iPhone

For anyone who was born this century, the idea that life before iPhone even existed would probably be hard to imagine. Fifteen years after the first iPhone went on sale, we’ve all grown used to having the ubiquitous device in our lives.

The iPhone wasn’t the first smartphone – but it was the first smartphone to appeal to ordinary people. Of course, I’m not ordinary people: I’m a geek who owned a whole bunch of the digital devices which preceded the iPhone …

Apple on Thursday raised the price of iPhone models in Japan, making the product more expensive for Japanese consumers. In some cases, prices are now almost 20% higher, which may be a reflection of the local currency getting weaker against the dollar.

Chinese iPhone sales down 4% year-on-year might sound like bad news for Apple, but in the context of a 25% fall in the country’s smartphone market as a whole, it’s actually the opposite.

It might also seem odd to track sales during a specific 18-day period in June, but there’s a very good reason for that …

It has been 15 years since the first iPhone was introduced by Steve Jobs, and a lot has changed since then. Each generation of the iPhone has brought unique advances that are sometimes hard to notice, but that have made a difference when we look back at the past. And that’s what I did with GRID iPhone frames.

Five years ago, Apple introduced the iPhone X. With a new design, powerful chip, new gestures, and a new unlock method, the Face ID, the Cupertino company paid a well-deserved tribute to the original iPhone, at the time, released ten years ago. Who would’ve thought that this innovative iPhone would be the oldest model to support iOS 16? For this 15-year anniversary, what does Apple have planned for its users?

Apple has been getting a lot of pressure to replace the Lightning connector with the USB-C standard on the iPhone. After the European Union decided that USB-C will become mandatory for mobile devices and US senators considered a similar policy, now Brazil might be the next country to force Apple to build a USB-C iPhone.

On June 29 of 2022, the original iPhone turns 15. On this day, a decade and a half ago, Apple started selling its first smartphone in the US. To celebrate this mark in the industry, tech, and society, The Wall Street Journal published a 20-minute long video showing how Apple transformed an entire generation with the iPhone.

While we’ve all heard horror stories of someone losing a phone, we don’t usually hear any happy endings. However, one British man found himself reunited with his lost iPhone 10 months after dropping it in a river, according to BBC.

We’ve seen some baby steps towards using our iPhone for proving our identity. But a couple of recent developments point to a future in which an iPhone – plus biometrics – could let us use our phone as a single means of verifying our identity, both online and in face-to-face interactions.

In all, Apple provides support for four initiatives which I think provide a clear pointer to a future in which the iPhone will be our one-stop device for ID …

iPhone hacks developed by Italian company RCS Lab have been used by law enforcement agencies in Europe, according to a new Google report. The hacking tool used a variety of exploits to allow the firm’s customers to spy on private messages, contacts, and passwords.

However, Apple has patched all six of the exploits used in different versions of iOS (see below), so keeping your iPhone up to date will protect it from the hacking tools …

NSO Pegasus spyware has been used by at least five EU countries, admits the company. The admission was made as part of a European investigation into the impact of Pegasus, with an interim report now published.

It’s likely that the true number is higher, with the company promising to provide a ‘more concrete number’ …

Apple introduced the first iPhone 15 years ago, and a lot has changed since then. We’re now discussing rumors about the next iPhone featuring 8K video and a new display, but it’s hard to believe that once the iPhone didn’t even have copy and paste options. Now former Apple software engineer and designer Ken Kocienda has revealed details about why the first iPhone didn’t have such features.

Just last week, the European Union officially reached an agreement on making the USB-C charging port the mandatory standard starting in 2024. Now, a group of senators in the United States is looking to follow suit, calling on the US Commerce Department to adopt a similar policy to address the “lack of interoperability standards for charging and other device accessories.”

The popular iPhone photography app Camera+ 2 is getting a major update today. Improvements include an all-new editor that’s powered by machine learning for a faster and more intuitive experience. There’s also a new UltraRes 48 megapixel upscaling feature and a shift to a subscription model for new features.

A US iPhone throttling compensation claim was settled back in 2020, when Apple agreed to pay up to $500M for intentionally slowing older iPhones with degraded batteries to prevent them shutting down. Now a UK claim has been filed, seeking a total of $750M ($910M) damages for British owners of affected iPhones.

The complaint has been filed by Justin Gumann, a retired market researcher who has since turned consumer advocate …

iOS 16 brings with it a much-improved dictation experience – one that lets you seamlessly switch between typing and speaking. I’ve already found it to be a massive improvement from iOS 15, but how does it compare to Google’s Pixel 6, which was unveiled last year with a new ‘assistant voice typing’ that brought similar hands-free typing and editing features?

The European Union has officially agreed to make USB-C the common charging port across devices by fall 2024. According to BBC, the UK government is not “currently considering” following the EU’s demands for a common charging cable. Either way, a USB-C iPhone could still be in the works.

The pressure on Apple to create USB-C iPhones in place of Lightning ones ramped up another notch today, as the European Union reach agreement on making the charging port mandatory from 2024.

Recent reports do indicate that Apple is prepared for this, with the iPhone 15 expected to make the switch from Lightning to USB-C – though the company does have a second option …

Square announced today that it is signing on to support Apple’s new Tap to Pay on iPhone feature. The feature, which was announced by Apple in February, allows businesses to use an iPhone to accept contactless payments without the need for any additional hardware.

Square says that it will roll out support for Tap to Pay on iPhone through its existing Square Point of Sale app.