It seems like a week can’t pass by without a new video streaming app coming out of the wood work. If you need more video streaming options on your iPhone, T-Mobile’s got a new app to hook you up.
T-Mobile TV was just released for iPhone yesterday. The app has been on Android devices since 2010, but this is the first time the magenta carrier is bringing it to iPhone. The “free” app includes a number of channels, such as Disney, Nickelodeon, E!, TLC, ESPN, NBC, MTV, Comedy Central and more.
This is the first part of a two-part review. When you see the case I’m writing about, the reason will be obvious. It’s the Castello Davarg Kanam, and it’s a wraparound case fashioned from full grain leather in the good old U.S of A. Fortunately, this doesn’t mean that it was thrown together by unionized slackers with one eye on the time-clock: The case is clearly put together with some care.
Why the tow-parter? Because this is a chunk of cow, and as such it’s meant to age gracefully, getting better over time. So today is more of a first look, with a long-term write-up to follow.
We’ve been talking a lot about the budget iPhone in recent months, mostly in relation to the emerging market (where the vast majority of the remaining smartphone growth is expected to happen in the next five years), but here’s a question: even if Apple, as they are rumored to do, release their first plastic iPhone since the iPhone 3GS, how are they going to price it low enough to actually penetrate third-world countries where the cost of the phone might be equal to someone’s salary for the month? Especially while maintaining Apple’s customary profit margins?
The truth is, it’s almost impossible to imagine Apple being able — or interested! — in doing any such thing. Current rumor pegs the “budget” iPhone as basically an iPhone 5 with a colorful plastic shell. If those rumors are true, that’s not really a budget phone: it’s a mid-range. It has to be if Apple wants to make money off of it.
Slowly but surely, that’s the realization dawning on some people on Wall Street. The “budget” iPhone isn’t going to be budget at all. And Apple’s going to make buttloads off of it.
Apparently, there is a magnet somewhere inside the back panel of the iPhone 5. How do I know? Because these cool new lenses from Carson use it to stick themselves to the back of the phone. The result is something like a small, less-bulbous Olloclip, only for close-up photography.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DTyqLHnU6yk
I’m not a big fan of screen protectors; partly because they’re real pain in the ass to apply, and partly because I’ve never felt like they really added much to the equation.
But if there was ever a screen protector to get me to change my mind, its Tech21‘s new Impact Shield. The company demoed its new protector for me over Skype recently, and I came away thoroughly stunned: The protector has a strange, almost magical way of protecting the screen from not only scratches but impacts — and is self-healing. It’s also applied onto a screen in a very different manner than most other screen protectors.
In Apple’s latest earnings call, CEO Tim Cook was suddenly equivocal about whether or not Apple would do an iPhone with a larger display.
“Our competitors have made some significant tradeoffs in many of these areas to ship a larger display,” Cook said on the earnings call. “We would not ship a larger display iPhone while these tradeoffs exist.”
What that hints is Apple doesn’t have a larger screen iPhone in its pipeline yet, but they’re working on one, without any of the tradeoffs of the competition. (What these tradeoffs actually are in Apple’s mind are anyone’s guess.)
A new analyst report suggests that this larger screen iPhone will be the iPhone 6, and it will land in summer of 2014. This year, we’ll just have to deal with an iPhone 5S in a bevy of peacock fan of different color options.
The patent war between Apple and Samsung has no end in sight. After Apple won a landmark victory against Samsung for patent infringement last summer to the tune of about $1 billion in damages, the court later deducted $450 million from what Samsung owes Apple. The California judge presiding over the case, Lucy Koh, said that the jury miscalculated what the damages should be for the 14 included Samsung devices.
All of the various charges and reexaminations being thrown around mean that Apple and Samsung will be heading to trial in the U.S. again not once, but twice in the coming year.
Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov has revealed that he recently spent $100 million on Apple shares in anticipation that they will rebound. The 59-year-old believes that Apple is a “very promising” investment, despite the current share price being almost 40% off its peak last September.
EE has today announced that its 4G network is now available in another 12 towns across the United Kingdom, bringing the total number of 4G connected towns and cities to 62 in just six months following its launch. That’s 50% of the U.K. now covered by 4G, and EE is aiming to increase that to 70% by the end of the year.
This cute little iPhone 5 case comes from Poketo, and not only coddles the iPhone within but also packs slots for your cash and cards. The twist here is that the cards sit safely on the inside instead of in a set of rear-cut slots on the back, and the whole thing snaps shut with a clicky clasp.