added last week. To hear them, hold-down the Home Button activate Siri and say ‘Hey Siri, give me a hint’.

Obviously, these hints are little more than funny jokes (the binary one spells the word ‘Gotcha’ if decoded) and don’t give away secret product information. If you want details about what Apple is announcing tomorrow, read 9to5Mac’s exclusive roundup of the event, which will feature the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, iPad Pro, new Apple Watch bands and the unveiling of the long-awaited brand new Apple TV.

Check out the full gallery of new hints below and let us know in the comments if you find Siri saying any more hints we haven’t discovered …

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A day before the announcement of the new iPhones, analytics company Localytics has provided a picture of the iPhone market today. It shows that the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus between them account for a full 40% of all iPhones in use, with the iPhone 5s trailing behind at 23.7%.

The same data also backs our report that the iPhone 5c is being discontinued, showing that it accounts for just 8.5% of active iPhones, putting it below the iPhone 4S. This can only add to doubts about whether the often rumored and debunked iPhone 6c (beautiful concept images below) could succeed … 
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The official Steve Jobs biopic, written by Aaron Sorkin, was shown at the Telluride Film Festival for a preliminary screening ahead of its cinema debut on October 9th. The reviews are in and seem to be very good indeed. Variety called it “a terrific actors’ showcase and an incorrigibly entertaining ride that looks set to be one of the fall’s early must-see attractions.”

The film is just over two hours long, with Michael Fassbender who plays Jobs, being a standout success. The Guardian described Fassbender playing the lead role as a transformative experience with others already lobbying Fassbender for an Oscar for the part. We’ve compiled some quotes from various reviews below. Apple cofounder Steve Wozniak seems to like the film as well …

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Although we may be just three days away from the unveiling of the iPhone 6S, which will mirror the iPhone 6 in appearance, KGI analyst Ming-Chi Kuo is already looking forward to the iPhone after the iPhone 6S, which would be named ‘iPhone 7’ if Apple followed previous year trends. In the tock year, Apple has typically changed the way the iPhone looks externally and apparently 2016 will be no different. The report says the next iPhone will approach iPod touch levels of thinness, with a body between 6 and 6.5mm. For comparison, the current iPhone 6 and 6 Plus are 6.9 and 7.1mm respectively.

It also indicates that the next-generation iPhone will use the same Force Touch technology as the yet-to-be-announced iPhone 6S and 6S Plus as Apple suppliers have invested heavily in the feature for this year’s devices.

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Kantar has refuted gloomy suggestions that record sales of the iPhone 6/Plus may make it tougher for Apple to persuade customers to upgrade, saying that its data “suggests Apple has ample opportunity for upgrades in Q4 2015 and 2016.”

The pessimistic view put forward in some quarters goes like this. There was a lot of pent-up demand for larger-screened iPhones. Everyone who wanted one has now bought one, so upgrade rates will now tail off significantly.

Kantar says that this view ignores the fact that people will continue to upgrade from older models. It points out that the average U.S. iPhone user upgrades every 25 months – and 31% of owners bought their current iPhone more than two years ago … 
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With the official announcement of Apple’s iPhone 6S just around the corner, Gazelle today announced limited-time promotional trade-in pricing for the iPhone 5s, 6, and 6 Plus, guaranteeing that Gazelle’s cash offer will “beat the trade-in credit offered by a customer’s wireless carrier or Apple.” The promotion applies to U.S. carriers AT&T, Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint, as well as Apple’s trade-in program.
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A planning permission meeting for a new Apple Store in Memphis has seemingly revealed more information about Apple’s plans for its retail stores. According to the Apple representative, the Memphis project represents one of the first ‘next generation’ Apple Store designs that Apple is rolling out around the world, starting in the fall. The Memphis store will be part of the first rollout of the new look stores in the US.

So what does the ‘next generation’ Apple Store look like?

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Users of Apple Pay in the UK can now spend an extra £10 per contactless transaction, bringing the limit up to a total of £30, thanks to new contactless policy. Until today, the maximum spend on almost all Apple Pay transactions was £20. The £30 total now exceeds the average cost of a supermarket trip making it possible for UK Apple users to take advantage of Apple Pay at more places.

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A purported photo of an iPhone 6S information sheet has surfaced detailing the specifications of the upcoming iPhone, due to be announced at an event on September 9th. Whilst the detailed technical specifications do not reveal anything new, the page header is intriguing. It suggests that, once again, Apple will offer a 16 GB base model version of the iPhone 6S (via Steve Hemmerstoffer). This matches analysis of iPhone 6S components obtained by 9to5Mac back in June, which showed Apple using 16 GB memory chips in preproduction units.

Low storage space iPhone SKUs is a big complaint in the community. Many had thought this would be the year Apple finally drops 16 GB from the new lineup of phones for good. Although iOS 9 is more efficient regarding storage, features like 12-megapixel photos and 4K video recording generally require a lot more storage space. Some supplier reports have also said the new iPhone lineup will start at 32 GB.

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Apple Music and Beats 1 lead Ian Rogers has unexpectedly left Apple two months since the Apple Music launch. Although Apple Music app has received some criticism, Rogers’ primary responsibility, Beats 1, has received much critical acclaim and has been widely praised, so it is surprising to see a resignation out of the director. The Financial Times first reported the departure, which has now been confirmed by Apple.

