iPhone - page 318

In the picture above you can see two iPhone prototypes that Apple was working on way back in 2006. They provide an amazing glimpse of just how long the prototyping phases of iPhones can last, because the original iPhone didn’t come out till June 2007, and then the iPhone 4 wasn’t seen till 2010.

The prototype images come from court filings in the Samsung vs Apple legal proceedings where Samsung plans to argue that Apple ripped off Sony’s design as inspiration for the iPhone. In fact, a few of the renders for the iPhone 4 like device have the Sony logo on them as you can see below:

Want to hear something silly? Today Google introduced this odd beta feature called Handwrite that’s supposed to change the way you interact with search on your iPad, iPhone or other mobile devices.

The way it works is that instead of pulling up the Google homepage on your iPhone and typing in your search query, you just draw the words instead. It’s suppose to be a “fun and easy new way to search,” but it’s probably one of Google’s worst concepts and here’s why.

A new update to the private social network app Path brings a curious secret feature: you can now automatically import your Facebook, Instagram and Foursquare updates without doing anything. But there’s a catch: you’ll need to sign up for a new account to do it.

There’s always been a stigma around Apple products that they’re really just made for rich people. Almost all of Apple’s machine’s cost well over $1000, and the iPhone and iPad are two of the most expensive products in their categories.

Some people say only rich people can afford Apple products, and maybe they have a small point.  A recent report shows that Apple is the company of choice for users whose net worth is more than $100,000, and it just become more popular the more money you earn.

Sprint announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012 today, which includes “strong” iPhone sales of 1.5 million units. 40% of these devices went to new customers, but they couldn’t help the carrier get out of the red. It reported a net loss of $1.2 billion over the three-month period, compared to a net loss of $847 million for the same quarter last year.

If you have been desperately seeking a Bluetooth speaker which looks like a video projector, or a small, mains-powered electric fan heater, then your search is over! Behold: the Croon, the wireless/wired
speaker of your twisted dreams.

Like a healthy baby in utero with all its fingers and toes showing on the ultrasound, we’ve now got a pretty good picture of what the next iPhone will look like: longer, thinner, a new metallic back, a smaller 19 pin dock connector and, of course, a bigger 4-inch display.

It’s going to be a beautiful phone, but what next? It’s unlikely that Apple will do another major iPhone revision for awhile, which means future iPhones will, for the forseeable future, probably just refine the forthcoming design.

Here’s a beautiful concept of what the iPhone’s design could look like in the next couple of years, courtesy of French designer Nak.

There are a few ways to keep your phone juiced as you ride. Those with foresight will have specced a wheel with a dynamo hub and USB adapter. Those who live in sunnier climes might opt for a solar panel. ANd those who lack both good weather and good planning skills can grab the Tigra BikeCharge, an iPhone charger that will fit any bike.

Path just pushed out a new update to its iPhone app, introducing a number of nifty new features. Users now have the ability to share their favorite films and books, send personal invitations with their own message to their friends, snap photos using the volume button and then edit them with Path’s new tools, and more.

Rumors of Facebook rebuilding its official iPhone app have been circulating since The New York Times reported the news last month. Instead of an aesthetic redesign, Facebook was said to be focusing on fundamental improvements under the hood. The update was said to launch this summer. Interestingly, Facebook has also been hiring former Apple engineers who worked on the iPhone and iPad to help build a Facebook-centric smartphone with HTC as a device partner.

A new report today reiterates that Facebook is indeed building a speedier iPhone app, and that former Apple talent is helping build up Facebook’s mobile presence.

It’s not exactly hard to make a website these days, but Webr makes it just about as easy as could be. It’s a free iPhone app which lets you create and publish a website in just a couple of minutes, and it’s pretty impressive.

Beyond the numbers, there were some tantalizing tidbits about Apple and the company’s future plans during today’s quarterly financial call. While nothing quite lived up to Tim Cook comparing Windows 8 to someone trying to converge a toaster and a refrigerator into a single device during the last call, there were several choice comments.

Apple CEO Tim Cook and CFO Peter Oppenheimer presented the results of the company’s spring 2012 quarter. The quarter included extensive growth for the iPhone, iPad, and Mac product lines though iPod sales declined 10% from the same quarter a year ago.

Here are the financial numbers delivered during the call.

