New Apple ad for iPhone 5C with iOS 7

Here’s Apple’s new ad, cementing how well they’ve designed the iPhone 5C specifically to work organically and flawlessly with iOS 7.

Today we’ve seen iOS 7 for ourselves, so all we need to is to countdown to the release of the 5C! (And the 5S…)

16 hours people.

Don’t forget!

GUYS GUYS GUYS

Just in case you’re not one of the lucky few who will be buying a shiny new iPhone, you can still get a lot of shiny new features by downloading iOS 7.

And you can do that! Today! Today today!

Going on release times from previous years, you should expect to be able to download it from 10AM PST. You will probably even get a push notification reminding you as well, as this happened about mid-afternoon last year Californian time.

iOS 7 is FREE and will work on the following Apple products: iPhone 4, iPhone 4S, iPhone 5. The iPhone 5C and iPhone 5S will come with iOS 7 already loaded. iOS 7 is also compatible with iPad Mini, iPad 2, iPad 3, iPad 4 and iPod Touch 5G.

You should  DEFINITELY make sure your phone is backed up first, so go here and follow the instructions.

You can download iOS 7 by plugging your device into your computer and using iTunes or directly on your phone. Make sure you have the latest versions of both iTunes and iOS – these should be 6.1.4 for iOS and 11.1 for iTunes.

For iTunes, once your iPhone or iPad is plugged into your computer, select it under Devices in iTunes and then click Check for Update. Choose download or download and update. The second is what we would suggest.

If you choose to do it directly on your phone, and you don’t want to use up data on your phone plan, then you should probably be somewhere where you can use Wi-FI.

THEN;

Go to settings on your phone, and there should be a number 1 next to the word General. If you click on that, you should see the same number 1 sitting pretty next to the words Software update.

Click that, and you will have the option to install now. Do that.

Dance.

Image courtesy of maclife.com

Iranians can use twitter now!

As of Monday, Iranians can now access Twitter and Facebook for the first time since 2009 when their government blocked social networking sites.

As we know most famously from the Arab Spring, social media can be used to raise awareness and to organize protests in times of uncertainty, to try to uprise against repression and to rally for hope in times of conflict.

Before any of that happened, this specific use of social media use was seen in Iran. In 2009 there was a presidential election won by Mahmoud Ahmadinejad that many believed to have been fraudulently won. People began protesting, and these were described as the biggest since the revolution in 1979, with hundred of thousands (if not millions) of people protesting.

It was named the Green movement. The Iranian government soon became aware that sites such as Facebook and Twitter were being used to organize their protests against the regime, and they shut access down.

Since then, people in Iran who wanted to access the sites had to use complicated software such as virtual private networks in order to bypass the firewalls put in place by the government.

However…

Three months ago, Iran held elections which saw Hassan Rouhani take the office of president on August the 3rd. Rouhani is seen as being much more moderate than his predecessor, and the government under his leadership has said that it will be liberalizing the internet and improving online access for all Iranians.

This seems to be the beginning.

So far not all parts of Iran have access, and not all social media sites are unblocked, but in our humble opinion, this is an excellent start.

Images courtesy of Mashable & Engadget

It’s a 2001: A Space Odessy Kind of Day

So someone got creative and built a charging station for their iPhone. Cos every iPhone deserves their own hand-built charging station, obviously.

This look familiar?

Yes? No? What if we show you… this?

We rate this: Extremely, uniquely, unashamedly awesome, and challenge you guys to do better!

Unless you’ve got like, other stuff to do. That’s cool too.

Image Courtesy of Imgur.

Open the pod bay doors, HAL. Japanese spaceship with AI launched

Japan recently put a robot-manned space craft into space, and we don’t know about you, but we think this should have been bigger news! 2001 A space Odyssey anyone?

Except, this little guy is no HAL. His name is Kirobo, and he’s actually hella cute.

See? AND BONUS TIME – really cheap! Sweet! So… can we have one? Well. Not that cheap. $37 million cheap.

The little dude has been credited with discounting the Japanese mission from hundreds of million dollars ( NASA says that a typical launch costs around $450 million) to just $37 million by reducing the man-power needed for the mission from 150 to just 8.

JAXA, The Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency, sent the little talking robot into outer space on Saturday, August the 3rd on board a cargo ship that has been tasked with taking 3.5 tons of supplies and equipment to resupply the International Space Station’s six-person crew. Scientists will also be able to study communications and relationships between AI and humans. In space. Cos it’s cool.

As of August the 9th, when the space craft docked, he’s also been keeping them company up there at the ISS. Because he’s a talking robot, guys. 

I present you, Kirobo the talking robot astronaut, saying his first words. In outer Space.

Wait… what year is this??

Images courtesy of space.com

The iPhone 5C pre order stock is getting low in what color?

YELLOW!

Like the submarine, man.

We certainly would not have guessed that this would be the first color to be running low, but there it is.

