38 hours left guys

As of right now, there is just 38 hours left (PST) until the Apple doors open at 8AM Friday the 20th September, 2013. That’s local time.

And you guys know what happens when those doors open, right? A big hoard of Geniuses will be standing there looking, let’s admit it, a little creepy, a little worried and very, very smiley. Kind of like this, but holding iPhones instead.

If you’ve lined up, kudos! Look at you being all dedicated! You get to be first! Being first is pretty good. I hope you guys get a medal as well as a shiny new iPhone.

If you didn’t line up, well, you’ll probably still get to see and even buy a shiny new iPhone 5s.  Probably don’t deserve a medal though, sorry guy.

Either way- here’s what you need to know. According to 9to5mac, 3 out of 4 units available at the Apple stores will be Space grey, so if you’re after Gold or Silver, they might be a bit harder to get your hands on.

16Gb and 32Gb options will be more readily available, as will phones on contract to AT&T.  The iPhone 5S is predicted to sell out in store quite quickly, so be ready guys!

Don’t forget, the iPhone 5S will also be available to order online at 12:01 A.M. on Friday.

Images courtesy of Abbeville.com and carew.com

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

See Burberry showcasing the iPhone 5S camera capabilities

We’ve heard that the camera on the new iPhone 5S combined with the camera software that comes with iOS 7 is supposed to be, well, really  straight up awesome for taking photos.

You guys wanna see for yourselves what you can do with it? Pleased to accommodate, as always.

High fashion house Burberry has partnered with Apple for their Spring/Summer 2014 runway show, which will take place on September the 16th. Burberry will use the 5S equipped with iOS 7  to take videos and photos before, during and after the event.

Beginning yesterday, Burberry began showcasing some of the photos and videos using the 5S on it’s social media channels and on it’s website.

Here is a preview:

Pretty slick, huh.

Image courtesy of desk123.com

There’s a dude in Japan already lining up for the new iPhone

Tetsuya Tamura, a 44-year-old Japanese businessman has started lining up outside the Apple store in Tokyo’s glitzy shopping district of Ginza. In fact, he started lining up  on Tuesday, before the two new smartphones had even been unveiled.

He is using up his annual leave in order to do this- but says ” getting the first handset will make it all worth it.”

Way to go passion!

He has said that he’s “glad to have secured a place.”

That seems like that might be a little bit of an overestimation, but it looks like he’s maybe right. He might just be lucky to have secured a place. This is a photo he uploaded of himself:

and one of some other dudes in line.

The new iPhones will be available on September the 20th in Japan, same as here.

That’s so many days away.

Anyway, we wish him luck!  If you want to follow him on twitter, because you can, he’s tweeting pretty frequently, and his name is xxxprius.

How to pre-order the new iPhone 5C

Alright you guys, so this blog post is all about how to pre order the iPhone 5C. That’s cool. It’s also weirdly difficult to describe when this can actually happen. We know what’s right, we think, but it sounds wrong. So we’re gonna try it so that there can be no misunderstandings.

You will be able to pre order the iPhone 5C at 12:01, the night time version, on the 13th of September. So, like, when its the 12th of September, wait until it’s 11pm, wait an hour, and then you can go ahead and pre order!  That’s California time, too. Make sense?

Now, we got the time right, but what do you do then? Well, you do a little jig, cos you’re buying an iPhone 5C b*tches!

Then, you do this stuff. (Do most of this stuff before midnight though, cos the amount of iPhones available for pre order will shrink. Real fast.)

You need to decide if you’re buying on or off contract.

For the free spirits out there, you can buy the iPhone 5C off contract with T-Mobile, or SIM free. You can do both through Apple.

If you do this, you’ll be buying the phone outright for $549 for 16Gb, and $649 for 32Gb in both of these options, but you don’t get a SIM with the SIM free option. Duh.

If you choose the SIM free option you WILL need a SIM from somewhere at some stage for the phone to work as a phone. Specifically, you’ll need to get a GSM compatible nano-SIM. Your iPhone will be unlocked, so you can use a SIM from any carrier, domestically or international, as long as it has the right specifications as above.