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While Apple will unveil a pair of next-generation iPhones at its September 9th event, the iPhone 6S and iPhone 6S Plus, don’t expect a new 4-inch “iPhone 6c” to show up on stage. Sources say that while Apple has been working on a new 4-inch iPhone with the capabilities of last year’s iPhone 6, the device is not yet ready to ship. Interestingly, Apple has also internally prototyped a new, smaller iPhone with a 3.5-inch display, the same size of the iPhone’s screen from the first model in 2007 to the iPhone 4S in 2011, but it does not appear that the company plans to move forward with actually releasing such a device.

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As we approach the iPhone event, with invites very likely to go out to press shortly, we have more iPhone 6S rumors to discuss. Firstly, Hamza Sood has once again peeked into the iOS 9 source code and found references to ‘deep press’ gestures. This seems to confirm the existence of Force Touch in the new iPhones, which at this point is no surprise. Force Touch is widely assumed to be coming to all of the new iPhones and iPads Apple will announce this year. 9to5Mac reported that Force Touch will be used for various things across the OS: Sood found the Force Touch code reference in text selection code and appears to mean that a Force Touch gesture will activate the keyboard trackpad scrolling … a new feature for iPads in iOS 9.

A packaging photo has also leaked, although the validity is highly questionable. It appears to show packaging for the iPhone 6S Plus …

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Apple has called the iPhone “the world’s most popular camera,” a title originally earned by aggregating all iPhones together for counting purposes. But while the exact sales numbers for each iPhone model are difficult to quantify, there’s no question that Apple has already sold over 750 million iPhones, and well over 100 million iPhone 6 devices. Those are huge numbers, and well beyond the typical sales of individual point-and-shoot cameras.

Few people appreciate that growing iPhone demand has created an unusual challenge for Apple: reliably sourcing the tens of millions of parts needed to meet first month demand for tens of millions of iPhones. To that end, Apple’s camera maker Sony had to upgrade its manufacturing plants twice this year to produce more of the CMOS image sensors needed for smartphones including the iPhone. Even with a partner as large as Sony, however, iPhone-specific engineering requirements and the risk inherent in brand new technologies have led Apple to hold off on using the latest and greatest camera innovations in its devices. Instead, iPhones go with thin, lower-resolution sensors that offer great overall image quality for their size, and never eclipse rivals on raw specs.

So what can we realistically expect from the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus cameras next month? Here are my educated guesses…

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If you’re thinking of selling or trading in your current iPhone ahead of the iPhone 6S’s release, you probably know that you’ll need to wipe your device before a buyer can use it free and clear. Prepping an iPhone for resale used to be almost as easy as hitting a “reset” button in the iPhone’s settings menu. But over the past few years, the process has become more complex thanks to new security, wallet, and cloud-dependent features such as Activation Lock, Apple Pay and iTunes in the Cloud. Completely removing all of your personal items from your iPhone — and your iPhone from Apple’s servers — requires extra work.

Today, I’m going to walk you through the process of thoroughly scrubbing your iPhone prior to resale. There are 9 steps to take to make sure your device is cleaned up and ready to sell to its next owner. Here they are…

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Apple releases at least one new iPhone every year, and the coverage has become predictable: reviews (accurately) herald “the best iPhone yet,” typically based on “small but important changes that refine the user experience.” Based on everything we know about the iPhone 6S and 6S Plus, you can expect the same narrative again this year — starting with the obligatory sigh of similarity that precedes the review of every S model, and ending with the common recommendation to “go buy one unless you can wait until next year.”

For professional reasons, I’ve owned every iPhone since the original 2007 model, and upgraded every single year regardless of how small or large the differences were between models. This year, for the first time, I sold off my current-generation iPhone to maximize the cash I’d get towards the purchase of a new model, and as an experiment, I went back to using the iPhone 5s (updated to iOS 9) to see whether any of the differences really mattered. After a week with the old iPhone, I can’t wait for a new one: there are a lot of reasons to prefer Apple’s bigger, better 6-series phones. So if you’re on the fence about going from any iPhone 4/4S or 5/5s/5c to a new iPhone 6S, trust me, you’ll want to get ready to upgrade now…

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$AAPL stock has opened below $100 in the first minutes of trading, erasing any gains since October 2014. Apple’s stock officially opened at $95.12 but has corrected slightly upwards since to circa $101. The fall in share price saw Apple’s market capitalization lose about $60 billion dollars in value today. Although any fall in price is bad news for the company, the 7% fall should not be taken at face value.

The whole market is down with losses across the board: the S&P saw a 5% overall fall — the largest one-day drop for four years. Technology stocks are being affected as much as any other sector. Twitter, Alibaba, Tesla and Netflix all saw falls in the double digits.

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Apple has discovered that a limited number of iPhone 6 Plus devices sold between September and January are affected by a manufacturing defect with the back camera. This defect causes photos taken with the back iSight camera to come out blurry. Apple will replace the camera in your affected device for free, if eligible. You can find out if you are eligible for a replacement by typing your serial number into this website, which will lookup if your phone is part of the batch with the manufacturing problem.

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