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 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

Anyone want google glass?

You guys have heard of Google Glass right?

The proposed future of wearable technology that will be the ultimate integration of life and computer?

The thing that has some people up in arms about privacy and we’re all going to become androids aaaaagh?

The thing that you think kind of makes people look a bit silly but you really want to try out anyway?

A wearable computer with an optical head-mounted display? 

Augmented-reality glasses?

This thing?

Yeah, that thing.

Up until now it’s kind of been something you hear about in the press, but don’t realllly see right? If you live in a Tech city, or know someone lucky enough and really into their tech, you might have heard of someone who has one. Or someone whose whose cousin has one.

It’s quite frustrating, actually, no matter what your opinion about the technology involved.

You still want to be able to play with the silly futuristic tech toy that you can’t even play with for who knows how long, especially because you’re a reasonable person right? You wouldn’t have an opinion on something until you’ve actually experienced it, tried it, right?

But Google are in control and it’s just stupid, why do we have to wait for soooo long?

Well, kids, the time of Google Glass in the public domain is getting closer. One person at a time, actually.

Google has begun inviting more people to try Google Glass out. Participants in the Glass Explorer program for early adopters have been sent an email from Google, inviting them to, in turn, invite one friend into the Google Glass Explorer program.

The invitations are limited to people who are U.S. residents, at least 18 years old and able to pick up Glass in San Francisco, New York or Los Angeles.

Around 8000 competition winners are currently taking part in the Google Glass early explorer program, as well as the various tech heads around that are lucky enough to be testing them out.

So…. Time to put your thinking caps on guys. There is the actual possibility in the world right now for you to be able to play with new and supposedly futuristic technology before most of the rest of the world.

A small chance, probably, yes, but still a chance!

All you need to do is to go and find one of the early adapter people, make an amazing impression on them so that they pick you above their family and friends, and hence start using Google Glass. Cake?

Go to it! And soon you too can look like this…

Images courtesy of  cnet.com and turnstylenews.com

Back to School!

So guys, back to school time, huh? Time for a back to school app review then I guess! Hooray for school and work and stuff! ACTUALLY hooray for iOS apps that make it all easier!

Whether you’re going back to high school, college or have a kid doing one of those, here are the top apps we recommend for helping to educate oneself the besterest!

And, because we understand the life of a student, most of these apps are free! But Priceless! Like that Mastercard ad! Kinda. Also, there’s a couple on the end that we think are worth a little bit extra cashola.

Enjoy kids! Don’t forget that all work and no play makes Homer …something… something

*StudyBlue has over 150 million pieces of student authored content, taken from tens of thousands of colleges and high schools from around the world. Browsing is easy, group collaboration makes those dreaded group projects easier, and if you don’t want to use other people’s quizzes, review sheets and flashcards, you can create your own to perfect your study experience. FREE from the Appstore!

*MyHomework Student Planner App.
This beautifully designed app will sync and track your schedule, classes, assignments, exams and homework. Even better- if your teacher or Professor uses the amazing Teachers.io, you can get a buttload more information such as syllabi, attachments, resources and communication from your professor.
MyHomework is FREE with ads, however if you want the ad-free experience, it’s only $1.99 per year.

*EasyBib.
Here’s some big words for you: Automated bibliography and citation generator. We like the sound of that. You know what we don’t like the sound of? Writing Bibliographies. Ugh, right? Well, sigh no more kids, the EasyBib App is here to save the day!
All you need to do is scan the barcode of the book you’re referencing, or type the name into the app and EasyBib will automatically create MLA, APA and Chicago style citations for you. These can then be emailed to yourself or exported into EasyBib’s online bibliography management service.
FREE from the app store.

*Mint.
Picture this: you’re in class when suddenly you realize that you are almost 94.6% sure you were supposed to pay, like, 5 bills in the last week and you actually have no idea how much money you have because you’re educating yourself and shouldn’t have to worry about things like rent and when you get paid and debt and lalalala. Well, the Mint.com App has all these things covered, so you can go ahead and not worry you’re pretty little smart head over it. Mint categorizes and organizes your bills, spending, income and debt into lovely little tables so you can keep a track of what money is going where and when chunks of it are incoming and need to be outgoing. Just remember to check it! Free from the App store.

* iSlick
So we all know education is big money right? But you still gotta eat, drink, have household items, maybe catch a baseball game, take your girlfriend out and party right? Welcome to the wonderful world of Slickdeals. Slickdeals.com has a mobile app- iSlick, which will show you the wonders of secret sales, unbelievable deals and the dream that is double (or triple ) couponing. Free with Ads or $1.99 ad-free.

