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HA!

Image courtesy of Imgur& Discover Magazine.

Image courtesy of Imgur.

How to get your hands on a 5S

The iPhone 5C has been available for pre order for more than a few hours now, but what about the 5S?

In an unprecedented move, Apple is not offering the iPhone 5S for pre order.

Wah!

We know. Instead, customers will have to wait for the 20th of September when the 5S will be available for purchase in two ways-

1, You can purchase your new shiny iPhone 5S online after 12:01 AM on September the 20th. So, like, wait until 11PM on the 19th, wait an hour, BAM IPHONE 5S.

2, The 5S will also be available for purchase in Apple retail stores, starting 8AM. It’s too early to tell if there will be lines at this stage, but cross your fingers. Unless you like that kind of thing. Lining up, we mean.

If you do, more power to you! Send us a pic of you standing in line, and not only will we feature you in the blog, but if you use our service to sell your stinky old iPhone, we’ll give you $5 extra on your quote!

Images courtesy of imore & kittentoob.com

Images courtesy of imore.com

The Ultimate iPhone 5S & iPhone 5C Rundown (Full Specs)

So, today’s the day, huh?

NEW APPLE PRODUCTS OH MY GOD SKRILLEX NEEDS TO BE PLAYING THE SOUNDTRACK TO THIS BLOG POST.

I’m sorry, we’re a little bit excited over here.

So, hey, WHATSUP.

At 10am pacific time Apple held a special media event at their town hall auditorium in Cupertino, California.

Everyone was VERY excited,  even though the select few members of the press who were super special enough to be invited didn’t really show their excitement very well. Here are some of them lined up like they’re waiting for a bus, instead of shiny new iPhones!! Silly super special people!

BUT! Then they went inside…. 

Inside, Tim cook, Craig Federighi, a few special guests, and ( sadly, only) videos of Jony Ive were awaiting.

AND…

We got ourselves a shiny-ass brand spanking new iPhone 5S AND a pretty bubbly multicolored sparkly iPhone 5C!

SUPER RAD

Now, this is the part where we say a lot of words about hardware and software specs and you skim through and judge whether you’re going to want one, or whether you’re gonna want to complain about it not being up to par with expectations and in line with what other smart phone giants are doing with their tech.

Here’s our opinion on that, first up. We… we want one. Of both. We don’t know how to justify that, but we do.

There was a few surprises, which is always great considering the multitude of leaks that appeared in the weeks leading up to this event. We got a few things that we were expecting, and a few other things that Apple kept up their sleeves like the crafty tech magicians that they are.

Tim Cook started things off, as he usually does, and he did so by talking about the iTunes Music Festival, which you can read about here.

He moved on to speak about how Apple retail is expanding, and how next month, Apple is forecasting that they will sell their 700 millionth iOS device. Millionth. Wowsers.

Craig Federighi got up and spoke about iOS 7, how awesome it is, and how with it you might miss your phone calls because of the new techno ringtones? He’d probably like our Skrillex blog soundtrack!

Tim then let everyone know that on any new iOS device sold, the following apps will be available to download for free- Keynote, Numbers, Pages, iMovie and iPhoto. SCORE!

Then they got down to business. You know the business. The iPhone business.  Two new designs.

The iPhone 5C

It’s pretty, guys. It’s really pretty. The 5C is made from one single hard-coated polycarbonate  surface with no seams, part lines or joins which has a reinforced steel structure on the inside. ( Polycarbonate is basically a plastic shell instead of aluminum).

It’s replacing the iPhone 5, however the 8Gb 4S will stay in the lineup as their low end model, offered for free on contract.

As expected, the 5C comes in a range of bright poppy rainbow bright colors that will no doubt attract many young rainbow bright individuals.Green, Yellow, Blue, White and a quite salmony looking red.

The phone has a 4 inch retina display, integrated touch, 8 megapixel camera, and is powered by the same chip as in the iPhone 5.

The 5C still has both rear and front facing cameras, so selfie takers can breathe a sigh of relief! The cameras are both still 5 megapixel and the back camera has a flash, so you don’t have to prepare yourself for any loss of quality.

