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7,262 'iPhone' stories November 2008 - March 2014
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Introduced in 2007 by Steve Jobs, iPhone is Apple's flagship iOS device and easily its most popular product around the world. The iPhone runs iOS and includes a large collection of mobile apps through the App Store.

iPhone 9to5Mac

Introduced in 2007 by Steve Jobs, iPhone is Apple’s flagship iOS device and easily its most popular product around the world. Software wise, it runs iOS and includes a large collection of mobile apps through the App Store.

Table of contents

Since its introduction, Apple has released at least one new phone every single year. In recent years, that has typically been in the fall. iPhones are sold through multiple retail channels including Apple Stores, cellular stores, Best Buy, and other major electronic retailers. iPhones can be bought with a single up front payment, financed through the iPhone Upgrade Program, or financed through a cellular carrier.

Apple’s smartphone has become much more than just a phone since its debut. The iPhone can act as your primary camera, music player, GPS device, email client, mobile banking system, messaging device, movie player, and much more.

Current Lineup for 2019:

Discontinued Models:

Read below for all of our coverage

Apple looking to boost M&A team with acquisition integration analysts

Avatar for Mark Gurman Mar 10 2014 - 7:48 am PT
3 Comments
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As Apple’s Finance department transitions into a new era under the watch of incoming CFO Luca Maestri, the team is seeking acquisition integration analysts. The new job position was posted earlier today on Apple’s job listings website. The listing is seeking an analyst who could examine companies acquired by Apple and assist in integrating that company’s resources into existing teams within Apple. The person will need to work on integration with the HR, Legal, IS&T, Real Estate, Operations, Finance, and Tax teams:


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Apple Store iPhone Reuse and Recycle trade-in program reaches Canada

Avatar for Mark Gurman Mar 10 2014 - 6:55 am PT
1 Comment

In line with our report from a couple of weeks ago, Apple’s in-store iPhone trade-in program has arrived in Canada. The Reuse and Recycle program allows an iPhone user (of the first 3G model and newer) to trade-in their iPhone for a gift card that can be applied toward the purchase of the new iPhone. The amount of money on the card will vary by model and the quality of the older iPhone. The program first launched in the United States last year, quickly expanded to the United Kingdom, and then it reached France earlier this year. The launch in Canada has been confirmed via Apple’s Canada retail pages in the Apple Store iPhone app.


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Most iPhone 6 concept videos are silly, this one could be fairly accurate [Poll]

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 10 2014 - 5:47 am PT
41 Comments
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sPY5Bu67iY4]

There are a lot of very silly iPhone 6 concept images and videos around, from convex curves that maximize reflections and vulnerability to damage, to completely transparent phones (invisible batteries and circuit boards are the new black, apparently). This concept by Sam Beckett isn’t terribly exciting, but it is likely reasonably close to what we might expect Apple to do … 
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Review: Mophie’s new ‘Space Pack’ battery case is like Dropbox without the cloud and twice the power

Avatar for Zac Hall Mar 9 2014 - 6:00 am PT
21 Comments
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For the past few weeks, I’ve been testing out Mophie’s new ‘Space Pack’ battery case with included storage that it showed off earlier this year at CES. While I’ve never used a case on my iPhone for longer than a few days, I do run out of battery more often than I’d like, and Mophie’s promise of extra storage built into the hardware sparked my interest. (Oh, and I do think the name is cool and clever…) I really wanted to try out the Space Pack just to prove what I expected: You can’t possibly add more storage to an iPhone in a way that isn’t gimmicky and a poor experience. Admittedly, my expectations were far from what Mophie has been able to accomplish; considering the limitations designed into iOS software and iPhone hardware, the Mophie Space Pack is a very interesting and useful accessory…
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iTunes Festival channel shows up on Apple TV ahead of SXSW concerts

Avatar for Mark Gurman Mar 8 2014 - 8:28 pm PT
1 Comment
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Ahead of this upcoming week’s iTunes Festival concert series at SXSW, Apple has added an iTunes Festival channel to the Apple TV so that users can live stream the concert’s content. Late last week, Apple released an updated version of the iTunes Festival application for the iPhone, iPad, and iPod touch. The Apple TV application is similar in style to the iOS app, and it includes a colorful logo…


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iBetterCharge puts iPhone & iPad battery notifications on your Mac

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Mar 7 2014 - 6:54 am PT
10 Comments

A nice, new utility called iBetterCharge brings those 20% and 10% battery warnings from your iPhone or iPad onto your Mac. Rather than picking up your phone before heading out the door only to realize your battery is almost dead, the app will remind you to plug in with warnings that pop up as desktop notifications on your Mac. This is a handy little tool for anyone that likes to leave their iPhone or iPad out of sight while working on their Mac or people with multiple iOS devices to manage. It has already saved me a few times this week as I’ve been testing it.

