The new iPhone 5S which is rumored to be announced on September 10th will reportedly feature A7 processor. According to a tweet by Clayton Morris of Fox News, the all-new A7 processor could be 31% faster than the previous A6 chip. This is the first time we’re hearing about the tech specs of the new A7 chip.

Morris also claims that the new iPhone 5S will support a dedicated chip for motion tracking. The new chip could be used for advanced camera software upgrades in the new hardware.

iOS 7 uses complex transparency and blur effects as an underlaying layer of the entire operating system. Updating the blurs and transparency in real time while tracking the users’ motion uses a lot of computational power. These effects have been turned off in older generation devices as noted in the beta version of iOS 7 since the older gen processors can’t handle the load.

It makes sense that Apple would launch the next gen iPhone with a faster A7 processor to handle the advanced UI techniques used in iOS 7. If the A7 indeed offers 31% speedier performance it would certainly make for a good upgrade option for iPhone 4S and even iPhone 5 users.

The new iPhone 5S is widely expected to be unveiled with a gold color option and also be available in 128GB version. Alongside iPhone 5S Apple is also expected to announce iPhone 5C release date which will be a low-cost iPhone in a plastic body with the same 4inch retina display.

Apple has been long rumored to be working on a low-cost iPhone to compete in the mid-priced segment of the smartphone market. There have been various reports that suggest that iPhone 5C will feature a plastic body and will come is different colors.

Now, SonnyDickson has posted a high resolution video of yellow color back housing of “iPhone 5C”. The increasing number of parts leaks and images of the purported new hardware could suggest that the low-cost iPhone is indeed in the works.

We recently highlighted a report that predicts Apple’s upcoming iPhone event will be held on September 10th. The company is expected to unveil the next-gen iPhone 5S. The new iPhone could feature fingerprint sensor, new camera, dual-led flash and a faster processor.

Apple has always offered the previous gen iPhone at a low cost with the regular carrier contracts. However, the carrier unlocked iPhones price is still quite high. New low-cost iPhone 5C would offer a great opportunity to offer the same iOS ecosystem to more customers at a lower price point even when the phone is bought without a contract.

A lower price point would expose Apple to larger adoption in Asian countries too which has become an important strategy for Apple’s future expansion plans. Apple’s popular integration of hardware and software at a low cost could boost the sales volumes and thus expose new customers to Apple’s ecosystem.

According to a new report, Apple is expected to announce iPhone 5S release date on September 10th during a special keynote event.

AllThingsD published a report about Apple holding a “Big iPhone” media event according to sources familiar with the matter. The next-gen iPhone is rumored to feature internal hardware change and would most likely retain the same design as iPhone 5.

iPhone 5S is expected to feature a finger-print sensor beneath the home button to allow easy phone unlocking experience and could possibly be used to authenticate password log-ins. Among other changes the new hardware could get a higher resolution camera with dual-flash and more RAM.

There hasn’t been much speculation about the next gen chip for the iPhone so it isn’t clear if Apple will use a new chip for the seventh-gen iPhone. Every new release the company loves to brag about speed and battery improvements so its possible that the company has quietly made some enhancements to the next-gen SoC.

Probably the bigger news for some of the customers is a cheaper iPhone widely referred to as “iPhone 5C” that could also be unveiled during the media event. According to analysts the need to compete in the mid-priced smartphone market is an important factor to grow for the Cupertino, Calif. based company. Apple’s major competitor Samsung offers smartphones is various price and size categories and continues to lead in the smartphone market share worldwide.

Apple revolutionised the smartphone category in 2007 when the first iPhone was released and since then its competitors have caught up by offering a lot of choice to customers. It would be interesting to see if Apple decides to sell a low-cost iPhone to capture market share.

{Image credit: MacRumors}

Late last week, a report from the Wall Street Journal mentioned that Apple’s iPhone 5 will have support for Global 4G LTE, something that began to be speculated upon as early as the announcement of the new iPad which also supports 4G LTE. However, the new iPad was only supported on AT&T and Verizon in the US and Bell Canada, Rogers Communications in Canada.

