Buster Hein - page 162

iPhone 6 units are flying of shelves in Australia and Asia and the first teardowns are not far behind them.

The Apple repair geniuses at iFixit have already started their flawless teardown of the iPhone 6 Plus and they’re live-blogging all the action with gorgeous close-ups of the bigger than big guts of Apple’s new device. The teardown action is just getting started, but if you can’t wait to look inside the iPhone 6, there are a couple other people who have already pried their iPhone’s apart.

Did you buy a shiny new iPhone 6 from AT&T Wireless? You might want to check your next monthly bill for an increased charge.

Some AT&T customers upgrading to the iPhone 6 received a surprising text alert this morning saying the carrier has hiked the monthly “smartphone access charge” to $40 for anyone renewing a two-year Mobile Share Value plan agreement. Naturally, the carrier waited until it was swamped with an unprecedented amount of iPhone 6 pre-orders before telling customers they’d be paying an extra $600 over two years — nearly enough to buy an unlocked iPhone 6 outright.

Tim Cook prophesied that the iPhone 6 would trigger and avalanche of upgrades, but what he may not have expected was the unfathomable amount of Android users who are trading in their Samsung phones to get a grip on Apple’s large screen beauty.

Samsung phone trade-ins have tripled in the last week alone on Gazelle, reports Bloomberg, and the stream of used Galaxies isn’t expected to slow down anytime soon, as nearly a third of Android users say they’re ready to switch allegiances.

Apple Watch’s customization factor is going to be a huge sell to fashion-conscious, but for some would-be Apple Watch wearers wanting to stand out from the herd, Jony Ive’s simplistic design is a little too reserved.

Not satisfied with Apple’s band offerings, the fashion focused crew at High Snobiety has reimagine what the Apple would would look like if some of the most famous fashion brands in the world got a chance to redesign it. Can you match the fashion brand to the luxury Apple Watch concept?

Take a look at the gorgeous mockups below.

Apple’s fabulous iPhone used to be the number one reason crime was on the rise in New York City, but now that Apple’s added Activation Lock to iOS 7, thieves have given up their iLust and are targeting Samsung phones like never before.

Just look at the sudden change in thefts in the chart below:

iOS 8 was released just 24 hours ago in what Apple is calling the biggest iOS release ever, but if early adoption numbers are any indication, customers might not feel the same way.

Users are upgrading to iOS 8 at a much slower rate than iOS 7, according to Tapjoy’s data from its app network of 200 million unique iOS users. Not only is iOS 8 lagging behind iOS 7, it’s being adopted even slower than iOS 6 was.

Apple fans hoping to skip the iPhone 6 line on launch day were shocked to see preorder times plummet within the first hours of what Apple dubbed a record breaking weekend of preorder sales. Many started with shipping estimates of 7-10 days or worse for the iPhone 6 Plus, but if you ordered through AT&T, your shipping times may have just improved.

AT&T sales reps say the company has moved up shipment times on some orders by pulling stock from different regions that would normally be sold in-store.

We’ve already cover the major new features that iOS 8 is bringing to your iPhone today, as well as some hidden tricks too, but if you’re ready to pour over the bible on iOS 8 straight from the mothership you can download it now on iBooks.

Apple published its huge iPhone User Guide for iOS 8 this afternoon as an iBook and its loaded with everything you need to know about the iPhone, and offers some sneak peeks at the new 4.7-inch and 5.5-inch iPhones coming out Friday.

The 182-page guide is broken into 37 section and covers features on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, as well as iPhone 5s, 5c, 5, and 4s. You can grab it on iTunes right now for free.

Don’t expect to bump into Apple’s design guru on your next coach flight. When Jony Ive hits the skies he flies private.

In fact, according to an Apple profile by Business Week, Sir Jony Ive cuts through clouds in the very same Gulfstream jet owned by Steve Jobs during his last years at Apple.

iOS 8 is the biggest release from Apple ever, with hundreds of new APIs and features that will completely change the way you use your iPhone. Features like Handoff, Health and Messages will be huge draws for customers looking for something new from iOS, but Apple’s engineers have also crammed dozens of new little features throughout the mobile OS.

Improved camera tools, battery statistics, new Safari tricks and more are included in today’s gigantic update, but you need to know where to look to find the true gems. Here’s a rundown of 18 incredible iOS 8 features you probably didn’t know about.

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shattered Apple’s previous records and its supplier are still struggling to keep up with demand.

Apple supplier Foxconn has continued to hire more workers to assemble the new iPhone models, reports the Wall Street Journal, but even though they’re already churning out over 500,000 new handsets a day, its 100 production lines operating around the clock in Zhengzhou still can’t keep up.

Apple is set to release iOS 8 later today, followed by the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus later this week, but if new iPads are on your wishlist you might not have to wait much longer.

An iPad event has reportedly been planned by Apple for October 21st, according to the Daily Dot’s Micah Singleton, who says the official launch date of OS X Yosemite will also be announced at the event.

iOS 8 is about to be unleash on the world today after debuting earlier this summer at WWDC. Tim Cook is calling it the biggest iOS update ever and for good reason, as the new OS has been packed with hundreds of new tools for developers, as well as new features that make iOS devices, quicker, more productive, and more seamlessly integrated with Mac than ever before.