If you go to pre order the yellow 16Gb iPhone 5C SIM free right now, you’ll see that the shipping date slips past the 20th of September to being available to ship by the 25th of September.

There doesn’t seem to be any indication from Apple yet just how many pre order’s for the iPhone 5C have been registered so far.

We’ll just have to wait and see how many folks caught the 5C fever!

Image courtesy of Appleinsider

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

Twitter IPO

Twitter is an online networking service, microblogging service and a hugely popular social media company that enables its users to send and read text-based messages of up to 140 characters known as “tweets“.

Whether or not you’re on the Twitter ride, you probably know this much.

If you dream in tweets, organize your awesome too-late comebacks, fame catapulting strategies and pop culture observations and everyday life rants into 140 words, then you probably know a little more.

The company has gone from strength to strength since it’s creation by Jack Dorsey in 2006 thanks to tweetaholics such as you, marking over 200 million monthly active users last December.

Now, Twitter is set to go public. On September 12th this year, the company tweeted; ” We’ve confidentially submitted an S-1 to the SEC for a planned IPO”

Cool. Now can you tell me what that means in 140 characters please iPhone Antidote?

Well…. no. As much as we love Twitter, we’re not very good at doing that 140 character thing. We talk a lot if you haven’t noticed. BUT we’re kinda ok at explaining things, so here’s what Twitter going public means, and how it might affect you, dear tweeters.

First things first. IPO stands for Initial Public Offering. It is basically a stock market launch where members of the public (that’s you, if you gots the cash) can buy shares in the company (that’s Twitter)  on a securities exchange ( think of Wall Street).

Members of the general everyday public will make up some of the people who buy shares, but Twitter will also be looking for big time BIG TIME investors to buy shares. Lots of them. For lots of money. Cos, monies.

With monies, you can build. and they will come. Not really, sorry, we just watched Field of Dreams. But with money, otherwise known as capital, twitter can grow and build and become a better company and provide more for your trusty shareholders and the 200 million + users.

So, basically, Twitter is now a private company, and they are planning on becoming a public company. Simple, really, except it’s pretty huge, as the beginning of the process is and has been for a while a hugely anticipated moment in the tech, financial and tweety world.

But… why are they doing it?

The advantages of becoming a public company are many, and they’re mostly to do with money, but also reputation and growth. With new investors, the company will be able to access a large amount of capital to catalyze growth. It’s a way of monetizing parts of the company. It will make acquisitions easier and increase the company’s (already huge admittedly) public image .

People who invested in Twitter in the beginning and employees will be able to assign a value to their shares, making their association to the company increasingly valuable (hopefully). Shares in the company can also be used as an extra attraction for potential employees, as long as the value is set to open and stay high.

There are also potential disadvantages. The company, once public, will have to disclose business and financial information, which is of course useful to shareholders, but can be risky as they also expose the business to it’s competitors. The stocks could dive. There’s risk associated with Twitter’s reputation and there will be pressure for them to fulfill their promised potential.

Now, Twitter has filed their ‘S1’ confidentially, which means that they make less than $1 Billion dollars annually. If a company earns more, that is when they have to file the S1 out in the wide open plains of the tech and financial world.

Twitter will have to make their IPO documents public, but not until 21 days before they start pitching themselves to investors on Wall Street.

One way to attract investors before and during the official pitch is to convince them that Twitter, like Facebook before them, can advertise in this new social media world better, more subtly and more effectively than any other social media company out there.

They’ve only quite recently started to gain revenue from placing ads in the stream of tweets users see, but it’s already significant. According to eMarketer, they’ll haul in $583 million in advertising revenue for 2013 and hit $1 billion in 2014.

They are said to be creating a type of advertising that will work better than any other social media advertising.They have just purchased MoPub, the world’s largest mobile ad server,which is indicative of the direction they’re going in making huge advertising profits and attracting investors.

Speaking of Facebook, their IPO famously did not go very well. After they initially started selling their shares at $38, the company’s share prices dropped by more than half over the following 3 months. Investors lost billions and blamed Facebook and the investment banks involved in the IPO, claiming they had deceived them on Facebook’s revenue estimates. Facebook has however recently recovered, currently sitting at $44.75 as we write this.

Twitter will be super keen to show potential investors that their revenue is and will be exponentially increasing. In the near future, expect to see more ads on twitter, and advertising used in different ways within the platform. You’ll probably start hearing a whole bunch about Twitter going public.

As for when Twitter will take the jump to being a public company? Well, that depends on how attractive they’re looking, and how the stock market is performing. They will want the best conditions to get the best price.

For now, Twitter is going ‘back to work’.

Good luck Twitter, we love you! Now for the rest of you kids, happy tweeting and dreaming about how to explain to the world in 140 characters that you just bought a stake in your favorite company! #awesome

Image courtesy of Independent.ie, Forbes, Rapgenius, Wired.co.uk and Cheezburger.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