It will also have slightly larger battery capacity and  a new HD Facetime camera.

This colorful sparkle pony will be offered in 16Gb  for $99 and 32Gb for $199 on a two year contract, with cases costing $29 each.

The cases-

So. It’s basically the iPhone 5, except slightly better, but more platsicky and colorful. We really like the idea of the seamless shell, and really wanna see if it lives up to our idea on how nice it would feel in the hand.

Jony Ive ( via video) said it perfectly- ” The iPhone 5C is beautifully, unapologetically plastic… It’s simpler, more essential, more capable and more colorful.”

The iPhone 5S

It’s really shiny looking. Also, according to Apple, “The most forward-thinking phone we’ve ever created.”

The 5S will come in three colors- Gold, Space Gray and Silver, and yes, although not called champagne, the gold is refined and ridiculously shiny and wanted.

The iPhone 5S has an A7 chip, and is the first smartphone ever to have one. The A7 is a modern instruction set, with 2x general purpose registers, 2x floating point registers, over 1 billion transistors and 100 square mm die size.  It has twice as many transistors for roughly the same size as the A6. It will have Xcode support, and it’s backwards-compatible. 32 and 64-bit.

This stuff? It means that this phone is hella fast, and hella powerful. The CPU performance is 40 times faster than the original iPhone, and half of that increase comes with the A7 chip. The graphics performance is 56 times the original iPhone. The phone will be significantly and noticeably faster and better at doing everyday operations.

The way they choose to show this? The announcement and demo of Infinity Blade 3, by Epic Games co-founder Donald Mustard. You can run 5 times faster on the 5S than on the iPhone 5, for example, and there is four times the detail on characters, such as this guy:

Infinity Blade 3  will be available alongside the iPhone 5s.

The iPhone 5S will also come with a chip called the M7 chip which measures motion continuously – it acts as an accelerometer, gyroscope, and as a compass support. It will also have a CoreMotion API  which will be able to identify your movement, if you’re running or driving, etc. Nike is coming out with an app called Nike + Move which will use these features to keep track of your activities.

Battery time is AWESOME! Just looky here:

The camera on the new iPhone is where a lot of the surprising and most welcome improvements (in our opinion) were made. The new camera has a 5 element Apple designed lens with f/2.2 aperture and 15% larger active sensor area.  It looks like this:

iOS 7 will automatically set white balance, exposure level and will pick the sharpest from a series of photos.

The duel LED flash is there, they’re calling it True Tone. It will allow of better low light photography and  will combine the two lights to get the right color balance for the room.

There is digital auto stabilization, and, something we love- burst mode.  If you hold the shutter down, the camera will take ten photos per second until you lift your finger off the button. It will also analyze all the burst shots and present which one it thinks is the best, whilst still storing the others.

SLO-MO!  Slo-mo  is supported you guys! That’s HD, 120 frames per second slo-mo we’re talking. That is so cool! You can even select which parts of your video you want in normal speed, and which parts in slo-mo. There’s going to be so many slo-mo you-tube videos this winter…. Cue snowballs to the face!

Finally, when you shoot panoramic shots, the camera can adjust the exposure automatically as you go along. Thank god, cos the sun just is not a team player when we shoot panoramic.

Ok, now for security- yeah, it’s the fingerprint sensor. Or, as it’s now known- the Touch ID.

The new iPhone has a crystal inlaid fingerprint scanner in place of the home button that can read multiple fingerprints. There is a stainless steel detection ring around the home button, so that the sensor can detect your finger without you having to press the button.

This is the finger they showed- just in case you forgot what one looked like. Sorry if you did. That’s… awkward.

The sensor is 170 microns thin, 500 ppi resolution, scans sub-epidermal skin layers and has 360-degree readability.

It basically takes a picture of your fingerprint in order to analyze it, all fingerprints are encrypted, and they will never be stored on Apple servers or backed up to the cloud. Awesome.