The iPhone 5 would not work the same way and is expected to operate on worldwide LTE networks. The report notes that the 4G will be available in most countries in U.S., Europe and Asia but not all countries will have it soon after release. Apple’s move into 4G LTE is one of the many steps the company is taking to continue leading the smartphone market with the iPhone.

During the original iPhone introduction, 2G was supported, followed by 3G on the iPhone 3G eventually leading the iPhone to become a world phone with both GSM and CDMA support. The iPhone 5 is expected to be announced Wednesday during the company’s media event and is expected to go on sale on September 21st.

Apple’s new iPhone 5 is widely believed to feature a larger 4 inch high resolution screen, faster processor, new hardware design among other enhancements.

{Via AppleInsider}

Apple Inc. (AAPL) recently updated its ‘investor relations’ webpage to announce that the company will conduct a conference to discuss  Q3 FY12 Earnings on July 24. The live conference call will be held at 2 PM Pacific / 5 PM Eastern time. The call will later be available for streaming via QuickTime through Apple’s website.

AAPL has been reporting record quarters each year with sales of iPhone on the rise and outstanding sales figures of its tablet computer. During last quarter Apple Inc. reported revenue of $39.2 billion and quarterly net profit of $11.6 billion. The company sold 35.1 million iPhones, 11.8 million iPads, 4 million Macs, and 7.7 million iPods in the quarter representing 88% growth for iPhone sales and 151 percent increase for the iPad.

Apple’s CFO, Peter Oppenheimer, during the end of the conference call added,  “Looking ahead to the third fiscal quarter, we expect revenue of about $34 billion and diluted earnings per share of about $8.68.”

The third quarter revenue hasn’t seen introduction of any new hardware while on the other hand iPhone sales are expected to slow down as users anticipate the launch of next gen iPhone 5. However, the new iPad 3 has been added to a number of new countries and the Cupertino based company is expected to report impressive sales figures for its tablet computer.

Moving forward Apple is expected to see higher growth in its Mac hardware products as with the introduction of MacBook Pro with Retina Display the company has shown its commitment to remain aggressive in the notebook business. The availability of MacBook Pro with retina display on Apple’s online store moved up to 3-4 weeks shipping time shortly after its release suggesting fast adoption rate among users. Although, Apple hasn’t released any public sales figures for the next gen MacBook Pro.

Apple’s upcoming software releases for OS X and iOS are also worth mentioning as the OS of both the platforms continue to merge. Mountain Lion for OS X will be made available to users later this month exclusively from Mac App Store and iOS 6 is expected to be made available later this fall.

Apple released iPhone 4S last October, with a very positive adoption and witnessed increase in sales figures when compared with previous launches. However, rumors on the web are already focusing on the upcoming iPhone 5 (sixth gen), expected to debut this September or October. Japanese blog Macotakara reported on Monday that the sixth gen iPhone will arrive in September or October, similiar to the iPhone 4S and will retain the Fall release pattern.

The report also suggested that Apple is looking to keep this announcement cycle for “many years”. This would allow Apple to release the next gen iPhone exactly one year after the 4S debuted in October of 2011. It would not make any sense for Apple to scale back the announcement to June and release a re-designed iPhone only 8 months after the last generation. However, the possibility of Apple looking to introduce new hardware during WWDC 2012 can’t be completely ruled out.

The iPhone launch now occupies the place of the iPod event, usually held the first week of September as the iPhone and iPad begins to gain more attention from Apple. The iPod line has remained unchanged from the previous year and may experience some serious changes in the coming months, with iPod sales declining drastically over the past few quarters.

The launch of a new iPhone 5 in the September / October timeframe works well for Apple and allows them to take advantage of the upcoming holiday season and experience an increase in sales. The iPhone 4S saw a record 37 million units sold during Apple’s December quarter because of the late debut.

There have been many rumors that Apple is looking to switch back to a June release, however based on this report and many others, it appears that the September/October timeframe will be kept for iPhone 5 release.

{via AppleInsider}

The Loop reported on Wednesday that Apple has scheduled an education announcement on January 19th in New York City. The invitation simply reads “Join us for an education announcement in the big Apple” and does not disclose any specific information.

The New York Times later confirmed that the event is going to focus on digital textbooks and that no new hardware would be introduced.

