iPhone 6 Coming in Gold, Silver and Grey Colours

Apple’s iPhone 6 in Three Shades –Gold/Silver/Grey

A French website, NowhereElse has recently posted images of the leaked iPhone 6’s Sim card trays indicating that the model would be available in gold, silver and grey. The images uploaded by Steve Hemmerstoffer, editor of French Apple fansite portrayed the three trays which currently featured on the iPhone 5s.

The French website also had images of internal components of the iPhone 6 indicating trays, speakers, home buttons as well as vibrator motors besides pictures of the SIM card trays which was not surprising since the iPhone 5s is already available in the same three shades though the grey colour has a somewhat darker shade than the iPhone 5s, according to 9to5Mac report.

Besides posting images, the site has also confirmed the release date and has added that Apple’s new phone would also have 128GB of internal storage and the report seems to be coming from the most trusted and loyal Chinese sources who is known to have an exceptional track record of disclosing features of Apple’s products much prior to its launch.

According to 9to5Mac, alongside the SIM trays, besides the home buttons and vibrate motor, speakers are also photographed wherein the internal speaker appears to be much larger than the components used in the earlier iPhone.

Internal Speaker Larger with Sound Quality/Louder Volume

Besides, the internal speaker being larger in size is not the only factor determining the sound of speaker but there is a possibility indicating that the iPhone 6 will be offering sound quality or a louder volume and according to the last image, the design of the vibrator motor too has changed significantly. Though it is likely that the effect on the end user has not changed, the change was essential to accommodate the new internal layout of the phone.

The site had posted images which according to Mr Hemmerstoffer claimed to be promotional artwork for the new flagship model with the date of September 9 and according to news reports, the Californian Company is likely to unveil the next iPhone on this date together with the rumoured iWatch. Mr Hemmerstoffer alleged that the artwork had been handed to him by his loyal and most trusted Chinese sources who had given a familiar piece of artwork to him prior to the launch conference of the iPhone 5s.

Yellow Metal – Important Role in Smartphones

In the updated round of iPhones 6 images, besides the new set of photos portraying the SIM trays et all, what is very noticeable is the curved edge to the SIM tray, which makes a seamless line with the iPhone 6’s curved edges seen several time earlier and the images depicts some changes to the speaker as well as vibrator motor of the device.

Going by the success of gold iPhone 5s, users prefer the gold colour and few know that most smartphones utilise gold in their internal components. Moreover, the yellow metal’s strong conductive properties and malleability are the cause which has an important role in smartphones.

Apple is likely to announce the new 4.7 inch iPhone at a press event in September which would be going on sale a few weeks thereafter. Rumours are on that the 5.5 inch variant of iPhone 6 would also be released though the timeline for the same is not known with several supply sources posing delays.

iPhone Apps Initiating Forced To Place Expensive Calls

Privacy has been the top most reason that encourages anyone to invest in a smart phone. If you have been in a delusion that you are safe and spying is limited to another area, then beware. iPhone one of the largest selling smart phones seems to have hit a roadblock in form of forced call through their certain apps. This vulnerability can force the apps to place expensive calls or facetime calls.

Usually in any phone and even iPhone, tapping any number will give a pop screen prompting whether you want to make call or not. According to one of the developers, there is serious risk in apps which don’t ask for permission about the same at first. Due to the security lapse, your phone might be forced to make calls just by clicking of links; this will potentially connect your phone to expensive numbers without any prior warning.

Developer Andrei Neculaesei from Copenhagen Company was able to demonstrate the complete process and the security lapse in certain iOS apps. This has proven to work as many apps like Facebook messenger, Google+ and Gmail don’t give any pop-up when a consumer’s taps on any phone number embedded in the site.

“Hello Pretty” tactic 

Andrei stated that he used a very sneaky JavaScript to enable the links in a website, which clicks on by own. When these sites were accessed through various apps apart from Safari, an automatic call was initiated. Apart from incurring money loss, the user might end up communicating to the attackers through live video. This was called Hello Pretty.