The fingerprint scanner will come in handy for security and shopping – the examples they give are not having to enter a passcode for your iPhone ( or worry about how you’re too lazy to set up a passcode) and having your fingerprint replace the ever irritating iTunes password.

Pricing is the same as the iPhone 5, 16Gb – $199, 32Gb – $299, 64Gb – $399 with a two year contract. Cases for the 5S are $49 each.

Here’s a picture of Tim Cook talking. It made us feel more involved.

Now we’re down to the nitty gritty end. iOS 7 will be available to download for free on September 18th.

The iPhone 5C will be available for pre-order starting midnight the 13th of September, with full release in stores on the 20th of September. The iPhone 5S will not be available for pre-order, but will be available online and in-store on September the 20th.

By December, the new iPhones will be available in more than 100 countries.

The Apple store has been down since 6am this morning in preparation for the iPhone announcements-but will be back online right now if you want to check out the goods! 

Overall, we’re really pleased with these releases. They show consistency, reliability, and significant hardware and software upgrades, alongside iOS 7.

Without having physically held or played with today’s releases (yet!), we can’t be for realsies sure, but it sounds like having ( at least) one of these phones will definitely improve how we use our mobile technology, and increase out affection for said technology.

We… we really like them. We also believe that it is serious time, guys, to start thinking about upgrading and how you’re going to go ahead and do that. Which phone is best for your needs, and how are you going to get that shiny newness into your hot little hands?

We want the champagne 5S, 64Gb, because we like shiny, sophisticated, fast, powerful, and awesome tech that makes everyone’s life better.

Just like we do.  Right?  But, also, it has the super sweet camera stuff. And the Touch ID. And the fast and powerful stuff.

Whichever one you choose, if you are considering selling a stinky old iPhone in order to get the CASHMONEY to upgrade or buy new these shiny new iPhones, you should click on this blue link right here, which will tell you all you need to know about preparing your old phone for moving on to it’s new forever home.

You can also click on this blue link right here to see how much CASHMONEY we can give you for your stinky old iPhone! Super fast, super easy, super large CASHMONEY!!

And that’s a wrap! We hope this brightened your day!

Images courtesy of Macrumors, The Verge, and Engadget. Special thanks to the super awesome Brad Molen over at Engadget for providing pretty much the best live blog we’ve ever read. Serious.

Important info if you’re thinking of selling your stinky old iPhone!

GUYSGUYGUYS!

September 10th is rushing up to meet us like a bull chasing a crowd of gingers!

You know what that means, right? NEW PHONE TIME!

If you are awesome, and planning on buying or upgrading to a 5S, 5C, or even to the Samsung Note III or <other>, then, in the very near future, you probably won’t be wanting your stinky old iPhone anymore.

Cos it stinky.

You know what’s cool? Selling it for extra cash. Everyone likes extra cash. Sooo much. So if you want to sell it in order to do said upgrading/purchasing, ( extra cash)  you’re going to want to READ THIS.

We suggest selling your iPhone to us ( D’uh, right?), because it’s the easiest thing to do, apart from watch the whole series of Orange Is The New Black in one go. But we’ll give you cash.

In case you’re not sure how it works, here’s the low down:

1, go to our website and fill in your iPhone model details, your name, address, and if you would like to be paid via Paypal or by cheque. We only have a few condition categories- Brand new in box, Used, Broken or water damaged, and Cracked.

2, The quote you get is the amount of money you will get after you send in your phone. Weird, huh?

3, We will send you a fancy little black box with a shipping label.

4, Put the phone in the box.

5, Put the box in a post box.

6, Get cash.

7, Party.

Pretty gosh-diddly-darn easy! And cash! Lots of it! Best of all, (in our opinion)  we won’t change your quote based on just how beer soaked or smashed or scratched or old your phone is.

We’re also BBB rated, awesomely rated on Yelp and resellerratings.com, and just about the most trustworthy people out there. It’s us, guys!

Here’s where you start, and don’t forget you can contact us if you have ANY questions at all.