*Gasbuddy. Y’all wanna get the cheapest gas prices out there? Get the Gasbuddy app and you’ll always know where to get the cheapest Gas. Simple as that, and it’s FREE from the App store.

*OnWatch.
Our pick from the range of Campus safety apps- a tool which shouldn’t have to be used but stays in the better safe than sorry category of must-download apps. A safety blanket even if never needed. And we hope that is the case!

OnWatch has 6 ‘watch’ modes that stay on your phone when you think you may be at risk or are feeling a little uncertain. From there it’s only two taps to contact friends, 911, campus police or a combination of those. You can also set an alarm for a future time and when that time arrives, you are asked to enter a passcode- If you don’t- the app will send your pre-selected friends a message and your location.
There is currently a 30 day free trial, after that It is $19.99/year or $2.99 per month. Even if you discontinue with the app for whatever reason, the call 911 and call campus police features remain free forever.

*BenchPrep. This app is essentially a be all, end all tool for study and exam preparation with a huge interactive course library with study features, reports and test preparation materials.
The App includes a massive amount of material for academic subjects from Algebra to Spanish to Biology, Test preparation for those special flowers smart enough to be taking the LSAT GMAT MCAT and a bunch of others, as well as courses on practical subjects such as eMarketing, Accounting, and Word.
An invaluable study tool, as seen by this: Students who learn with Benchmark receive 15% better grades than before they started using the app. 15% better? Not much to lose here, except the fee, which is a $25/month for one course and $99/month for access to all courses.

*Wolfram Alpha Mobile App
The best computation and expert knowledge search engine app out there in our opinion- it’s really impressive. Simply ask the app what you want calculated or a question you want the answer to – from complex mathematics to how old a president was when he entered office. $2 or – try out Wolfram Alpha Pro, which goes beyond text input and includes downloadable results. A monthly subscription is $4.99/ month or $2.99/month for students, and for a very short time ending TODAY; you can get the first three months free with an annual subscription.

*iStudiez Pro is the established and award winning student planner app that will track and summarize in simple and yet extensive detail, your assignments, due dates, schedule for classes, work and extra curricular activities, as well as your grades. It will give you alerts for upcoming exams, classes and assignment due dates and sync with other co-existing apps such as the calendar. Each class has the ability to include your professors contact information with simple tap to connect features to be able to reach them on your mobile. Highly recommended for years, this is one well worth checking out. $2.99 or free for the Lite version.

For those of you looking for some extra tutorials, or for those of you not going back to school but still looking for some education, we also recommend downloading the iTunes University app. It’s awesome.

Also, because we totally understand procrastination, there is SelfControl. Not an App, but something that may just change your life…even though you might end up hating us for introducing you to it!
Available only on Mac OS X 10.5 and above, SelfControl is a way to try and curb your Internet based distractions whilst studying. Simply add any website or access to your mail server to your ‘blacklist’ and an amount of time you would like to be blocked from them, and BAM! No more distractions ( on the internet) until that time is up. Restarting or deleting the application from your computer will not make a difference either! Useful and annoying! And FREE!

Also handy is ratemyprofessors.com, check it out to make your class choices a little more informative. Last but not least, don’t forget that good ‘ol Tinder app… College is all about making friends, right?

So that’s it! If you have any other handy apps or tips for going back to school let us know!

Hope we’ve given you a l’il bit of help!

Good luck Kids!

Images courtesy of Mashable.com, laptopmag.com, beautifulpixels.com, readwrite.com, crunchbase.com, Glamour.com, kicks99.com, zdnet.com and easybib.com

The iPhone 5c? Wha?

So here’s the juice, kids. Apparently, according to super secret sources, Apple will be introducing a cheap version of the iPhone named the iPhone 5C, with the C standing for color.

Interesting.

Although the idea of Apple releasing a cheaper version of the iPhone has been kicked around and  rumored for a reallllly long time, these rumors have ramped up recently suggesting that perhaps there may be a grain or more of truth to them!

Here’s what’s been making the rounds:

* Sonny Dickson, an Australian dude in the know leaked these photos of the alleged phone:

*This supports the rumor and earlier leaks that the iPhone 5C will come in a variety of colors, green, yellow, red and blue for starters, much like the iPod mini. Sonny Dickson also leaked this photo of the supposed volume buttons:

*The shell will be polycarbonate, slightly thicker, and will have rear curved edges.

*There is believed to be a single flash camera.