The event will showcase a new push by Apple into the digital textbook business, but will not feature any new devices, according to a person briefed on the event who did not want to be identified talking about it before it occurs.

The event will take place in New York’s famous Guggenheim Museum, and is not open to the public, only press invited as with all other Apple events. Reports of the event were revealed last week, with many online news sources suggesting that Apple was planning to announce new hardware. The event will be highlighting publishing and digital textbooks, suggesting that Apple might ready to revamp their iBooks Store and its offerings from different publishers.

iBooks was released after the announcement of iOS 5 and gained some attention, but definitely not enough to Apple’s liking. With these new improvements, Apple will try to move further into the publishing market.

The event will be held on Thursday, January 19th, however, a time for the event has not been announced. The event will likely be held around 10AM, similar to earlier Apple events.

According to sources close to the situation, Apple is planning an important — but not large-scale — event to be held in New York at the end of this month that will focus on a media-related announcement.

Per the usual caveat, the tech giant is well known for moving around their public show-and-tells, so this could certainly change at any moment.

Apart from organizing major media events Apple has participated in other events in the past such as Verizon iPhone launch and the unveiling of The Daily app for the iPad. Based on the fact that the event is New York based it is being speculated that it might be about Apple’s advertising business, iAd. Eddy Cue, Apple’s senior vice president of Internet Software and Services, is rumored to play an important role during the event.

The January event is expected to be a “media” only event which suggests that no new hardware will be announced. Apple has been struggling to see substantial success in mobile advertising  and with the recent news about the company hiring Adobe’s executive this event could possibly be about iAd.

As I look out the window here it’s a beautiful, sunny Summer day. So why does it feel like Christmas is about to arrive? Well, anyone tuned into the Apple universe will tell you that’s the way we feel every year before the WWDC keynote. Apple always arrives with a big sack of goodies for us. So what do our Cupertino benefactors have in store for us this year? While mitigating circumstances may have revealed some of the surprises in store for us next Monday, some may yet appear.

The truth part of the equation comes in the form of the iPhone 4G / HD and the iPhone OS 4.0. Both are known factors at this point. Thanks to an apparent Spring of misfortune for Apple’s research and development department, we already know most of the hardware details. The fourth generation iPhone will sport a forward-facing camera, improved IPS display, faster processor, and longer battery life. Many of the technologies going into the 4G / HD have already been rousing successes in the iPad. While some have argued the iPad was just a big iPod Touch it seems the reverse will be true of the new iPhone; with many of the innovations the iPad introduced, the next iPhone is a lot like a little iPad. On the software side of the equation, iPhone OS 4.0 should prove to use the new hardware to the fullest extent possible. The most anticipated known feature is multitasking. Long an item only available to native iPhone apps like Mail, Music, and Mobile Safari; Apple has opened it up for all to use. I am particularly excited about the general availability of multitasking although I am a bit worried as well. I recently used a jailbroken iPod Touch with the Backgrounder app running. For those that may not know, Backgrounder is a hack that brought multitasking to jailbroken iPhones and iPod Touches long before OS 4. While it was interesting to use a multitasking device running the iPhone OS, it seemed to burn through the battery life at an astonishing rate and it did seem to lag the OS some. Now, it was hardly a scientific test of the feature so any number of variables may have been in play but I hope official multitasking support addresses my lingering doubts.

With most of the iPhone announcements are already known, you may wonder what there’s left for Steve to surprise us with on June 7th. There are actually two prominent rumors floating around that might make a debut at the WWDC keynote. First was news late last week of a rumored new cloud-based Apple TV product. While Apple TV has never been much cause for interest in the iPhone OS crowd, this new device should cause a stir. Not only will it offer cloud-based streaming instead of the traditional local storage model, but it will also run the iPhone OS. In this new device we see Apple’s strategy of using the mature iPhone OS as the platform for a complete line of consumer content products, much like Google is attempting with Android.

The second rumor will serve as a compliment to the first. If the new Apple TV makes its debut at WWDC we should also see the unveiling of the much rumored “iTunes in the cloud” service. Video is a good starting point but Apple should see the obvious advantages of moving everything to a streaming model. The LaLa acquisition should finally start to bear fruit as Apple takes a multi-pronged and concerted approach to cloud-based content usage.