DON’T STOP READING HERE GUYS

Ok, now that you know who to sell you old stinky iPhone to, we have some more info that you might be interested in no matter who you sell your phone to or give it to. If it’s leaving it’s home with you forever, this stuff is handy.

You have all your music, apps, games, and selfies on your current iPhone, right? Ok, well follow this link to learn how to properly back up your iPhone.

We erase ALL data off ALL the iPhones we receive (that have not been already erased). A lot of people, especially right now, are feeling particularly vulnerable and hence hesitant to let go of anything that might have information on them. Understandable. If you want to make sure that all your data is erased off your phone, follow this link to a quick and easy How To.

If you guys have any other ideas about How To’s we can do that would help you transition from stupid old iPhone to brand-new-shiny-possibly-baller-champagne-colored- iPhone email us and let us know!

We are at your service.

Image courtesy of cultofmac.com

How to Back up your old stinky iPhone and/or transfer data to shiny new iPhone!

If you’re selling or giving away your iPhone, you’ll be wanting to back up all that lovely data you’ve accrued on the device beforehand. It’s a pretty simple procedure, but a very important step.

This is the Apple support page on how to back up your data using iTunes and iCloud. And here is the Apple support page on transferring your data from one device to another, ( i.e, stinky->shiny).

It’s a very comprehensive and easy to follow guide direct from the sauce! But, as with everything technology– there is always the potential for problems, so if you stumble upon something that doesn’t make sense, or your backup JUST ISNT GODDAMN WORKING, let us know! We’d love to try and help! 

How to safely erase data off your iPhone before selling

iPhone 5S news

MORE IPHONE NEWS!

So, a dude over at Fox News, Clayton Morris, is saying that he knows some other dudes that know that the 5S will have a tracking sensor within the camera that will support gesture control. Gesture control- when you flip and flap your fingers over the device to control it, like from the Future.

Sweet!

This is actually a feature that is under Apple patent, but there is quite a lot of hesitation around this rumor, and if this feature will be appearing on this iPhone release, but we’ll just have to wait and see!

What is more likely is that the 5S will have an A7 chip- capable of giving the phone 31% more power. Always good! According to 9to5Mac‘s Mark Gurman, Apple has been testing 64 bit A7 chips for the possible inclusion in the 5S. This would mean much higher quality animation and graphics.

Sonny Dickson, the guy that posted a lot of leaked photos of the 5S and 5C has done it again, and this time with a fourth option for color for the 5S – graphite.

Another website- repair company Mendmyi- also posted photos of apparent leaked 5S parts that feature the graphite color.

TMONews has reported that T-Mobile has implemented blackout staff vacation dates between the 20th September and 22nd September – making the release date for the iPhone 5S very likely to land on September 20.

Aaaand that’s a wrap. For the next couple of hours, anyway.

Soooo freaking exciting!

Images courtesy of Pandasu.co.uk,  Sonnydickson.com & mendmyi.com

iTunes Radio release another thing to get excited about this September!

September is IT guys.

Not only do we have the HUGE Apple September 10th announcement believed to be announcing the new iPhones ( 5S and 5C ), there is also the unveiling of Samsung’s smart watch Galaxy Gear, IFA – the huge techie consumer electronics trade show in Berlin 6th – 11th September, the Apple iTunes free concert series, the final Breaking Bad ever on Sept 9th (gulp), the return of Sons Of Anarchy and Southpark, America’s cup, TechCrunch Disrupt, and just, just so much more.

So much more like what iPhone Antidote?

Well, for one thing, the release of Apple’s iTunes Radio! Yay!

Apple has managed to get a bunch of brand partners including McDonald’s, Nissan, Pepsi, and Procter & Gamble, who will all get exclusive ads on the Radio product through the end of 2013.

The internet radio service, similar to Spotify and Pandora, will offer a way to listen to the radio which intuitively personalizes the tracks and artists you listen to, introduced you to new artists based on the style of music you listen to, as well as giving you the ability to create your own playlists from their selection and your own music from iTunes.