You won’t see huge visual changes like Apple made with iOS 7 last year, but there’s plenty of features for everyone to be excited about in iOS 8, whether its the new messaging tools, improved camera features, family sharing, Hand-off, or the sleek new Spotlight.

Before you jump headfirst into the biggest iOS release ever, get acquainted with the most important new features in this Cult of Mac guide to iOS 8:

Apple’s massive pile of cash is about to get even bigger this weekend as the the iPhone 6 triggers an avalanche of new upgrades after shattering Apple’s record for pre-orders in a 24 hour period.

Now you can watch Apple’s wealth grow dollar by dollar in real-time, thanks to U.K.-based payments company WorlPayZinc, which built an interactive graph to show how much money the world’s top tech companies are making in real-time. Apple is by far the most profitable company, as it rakes in nearly $51,000 every 8 seconds.

Check out the interactive graph below:

The iPhone 6 won’t be available for a few more days in the United States, but in mainland China, getting your fingers on Apple’s biggest screen ever is shockingly easy — and police are starting to help Foxconn crack down on leaks.

A Foxconn employee was arrested by Chinese police, reports the Wall Street Journal, for walking six shells for the iPhone 6 out the front doors of a factory in northern Shanxi province and then selling them on the black market.

Apple finally added NFC to the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus, but if you were hoping that the company’s new NFC chip will allow you to pair speakers or integrate NFC tags into your favorite apps, you’ll have to keep waiting. Apple has put its NFC chip on lockdown, at least for now.

Sources at Apple have confirmed to Cult of Mac that the NFC chip on the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus will only be used for Apple Pay when it launches this week.

The second part of Tim Cook’s interview with Charlie Rose is scheduled to air tonight on PBS, and as a teaser the show has released a short video of the CEO explaining that Apple’s stance on user privacy and company transparency is basically to never become like Google.

“You are not our product,” says Cook. “I think everyone has to ask, ‘How do companies make their money?’ Follow the money. And if they’re making money mainly by collecting gobs of personal data, I think you have a right to be worried and you should really understand what’s happening with that data.”

Watch the three-minute clip below:

Apple had to give users a tool to permanently remove U2’s freebie album from their iTunes account, but according to Eddie Cue the album is a colossal hit and has been ‘experienced’ by 33 million iTunes account holders since its release six days ago.

Apple Watch has been in development at Apple for over three years according to Tim Cook, but a New York Times report says the project got a leg up by using the sixth generation iPod Nano as an origin point.

In fact, the Apple Watch still looks fairly similar to the smallest iPod nano Apple ever created, which inspired the company to make Apple Watch after people starting strapping wristbands to the tiny MP3 player to use while jogging.

iOS 8’s HealthKit is already starting to change the way health researchers track patients’ wellness even though it hasn’t been released, as two of the country’s top research hospitals have launched HealthKit trials to track diabetics and patients with cancer and chronic disease.

Doctors at Stanford University Hospital say they’ve been working with Apple to track blood sugar levels for children with diabetes, while Reuters reports that Duke University developed a pilot program that uses HealthKit to track fitness measurements for patients with cancer or heart disease.

Apple might have tried to kill read-it-later services by adding Reading List to Safari, but iOS 8’s new Extensibility feature is bringing new life to bookmarking services like Pocket, which said today that its updated app will make it faster than ever to save everything to Pocket.

Apple has made the third public preview of its upcoming OS X Yosemite operating system available to the one million beta testers via its AppleSeed program.

OS X Yosemite Preview 8 Build 14A361c has also been seeded to developers and is available for download in the Mac App Store or from the Mac Dev Center along with a new version of Xxode 6.1 beta 2 and Apple Configurator 1.7 beta 6.

Apple’s note to developers doesn’t mention the addition of new features, but does state that SMS Continuity has been removed from testing, but it will be available again in October via a free update to iOS 8. The note also states that only iPhoto 9.5.1 and Aperture 3.5.1 will run on OS X Yosemite Preview 8. We’ll update you with any new features we find once we get the new preview installed.

Apple’s historic launch of U2’s new album Songs of Innocence to 500 million iTunes users hasn’t exactly been well-received. After less than 1 percent of iTunes users downloaded the freebie album on the first day, Apple shoved it down users’ throats by automatically downloading to devices withdisastrous results.

Now, after everyone’s had a weekend to cool off, Apple’s offering users an innovative solution in the form of a support site dedicated to teaching iTunes users how to pry U2’s spam album off their Mac or iPhone for good.

Here are the steps Apple recommends:

Pre-orders for the iPhone 6 and 6 Plus shattered Apple’s previous records and the 4 million customers ready to caress every square inch of the big and bigger screens will be happy to know that the first planes from China have already touched down in the U.S. with iPhone 6 cargo.

A China Southern Airlines Boeing 777 was spotted by China Daily as 93 tons of Apple iPhone 6s were being loaded onto the plane in Central China’s Henan province before it headed for Chicago, Illinois, and other American pilots have even posted pictures of their iPhone 6 payloads from inside the fuselage.