*Although there seems to be quite a lot of information leaked about the aesthetics and hardware of the iPhone 5C ( trustworthy or not is up to you to decide!), there has been in comparison hardly any information leaked about the software capabilities, except that the 5C will most likely not have Siri.

*The iPhone 5C is believed to be released either on September 10th with the iPhone 5S, or, if separately, by the end of the year. The price is believed to be in the $400 range before carrier subsidy.

*Gene Munster, an analyst from Piper Jaffray predicts that Apple will discontinue all iPhone device’s except for iPhone 5, iPhone 5S and iPhone 5C.

That’s all we have for now, but we have a feeling we won’t have to wait for too long to discover the truth…. cos it’s out there. X-Files taught us that.

images courtesy of Sonny Dickson’s website, Macrumors.com

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

jOBS

Ashton Kutcher fans and Steve Jobs Fans, rejoice! Not only do we have some awesome, goose bump giving teaser material for you guys, but we also have a final release date for the Steve Jobs biopic, jOBS!

The Joshua Michael Stern directed film charts Steve Job’s inspirational ascension from college dropout to one of the most admired tech heads and entrepreneurs ever. It’s a purported cinematic celebration of Apple’s visionary leader and the rebellious and unorthodox way he wanted to lead his company.

As skeptical as iPhone Antdiote may have been in the beginning about this biopic, the promotional material and buzz leading up to the release is getting us excited and changing our mind about how much we think we’re going to like the movie.

As well as Kutcher in the lead role, other stars include James Woods, Dermot Mulroney, and Josh Gad as Apple’s other founder, Steve Wozniak.

The independent film was first glimpsed by a lucky few at the Sundance Film Festival in January and according to some Apple employees in the crowd who knew the man, Kutcher did an uber awesome admirable job playing Steve.

The film was originally due to be released on April 19th but delays (thought to be reshoots or the desire for more time to create better buzz) meant that everyone had to just cool their butts for a while… and that while is almost over!

Drum roll….

You can see jOBS on August 16.

Here is the official promotional poster released yesterday:

And you can see the trailer for jOBS here. And it’s pretty damn excitement making!

The other film biopic of Steve Jobs, the big budget Sony produced and Aaron Sorkin written ‘official biopic’, is still in development and, similar to an Apple product release, is being kept well under wraps…

Happy viewing kids!

Images courtesy of  The Verge and 9to5mac.com.

iWatch trademark update

So, we now have news that Apple has applied to trademark the name ‘iWatch’ in more countries across the world.

All of the applications were filed on June 3rd but have only become public in the last few days.

As well as Russia and Japan, Apple has filed to trademark ‘iWatch’ under both software and hardware categories in Jamaica, Taiwan, Turkey, and Mexico.

Momentum is building! Aghhhh!

Image courtesy of Forbes.

The iWatch

Good news for those of us waiting for a brand spanking ( ooh) new Apple product!

Yesterday, Apple’s application to trademark the term ‘iWatch’ in Japan was made public.

iWatch is, of course, the rumored name for the first wearable Apple device and the potentially out of this world Smart Watch. The trademark was applied for on June 3rd this year and is actually the second time that Apple has applied to trademark the name, the first being in Russia in February.

Momentum (and the rumor mill) for this product is building rapidly. Yesterday’s reports come after Bloomberg posted in March this year that according to their sources there were 100 engineers working on the planned smart watch, and after Tim Cook said in May that the wearable device market is one just waiting for innovation. And who better to do it than Apple?

Unlike other Smart Watches currently available (see the wonderful Pebble Watch), the much speculated iWatch will most likely be a stand alone device, with biometric potential that could turn the way we use technology on it’s head.
Suckily, experts agree that we probably won’t see the iWatch until the 3rd or 4th quarter of 2014.

C’mon Tim Cook! We want wearable device innovation, and we want it now! Or soon! Please?

Image courtesy of  Forbes.

The Annual Apple ‘Back To School’ Promotion

Something for the learners & learned amongst us!

Apple have announced that to celebrate that magical time of year- the beginning of the school year- their annual Back To School promotion will be starting as soon as tomorrow.

The promotion offers students who purchase a Mac a $100 iTunes/App store gift voucher, and for those students who purchase an iPad or an iPhone, they will be offered a $50 gift voucher.

Sweet deal!

What’s sweeter? This promotion is added on top of the usual student discount of $200 off a new Mac.

To be eligible you must be a college student, parents buying for college students, teachers (including homeschool), school administrators & Staff.

Happy learning guys. Also, we apologize for calling the beginning of the school year magical.

Image courtesy of top10films.co.uk