The system is free with ads, but has a super competitive premium ad-free option, if you subscribe to iTunes Match, at just $24.99 a year.

For the free service, listeners can look forward to walking out of the room grumpily every 15 minutes for an audio ad, and once an hour if you’re listening on a platform where you can exposed you to video ads. You will also get an ad if you skip songs six times in a row, if this stays the same as it currently is in the iOS 7 Beta testing.

The iTunes Radio service is part of iOS 7 and will be released with it. We don’t know the exact date… but we’re thinking it’s pretty likely that it will be released on or very close to September 10th!

We think we might rename September YAYtember!

Image courtesy of iTunes.

How many android users switching to Apple?!

The study, conducted over a year between June 2012 and June 2013, shows clearly that 20% of iPhone buyers had previously owned an Android powered smart phone. Winning, Apple?

Twenty-six percent of iPhone buyers were updating to Apple’s phone from a basic or feature phone, while 43 percent had already owned an Apple phone and were upgrading.

On the other end, though, only seven percent of Samsung phone buyers were switching from Apple devices.

Looking only at customers who had switched brands, fully one third of Apple’s new customers had previously owned Samsung devices. Only 11 percent of Samsung’s customers came from Apple.

Image courtesy of Forbes.

What’s happening with Blackberry?!

What is the deal with Blackberry?

There’s been a lot of stuff in the news about it that sounds all kinds of depressing, but what’s really going on? They were the cool kids for a while, but we realized just how long ago that was a few months back when we saw someone with a Blackberry and for a few seconds we couldn’t figure out what kind of phone it was.

But maybe that’s just us. If you look at some numbers, they still do seem to have a very dedicated user base.

So here’s the deal: they’re not done. Yet. They are however officially for sale. Little bit of a sad face.

Unfortunately for them, potential buyers are evilly waiting in the wings, waiting to see if the company will devalue further before making an offer. Names of potential buyers being thrown around by analysts are about who you would think- Samsung, IBM, Microsoft, HTC, a private investor or equity company , or even Apple.

If it’s a private sale, the company would more likely be stripped and sold off in pieces. If another big tech company buys it, they would use Blackberry’s technology, patents, and dedicated business users for their own benefit. This would also be a far more public route.

The problem is this: Blackberry as a company is predominantly based on aging technology. Technology that hasn’t been able to keep up with the smart phone industry giants.

A little backstory on Blackberry. BlackBerry Limited, formerly known as Research In Motion Limited, is a Canadian company. It was founded by Mike Lazaridis, who served as its co-CEO along with Jim Balsillie until January 22, 2012; as of August 2013, the company’s CEO is Thorsten Heins.

The last product launch Blackberry had was the BlackBerry 10 mobile operating system and two new smartphones based off the platform, the BlackBerry Z10 and Q10, on January 30, 2013.

At the launch, Chief Marketing Officer Frank Boulben said this in regards to the operating system: “It could be the greatest comeback in tech history. The carriers are behind us. They don’t want a duopoly” (referring to Apple and Samsung).

On the 25th March, Goldman Sachs analyst Simona Jankowski wrote: “We now assign a 20% probability of success for BB10, down from 30% previously, as the disappointing launch of the Z10 at AT&T reduces our confidence that sell-through of the BB10 will be successful in the important US market,”

On June 28, 2013, after BlackBerry announced net losses of approximately $84 million, its shares plunged 28%.

On August 12, 2013, the company announced that it is open to being purchased and stated in an official news release to Canada’s securities administrators:

“The company’s board of directors has formed a special committee to explore strategic alternatives to enhance value and increase scale in order to accelerate BlackBerry 10 deployment. These alternatives could include, among others, possible joint ventures, strategic partnerships or alliances, a sale of the Company or other possible transactions.”

So. They are still rolling out Blackberry 10, and they are open to, well, pretty much anything to make Blackberry make that great comeback.

We hope that Blackberry find a way to continue. But if not, we can think of a few other creative uses for the Blackberries. Like throwing them at people.

…Just kidding.

Image courtesy of Crackberry.