Regardless of what happens next Monday, it will be exciting to see what goodies Apple brings us. Just like kids on Christmas Day.

What do you think will come out of the WWDC keynote this year? Do you have a wishlist of products or features you’d like to see? Will there be more than new iPhones in store? Let us know in the comments.

With the iPad publicly available and the iPhone OS 4.0 out in the open, the only remaining item anticipated from Apple this year is the new revision of the iPhone hardware. Rumored to be called the iPhone HD, this new phone will now be the object of rumor and speculation until it goes public as well. As has been the case with past iPhone announcements, a new version of the software was revealed in the Spring and now a new version of the hardware should come out in the summer. Rumors surfacing today would seem to confirm Apple will hold to that schedule.

According to Apple and iPhone community site modmyi.com, Apple has reserved the same convention center they’ve used to announce previous iPhone versions for June 22nd. Although no official dates have been released yet for WWDC, this is within the usual timeframe of the Apple developer’s conference where the iPhone has been revealed in the past. If you get out your calendars you’ll also notice June 22nd is a Tuesday so that meshes with Apple’s modus operandi as well. While at this point we’re still doing a lot of reading of the tea leaves; the fact this date has been reserved, it falls within the usual dates of WWDC, and it’s on a Tuesday are fairly strong circumstantial evidence. I think it will be a pretty safe bet we’ll see a new iPhone on that day.

It should be very interesting to see what Apple does bring to the table in the new iPhone hardware. Much speculation has centered around what the new hardware will integrate. Judging from recent rumors of references to iChat in iPhone OS 4.0 the much desired forward facing camera is a lock. The new iPhone will also probably leverage the Apple-designed A4 system-on-a-chip currently powering the iPad. And of course, what will make this iPhone “HD”? With many of its competitors starting to make use of OLED and AMOLED screens, it is thought the new iPhone will get an upgrade in the display department.

Are you anticipating the new iPhone? Will the combination of upgraded hardware and software place the fourth generation iPhone back at the top of the smartphone market? Leave us your thoughts in the comments.

[Image] ]]> https://touchreviews.net/apple-iphone-hd-4g-june-wwdc-2010/feed/ 8 https://touchreviews.net/apples-updates-iwork-ipad-sharing-cloud-computing/ https://touchreviews.net/apples-updates-iwork-ipad-sharing-cloud-computing/#comments Wed, 17 Mar 2010 19:31:39 +0000 https://touchreviews.net/?p=5528 Read More]]> It’s interesting to watch the subtle background changes happening in the Appleverse as April 3rd gets closer. The fact that Apple is not only rolling out new hardware but also the supporting elements indicates their drive and determination to not only make the iPad a success but to drive their dominance in the mobile space.

The latest such instance comes from a report on CultofMac. Apple has rolled out a new interface to their iWork.com portal that enables some key functionality for mobile devices. The first is improved scrolling functionality. The new functionality enables the familiar tap-drag-push movement for moving through documents. This movement is now available in the iPhone and iPod Touch and, presumably, available in the iPad as well.

The second is an improved document sharing scheme. Users can now simply choose to publicly share their documents and send the generated URL to whomever they desire. Although in of themselves they seem like small, incremental improvements; they actually vastly improve the mobile experience. The key to the mobile experience is getting a task done in as few steps as possible. Viewed in that light, both of these improvements make perfect sense.

It will be interesting to see how Apple further adjusts its infrastructure to support the iPad specifically and mobile computing in general. The biggest unsolved mystery in what we know of Apple’s mobile strategy is the massive data center they’ve built in North Carolina. Could this be the home of the much rumored “iTunes in the cloud“? Will it support some other unrevealed element in Apple’s mobile strategy? Viewed in the light of the iPad, it certainly signals the willingness and determination Apple has put into owning the tablet computing space.

What changes to infrastructure and services would you like to see in support of Apple’s mobile devices? Is iTunes in the cloud your biggest wish or would you like to see Apple focus on changing other services to better support the mobile space? Let us know below.