You can connect multiple devices, set granular preferences for notifications when your battery gets lower than 50%, 20%, 10%, or 5%, and also select options to play sounds, animate the menu bar icon, or show a notification. Another preference will let you get notified when a device is fully charged and an ignore list lets you quickly mute notifications for certain devices.

The app is rather lightweight and a free download. Once you’ve installed it, iBetterCharge sits in your menu bar and automatically finds your devices over WiFi. Note: For this to work you have to have WiFi Sync enabled on your device.

You can download iBetterCharge for free here.

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TaWovz5WviI]

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iPhone owners 46 percent less likely to need to replace their phone

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 7 2014 - 4:23 am PT
18 Comments

Image: iosguides.net

Figures from insurance company ProtectCell show that iPhone owners are 46 percent less likely to need a replacement than owners of other smartphones, and 11 percent less likely to need a repair.

While iPhones seemingly have higher build quality than other phones (or perhaps more careful owners), it comes as no surprise to see they are more desirable to thieves, with iPhone thefts 65 percent higher than those of other smartphones. A number that will hopefully fall when word reaches the criminal world about Activation Lock.

Update: ProtectCELL emailed us to say their press release contained the wrong figure (reading 54 percent instead of 46 percent). We have updated with the correct one.

iPhone case will measure heart-rate, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen saturation & lung function

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 6 2014 - 5:47 am PT
11 Comments
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A prototype iPhone case tested by Engadget aims to provide a comprehensive array of vital signs, encompassing heart-rate, blood pressure, temperature, oxygen saturation & lung function.

Readings are done with your hands in a comfortable position, and the health tracker was able to return our vital signs as well as a fancy ECG graph of our heart in just a few seconds. Out of the box, you’ll be able to pair it with your Wi-Fi scale and fitness tracker, so you can keep an overall picture of your health in the same place … 
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Report: Apple bringing full screen, interstitial iAds to iPhone

Avatar for Zac Hall Mar 5 2014 - 11:05 am PT
3 Comments
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According to a new report from Ad Age, Apple is planning to offer a new option for how iAds are presented on its iOS platform. The new iAd option will allow included video content to play automatically at full screen rather than being prompted by tapping a more subtle banner. While interstitial iAds are already possible for iAds presented on the iPad meant for use in Newsstand apps, the report claims the new options will target both iPhone and iPad users suggesting the option could debut for iPhone and iPod touch users. The report believes the automatically playing, full screen interstitial iAds will likely be presented in between activity rather than interrupting content entirely.
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Opinion: Does CarPlay go far enough, or should car manufacturers let Apple do more?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 5 2014 - 6:44 am PT
63 Comments
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CarPlay is undoubtedly a big step in the right direction. Instead of car manufacturers using their own clunky user-interfaces to give you access to things like phone calls and music, there is now a standard, Apple-designed interface.

This makes perfect sense. Apple is the king of user-interface design, and most car manufacturers, well, aren’t. There was a time when I was driving a lot of rental cars and got to experience a whole bunch of different in-car screen systems, and they ranged in usability from halfway ok to downright dreadful. None offered anything close to the simplicity and clarity of CarPlay.

The question I have about CarPlay is: does it go far enough … ?

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Gorilla Glass maker Corning (predictably) slams sapphire, saying weaker and dimmer

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 5 2014 - 4:47 am PT
16 Comments

In the tech equivalent of a turkey dissing Thanksgiving dinners, Corning SVP Tony Tripeny has criticized sapphire as a material for protecting phone screens, coming up with a whole list of claimed drawbacks, reports CNET.

We see a lot of disadvantages of Sapphire versus Gorilla Glass. It’s about 10 times more expensive. It’s about 1.6 times heavier. It’s environmentally unfriendly. It takes about 100 times more energy to generate a Sapphire crystal than it does glass. It transmits less light which…means either dimmer devices or shorter battery life. It continues to break. I think while it’s a scratch resistant product it still breaks and our testing says that Gorilla Glass [can take] about 2.5 times more pressure that it can take.