Facetime has been facing a lot of problem as the calls are getting initiated by accessing any site through their app. These calls are almost instant. Just image a simple situation, you have just clicked on some link and without you being aware, an automatic calls is placed to an expensive number, where your attacker will be able to save all the details including your looks.

Even though Andrei was able to highlight some of the apps that have got affected by this issue, the entire blame can’t be placed on Apple, as there are apps which have been made available through different developers. Some of developers have not configured their apps to give a pop up with any specific information.

There are many giant names in these developers like Facebook and Google, who have chosen not to use this feature but the growing security issue might prompt them to incorporate these features.

Current update 

Due to the ongoing security issue, Facebook has already started working to get this issue fixed atleast in their apps. There are still many more apps still vulnerable to this issue.

Apple’s Largest iPad – 12.9 Inch

Apple Inc.’s suppliers are gearing to manufacture one of the company’s largest iPad, boosting the screen size and the production is scheduled to begin by the first quarter of next year. The new iPad would have the screen size measuring 12.9 inch diagonally, making it the biggest product in the range though Apple currently has been producing iPads with 9.7 and 7.9 inch displays, respectively.

The tech giant has been working with suppliers for a year in order to develop an updated range of larger touch screen devices, according to some sources. The latest versions of the iPad mini and the updated version of the 9.7 inch iPad would be released at the time of Christmas as reported by Bloomberg.

Apple is keen on revamping its product range after its announcement of mixed third quarter results in July wherein the company had sold 13.3m iPads during the three months to June 28, which was down by 9.2pc the same period of last year and short of the 14.4m that analysts had expected. iPhone sales had missed market predictions of 36m though the sales had rose to 13pc to 35.3m that period.

Improvement on the iPad Line

Apple managed to bringup total sales of $35.33bn, which was up by $300 m though its profit fell by 22pc to $6.9bn. Apple shares, recently crossed the $100 level as investors had renewed hopes on the upcoming products after the announcement of Tim Cook, Chief executive, who had stated that the company was set to have a busy end to the year. Sales of tablets which were the second biggest product of revenue for Apple had declined consecutively for two quarters due to lack of new models and consumers had turned to smartphone with bigger screens.

Apple chief executive, Tim Cook is working on ways to improve on the iPad line and its supplier have started manufacture of updated 9.7 inch screen iPad as well as set to enter production of the new version of the iPad mini wherein these devices would be made available later this year. The company is planning an event on September 9 to debut its new bigger display iPhones which went into mass production this July, reported by Bloomberg News.

Potential Customers for Larger Screen iPads - Businesses

Most of the potential customers for larger screen iPads are business men who could use the device for more tasks of a laptop computer.

Apple had unveiled a partnership in July, with International Business Machines Corp: wherein Cook stated that part of the pacts rationale was in selling to corporations so that they could be a catalyst for the growth of future iPad.

An analyst at researcher, Jitesh Urbani, had stated that while tablets sales growth had slowed down, he projected that businesses, schools as well as governments would be buyers of the devices and those groups accounted for 16 percent of the tablet sales in the second quarter which according to his estimate was up from 13 percent a year earlier. Urbani, in his interview, had stated that they would be expecting larger tablets to perform better in the enterprise market.

Apple Awarded Patent – Electronic Devices with Flexible Displays

Apple has been awarded a new patent by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, for `Electronic devices with flexible displays’, which controls mechanisms used with flexible displays to replace components like physical buttons with additional durable as well as resilient alternatives, to create another means of detecting sound output with haptic feedback, which is sound and localized vibration and perform other things thus making it easier to open a MacBook lid.

The patent describes several options to use a flexible display for a variety of input methods aiming at ways that can put flexible display material over actuators in order to create new buttons on demand.

Besides this it also provides systems to overlay them on the existing button features that are found in the iPhone such as the Home button, thus providing access to it while simultaneously protecting it as well as providing a continuous surface for the individual.