If you’ve been watching the App Store, you may have noticed iTranslate Voice, a translation tool that looks a lot like Siri, rise to the top. iTranslate Voice does just what you’d expect: you speak into your phone, and it magically outputs what you’ve said into the language of your choice.

Starting today, iTranslate Voice is now available on the iPad as well.

Radio Shack is now offering multiple iPhone models on AT&T and Verizon for significant discounts in its retail stores. These iPhones have been “refreshed and remanufactured,” meaning that they have been either used or repackaged internally. You can get a 16GB iPhone 4S on AT&T or Verizon for $100 off Apple’s $200 retail price, and there’s also a $100 discount for the 32Gb iPhone 4S. The iPhone 4 is also being offered for free on both carriers. All discounted models obviously come with a two-year contract.

Here’s the unit/price breakdown:

If you’ve been debating for the past two years whether or not you should finally commit $4.99 to purchasing Rock Band for iOS, the time to act is now my friend, because soon, your beloved guitar shredding game will be gone from the App Store in all its hair metal glory. Due to an expired license agreement with developer Harmonix, EA has notified users that Rock Band for iOS will be removed from the App Store on July 31st.

Apple debuted a new ad for Siri last night starring famed director Martin Scorsese. The ad is basically just Scorsese riding around in a New York City cab talking to Siri about appointments, finding friends, and traffic. Not too exciting. But if you look closely, you may have noticed an easter egg in the film pointing back to Scorsese’s early days of film making.

The number of the taxi Scorcese is riding in is “3S96,” which is the same taxi Robert De Niro’s character drove in Scorsese’s film Taxi Driver. We’re not sure if his appointments were references to any of his other films, but if you spot any other Easter Eggs in the ad let us know in the comments.

Image: Reddit

Noteshelf? Evernote? Wacom’s amazing Inkling? Pah! These are all electronic pretenders to the crown of the real portable note-taking king: paper. And with the Binder Clip Case, you can add this noble, non-shareable, non-searchable technology to your iPhone 4/S.

AT&T announced its financial results for the second quarter of 2012 today, and yet again the iPhone driving the company’s sales. Of the 5.1 million smartphones the carrier sold, a whopping 72.5% were iPhones.

Apple has issued iWork.com users with a final reminder to warn them that the service will be closed down on July 31. The company states that as of this date, “you will no longer be able to access your documents on the iWork.com public beta site or view them on the web.”

Last week, we reported on the IT migration that Australian airline Qantas was undertaking. That migration and overall technology upgrade includes replacing the airline’s 1,300 BlackBerry handsets with iPhones, swapping hefty pilot flight bags for iPads, and adding an on-demand entertainment system to is fleet of Boeing 767 aircraft that’s accessed using iPads provided to each passenger.

It seems that the migration strategy is even bigger than just those three components. The airline is also looking to overhaul its desktop systems as part of an upgrade to Microsoft’s Office 365 cloud suite. The migration will be completed in partnership with Fujitsu and will include both on-premise and cloud data stores as well as virtual desktops courtesy of Citrix. 

One of the best tools in a photographer’s editing kit is the crop. Finding the best part of a picture and cutting out all else is a fantastic way to make an ordinary picture into a great picture.

You can do this right on your iPhone or iPad with the Photos app. Here’s how.

IFit may be a familiar name to those who weigh less than 200 pounds. Found in many fitness machines, the iFit service lets you plan a training regime via the web, and then carry it out down at the gym.

Now, iFit has released an iPhone app so you can continue training outdoors instead of holed up in that sweathole you pay $100 per month to use.

With rumors heating up again about the next iPhone featuring a smaller 19-pin dock connector, iMore is now saying that Apple will provide an adapter to give the upcoming iPhone’s smaller dock connector the ability to interface with 30-pin accessories and ports. As the site that originally started the smaller iPhone dock rumor, we have reason to believe that iMore’s report is accurate.

Thousands of accessory and peripheral makers have undoubtedly been shaking in their boots since the rumors started about a 19-pin connector in the sixth-gen iPhone, and Apple’s adapter should stem the tide until third-parties can make updated accessories for the new architecture.

IGills is another waterproof iPhone case, but this one is a little more waterproof than the rest. It’s billed as a “smart diving system” which replaces $1,000s worth of specialist gear, and that’s not far off the mark.