If you choose to buy the iPhone 5C off-contract with T-Mobile, you will be choosing them as your mobile provider, and will pay them month to month for data, voice, text etc, but you won’t be locked in to a contract and can exit any time. Your phone will arrive with a nano-SIM card already installed that you can activate by visiting an Apple Retail Store or a T-Mobile store or by calling T-Mobile.

If you’re already on contract, but really want the new phone, you have the option to upgrade. You are of course eligible to upgrade once you have ended your current contract, after 2 years.

But, here’s the thing. A lot of people don’t realize that you are more than likely eligible for an upgrade 18 months after your contract started, not two years. It’s definitely worth checking! Go check, dudes.

For Verizon, Sprint and AT&T upgrade eligibility, you’ll most likely need the number for the phone you would like to upgrade, the last four digits of the primary account holder’s Social Security number, and the billing ZIP Code. To see if you’re eligible for an upgrade, or to see the price you qualify for, check out this link.

For Sprint you can also use your phone- dial *2, press send, press 1, enter your phone number and then press 1 to check for eligibility.

AT&T also has the option to check your upgrade eligibility via your phone, just dial *639# and press send and you will receive a text message shortly after letting you know when you’re eligible for an upgrade.

If you’re a little unsure about the whole idea of upgrading, you should talk to your carrier. BUT, you should also read this– If you are eligible for an upgrade, it means that all you have to pay to get the new phone is the price Apple shows next to the phone.

For the 5C, that means that when you upgrade and preorder, you will pay upfront and outright $99 for the 16Gb version and $199 for the 32Gb version. You will be committing to another 2 year contract with the provider.

If you are not eligible for an upgrade, but you reallllly want the new phone, you can, of course, get it. You will pay an extra fee, and how much that fee is depends on the carrier, but i’ll give you an example.

Say you started a new 2 year contract this time last year when you bought the iPhone 5. You’re a year into your contract, so you won’t be eligible for an upgrade, but you’re going to go ahead and get it anyway, because hey, it’s a free country right?

Your carrier will more than likely be absolutely cool with that, because that means they have your business guaranteed for another 2 years, but, they will charge a fee, which will more than likely be about $200. So you’ll be paying $300 upfront for the iPhone 5C 16Gb, and $400 upfront for the iPhone 5C 32Gb.

You also absolutely always get to keep your old phone, so that you can use it as financial leverage! It’s a stinky old iPhone! Sell it for CASHMONEY, YO!

If you’re joining up with a new provider, you’re looking at 2 year contract and paying upfront $99 for the 16Gb or $199 for the 32Gb. When choosing a new provider it’s important to look at their plans, and it’s also important to check out the coverage maps of each of the options. You can do this below by clicking on the blue links.

AT&T Coverage Map

Verizon Coverage Map

Sprint Coverage Map

T-Mobile Coverage map

Ok, so now you know what category you’re in, and you’re prepared for all your choices and options, how much you have to pay, which carrier, upgrade eligibilty, etc.

Now it’s almost midnight.

Dance!

And then, time to move!

You can pre-order on all of the carrier’s websites, as well as Apple’s.

To buy straight from Apple, go to this link.

Choose your color, you sparkle pony you. You have the option of blue, green, yellow , pink and white.

Next, choose the model you want, the smaller 16Gb or the 32Gb. The bigger the GB ( Gigabytes), the more stuff you can have on your phone, basically. Things that take up storage space include photos, videos, lots of songs or apps. 1000 songs is about 7Gb, for example.

Once those decisions are made and entered into the system, you’ll have to fill in some personal details, you will need a credit card, and you will need to press enter at the end. You will need to do a little dance. And send it to us. Yeah, do that.

Remember, if you’re upgrading from an iPhone 4S or older and have accessories that use the old connector port, such as a dock or something, you will also need to purchase a lightening to 30 pin adaptor.

And, guys, last year the iPhone 5 pre order was sold out in about an hour. So be quick. If you miss out, you have to wait until the 20th of September, when they’ll be available in store.