Sapphire is far more resistant to scratches than Gorilla Glass, but Corning argue that it is more likely to be smashed.

Apple is expected to switch to a sapphire coating for the iPhone 6, manufacturing the material at the plant it jointly operates with GTAT in Arizona. While the material is indeed currently much more expensive than glass, it has been suggested that the costs could be substantially reduced with new production techniques.

Opinion: Will Apple abandon the ‘low-cost’ iPhone concept after apparent failure of 5c?

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Mar 4 2014 - 7:32 am PT
100 Comments
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Apple doesn’t break down its iPhone sales figures, so we don’t know for sure that the iPhone 5c sold poorly, but certainly everything we do know seems to point in that direction – from early sales estimates through analytics and consumer surveys to Apple switching production from the 5c to the 5s.

Tim Cook said in an earnings call that “the mix was something very different than we thought,” and intimated that the model might be dropped: “If we decide it’s in our best interest to make a change, then we’ll make one.”

None of this necessarily means that the 5c was a complete failure, of course: record-breaking iPhone sales right from the outset could mean that the plastic phone did ok, it’s simply that the 5s sold far better than expected. It could also be that it was the extra sales gained from the 5c that helped break those records.

But I suspect not. While the brightly-colored 5c was not without its fans, it was the iPhone 5s with its Touch ID sensor and gold colored model that got all the attention, and I don’t think Tumblr advertising is going to change that. So my bet is we will again see a trend away from  colorful plastic iPhones … 
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Mercedes-Benz gives hands-on demo of CarPlay in new C-Class [Video]

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Mar 4 2014 - 7:17 am PT
15 Comments

Yesterday Mercedes-Benz sent over some images of Apple’s new CarPlay feature for iOS running in its new C-Class set to be unveiled at the Geneva Motor Show this week. Today the company has released a new video that gives us a better look at the feature up and running in the vehicle. Some people have been not so impressed with Mercedes’ implementation of the touch display in the new C-Class. It does look like somewhat of an afterthought the way it floats above the dash rather than being built right into the console like in Volvos and other vehicles. Ferrari, Volvo, and Mercedes-Benz are showing off CarPlay this week, but Apple expects many more partners to launch the feature in new vehicles later in the year.

(via iFun)

The making of Writing Aid — behind the scenes of app development

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Mar 3 2014 - 11:34 am PT
7 Comments

I released Writing Aid to the App Store today. Due to the glaring conflicts of interest in reviewing my own app for 9to5Mac or even having my colleagues review it, I thought instead I’d give some insight into the creative and development process behind the app. If you are looking for a more traditional review, please check out these writeups over at MacStories, Beautiful Pixels and iMore.

As a finished product, Writing Aid is best described as a dictionary app that also works in reverse. However, it didn’t start that way. For a while, I have been annoyed by the offerings on the store. Most apps are bogged down with gimmicky extras like ‘Word of the Day’ and such and many have been abandoned by their owners (which means they aren’t updated for iOS 7 either). When I’m writing, I don’t want distractions. I want to be able to type a word in a box and get a definition.


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Volvo shows off Apple’s CarPlay coming to XC90 SUV, says Wi-Fi connections coming soon (Video)

Avatar for Jordan Kahn Mar 3 2014 - 7:51 am PT
2 Comments

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kqgrGho4aYM&feature=c4-overview&list=UUaY-4ndPCRKp60qXF7zBJ0w]

Following Apple’s official announcement of CarPlay this morning, Volvo has now officially announced its partnership with the company and provided some details on its first vehicles to get the feature.

Volvo Cars enhances Apple’s capabilities by linking them to a specially-developed interface that allows drivers to use voice and steering wheel controls to access Apple features and services, ensuring the entire interaction is always safe and easy to use.

CarPlay, previously known as iOS in the Car, makes features from iOS available via a vehicle’s in car touch display through a familiar iOS-like interface. Volvo announced that its all new XC90 SUV coming in 2014 will be its first with access to CarPlay.

It also sounds like Volvo will have some features exclusive to its vehicles, such as the Volvo Cars’ portrait screen that “gives users the benefit of having both Volvo Cars and Apple content co-existing simultaneously, removing the need to switch between a dedicated car and iPhone screen.” It does note, however, that the feature will initially require a connection with a Lightning cable and that Wi-Fi connections are “coming in the near future.”