The system combines flexible display layer in some embodiments, like a compatible OLED substrate with a similar flexible capacitive touchscreen layer which then is covered by a rigid or a flexible cover.


Assembly Flexible – Interacting with Components


Since the assembly is flexible, users have the opportunity of interacting with components that are installed beneath it which serve as a user input and when force is used, the display activates and deforms the internal button, other sensor or dome switch before returning to its original shape.

Moreover, the internal actuators could be used to press against the flexible layer upwards to create temporary ridges, points or shapes on the surface of the display wherein each region could be active or inactive to user input. Ridges for instance could be used to outline grid pattern matching the onscreen keyboard.

According to an example, control structures or buttons get input from user’s finger or object that are pushed on the display, thereby deforming and transferring force on a sensor and some system tend to extend the device’s active screen area by replacing the external control as in the case of iPhone’s home button with internal counterparts.


Benefit of Flexible Display


There is another benefit in using the flexible display on top of the button and switch wherein it enables Apple to potentially expand screen space with the possibility to build all display devices which can grow or reveal buttons whenever needed. They can also take the form of physical buttons, as created by actuators that are used beneath the display layer to push up on the screen, creating bumps and ridges.

Its effect would be similar to what happens with the Tactus keyboard that produces a physical keyboard from a transparent, flat display cover. As the overall patent is aimed at devices such as the iPhone and iPad and its intention is to save space on mobile devices, there is a provision which explains how the tech could be utilised in a MacBooktrack pad in order to deform the surface and raise the top of the notebook away from the bottom thus making it a lot easier to open, preferably creating a lid opening which may replace the groove that is available in current models.

Apple’s Battery Replacement Program

Electronics is not without its fair share of failures and batteries bear the most brunt. And going by the record, Apple maintains a strict customer satisfaction first strategy for its line of products. Hence, Apple has launched a battery replacement program for select iPhones – namely some iPhone 5 models that apparently arrived at customer’s hand with poor batteries. Let’s us take a look at the affected users and what they can do with this replacement program from Apple.


The Affected Units and Problem


According to Apple, only very units sold between September 2012 and January 2013 were affected by this problem. The replacement program got started in United States and China first owing to large shares of ownership on August 22nd and will start for the rest of the world on August 29th, 2014. The defect leads to poor battery life as some customers started to experience from late last year, which is unusual for Apple products.


The Replacement Process


If you feel you are one of the affected customers owing to sharp decline in battery life, the first thing you need to do is head over to Apple’s website and enter your phone’s serial number on the battery replacement page and check whether you are eligible or not. The serial number can easily be obtained from the about page in settings in your iPhone. Once done, you can get it replaced via an authorized Apple service provider or at Apple retail stores. To prepare for the replacement process you need to follow these steps carefully.

• Backup all your data to iTunes and iCloud service

• Turn off “Find My Phone” feature from Settings

• Erase all data and settings in Settings > General > Reset > Erase all Contents and Settings


Once done you can head over to the store to get your battery replaced, which should be hassle free completely.


Some Other Information


In case your iPhone has other damages like screen damage or digitizer problem for touches that needs to be fixed first before you can continue with the replacement program. Such repair may incur extra charges if applicable however. Note that Apple may restrict the repair program in certain countries and if you are in such region try to contact Apple for a full refund. In addition, this program will notextend your warranty and covers affected iPhone 5 battery for two years after the retail sale or until March 2015 whichever comes later.


Apple generally serves its customers well and this is a proof of that. Such programs show how concerned a company is towards its customers and also gives them something more to stay loyal apart from a stellar product line. This also helps Apple to stand out from the competition breathing on its neck in technical department and gives them some air as their customer programs are something other totally lag behind. With the next iPhone coming in just about 3 weeks from now, this shows that their attention is equally distributed to not just new product launches but also to their existing customer base as well.