Happy pre-ordering! Remember – 11PM, Californian time, on Thursday the 12th of September. You have one hour after that until you can pre – order.

Image courtesy of The Verge. addictinginfo.com, iphonehacks.com, speres.com & sweetclipart.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.

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

iPhone 5S updates

It has been confirmed by AllThingD and 9to5mac that there will indeed be a champagne colored iPhone 5S option announced by Apple come September 10th.

Previous leaked pictures of this rumored third color option have come under fire for not only being false, but if true, looking overly bling bling gold and cheap.

Now, new photos have quietened the masses, as the backplate appears to be a super sophisticated light champagne color with a white front.

And, um….we really kinda want one.

We’ve also received reports that the iPhone 5S is expected to have a model which is equipped with a huge 128Gb.

The purported sapphire covered convex home button will include the fingerprint sensor but apparently, according to the amazing secret finder outerers at 9to5mac, it won’t look or feel significantly different to the current model home button.

More to come!

Image courtesy of Ubergizmo

The Next iPhone

Let’s talk about The Next iPhone.

We’ve already told you about the September announcement, (YAY- we’re still spinning) so here’s the short and sweet lowdown about what people are expecting to expect for The Next iPhone.

The Next iPhone will almost 100% be called the iPhone 5S, rather than the iPhone 6.

Above is a photo released into the world of an apparent prototype iPhone 5S next to an iPhone 5, said to have been taken by manufacturing sources of Macrumors. If it’s not fake, then we can go ahead and say that there will not be any super giant size or design changes coming up for The Next iPhone.

The phone will more than likely be released a few weeks after the Sept 10th announcement, around the 23rd, also coinciding with the public release of iOS 7.

It will have a higher resolution camera, purportedly 12 megapixel with possible slow motion video capabilities.

It will probably have duel LED flash capabilities on the rear camera, which according to the pictures sourced by Macrumors.com, look like they’re separated for Tungsten color balance and Daylight color balance. All round better low-light, basically. This is the picture from their source in one of the manufacturing companies:

The 5S will very likely have bigger battery capacity. Yay!

It is rumored to have an A7 chip, built by either Apple themselves or by Taiwan-based chip foundry TSMC. This lets them move away from previous contract chip manufacturers and rivals, Samsung.

It might have NFC Capabilities.

It will supposedly have an updated convex home button with an integrated fingerprint sensor. The home button will be made of scratch resistant sapphire glass. Sapphire? Fancy!

It will possibly come in a third color- Gold, or champagne.

Champagne, gold, double the flash and sapphires. We can deal with that…

Not long now until we’ll know everything for sure about The Next iPhone! Until then we’ll keep you updated with all the rumors, guesstimates, financial expert statements and stolen pictures taken from manufacturing plants! Like spies! Kinda. Not really.

Images courtesy of Macrumors and Cultofmac

New iPhone Announcement!

iPhone Announcement!

<<TRUMPETS!!>>

Yesterday the announcement date of the next iPhone was revealed to the world by the good folk over at AllThingsD ( or the secret mystery sources of AllThingsD).

You guys wanna know? Yes? No?

Thought so. OH MY GOD IT’S THE 10^TH OF SEPTEMBER!

That’s only a month away!

Last year Apple announced the iPhone 5 on the 12^th September, and released the phone to pre-order customers on the 21^st September.

If Apple sticks to its previous announcement and release schedule that means that the new iPhone will be available to the public by around the 23^rd September.

ONLY A MONTH AND A LITTLE BIT AWAY!

Uh… we’re pretty excited.

Of course, Apple doesn’t have to stick to their previous schedule and can do anything they want… and there is no indication of whether this announcement will be about the rumored next generation iPhone 5S, or the also rumored cheaper model iPhone 5C… or both!

Stay tuned for a round up of rumors surrounding the release(s) so you can get just as excited as us (is it possible? We’re not sure… ) AND know how and why and what and when to upgrade to the new phone!

Excuse us, we have to go run around in circles now. Bye!

Image courtesy of intermezzo.typepad.com