“iPhone users will feel completely at home in a new Volvo. We have created a wholly-integrated user experience in our large portrait-oriented touch screen that takes the in-car mobile device experience to a new level. That, coupled with the obvious driver safety benefits of an advanced voice control system like Siri, made Apple a perfect match for Volvo,” says Håkan Samuelsson.

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Apple adding hundreds of new engineers and operations staff in China to speed development of larger iPhones

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Mar 3 2014 - 4:30 am PT
3 Comments

Apple is on a mass hiring spree for Asian staff, beginning in the middle of last year, as noted by the Wall Street Journal. The Journal says that Apple is trying to speed up product development in China and Taiwan to help launch a larger lineup of devices. Apparently, the company is aggressively hiring away from HTC and other firms to form strong product teams in Asia.


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Apple rebrands iOS in the Car as CarPlay, compatible vehicles launching later this year

Avatar for Benjamin Mayo Mar 3 2014 - 12:28 am PT
26 Comments

Screenshot from <a href="http://www.apple.com/ios/carplay/">Apple’s website</a>

Update: Volvo has posted a CarPlay experience video.

Apple has officially announced CarPlay in a press release. CarPlay is Apple’s new branding for the iOS in the Car feature originally announced at WWDC last year. Apple says CarPlay enables users to make calls, navigate maps, listen to music and access messages from the dash of compatible cars. Siri can be activated by pressing the dedicated button on the steering wheel. Apple describes the system as a “smarter, safer and more fun way” of using an iPhone in the car.

As previously reported, CarPlay will be demoed in cars by Ferrari, Mercedes-Benz and Volvo this week with the cars going on sale later in the year. Apple says many manufacturers are onboard, including BMW, Ford, GM, Honda, Hyundai, Jaguar, Kia, Nissan, Subaru, Suzuki and Toyota. Apple has also a launched a new section of its website to describe the various features of CarPlay.


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Tesla CEO Elon Musk and iPhone Engineer discuss battery technology [Video]

Avatar for Seth Weintraub Mar 2 2014 - 3:52 pm PT
2 Comments
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[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sN5HT9mj_4M]

There’s no real hard news at this talk given by Elon Musk this week but it is certainly interesting to see the back and forth with the iPhone Engineer (Evan Wong? Didn’t quite get the name) and the CEO of Tesla. Apple is of course rumored to be an investor in Tesla’s battery Gigafactory so that makes the conversation all that more interesting. Some notes:

  • The engineer manages a big part of the hardware development of the iPhone.
  • Apple is one of the biggest buyers of batteries along with Tesla and they’ve done a lot of thorough testing
  • Chemistry, material, packaging and process affect  battery life constant.
  • Tesla buys 18650 form factor batteries and is sticking to them.
  • When musk asks about the energy density, the engineer knows not to say anything (he says he doesn’t want to get sued by his employer – to many laughs from the audience).
  • Musk assumes the battery energy density is public domain because of teardowns
  • Musk says in high production they can get to 260Wh/KG at the lowest price per kW which might be good info for those looking at the Gigafactory specs.
  • Apple likely can’t use these cells in their products because they are 18mm thick, much thicker than many of Apple’s products – or so speculates Musk

More of the conversation here.
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Apple seemingly turns to Tumblr to promote the iPhone 5c

Avatar for Mark Gurman Mar 2 2014 - 8:26 am PT
15 Comments
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Apple appears to have taken to Tumblr to start up a new advertising campaign for the iPhone 5c. The campaign is called “Every color has a story,” and the webpage called “ISee5c” appeared within the past couple of days.

The advertisements are videos portraying different iPhone 5c phone colors and case colors. Each roughly 15 second video plays a different song and showcases the dots featured on the rear of the iPhone 5c official cases and on the iOS 7 dynamic wallpapers…


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South African police take Oscar Pistorius’s iPhone to Apple after failing to crack passcode

Avatar for Ben Lovejoy Feb 28 2014 - 4:39 am PT
19 Comments
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Reeva Steenkamp, shot dead by Oscar Pistorius (photo: India Times)

The International Business Times reports that three detectives investigating the killing of Oscar Pistorius’s girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp have flown to Apple’s HQ in Cupertino to seek assistance in accessing the athlete’s iPhone.

Prosecutors want to access its SMS and WhatsApp messages as evidence for the trial.

South African police have been struggling to gain access to the phone for months, one of several handsets found in the double-amputee athlete’s Pretoria villa on the night he shot girlfriend Reeva Steenkamp.

Pistorius has claimed that he cannot remember the passcode … 
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