iPhone News

Mini iPad to have relocated headphone jack?

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated April 10, 2018

Remember a French blog which recently leaked a bunch of images purportedly representing the iPhone 5 Nano SIM tray, the full front assembly of the device and its smaller dock connector? They're back at it again with today's photo of the purported iPad mini dock connector flex cable.

It supports earlier claims that the rumored device will have a smaller dock connector, which is expected to debut on the iPhone 5 this September. Even more interesting, the part has the headphone jack at the bottom, just like the iPhone 5 is thought to have.

It would seem that Apple is ready to adopt the new dock connector and move the headphone jack at the bottom across all upcoming iOS devices...

MPEG drafts bandwidth-efficient H.265 standard with support for 8K resolution

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

The Moving Picture Experts Group (MPEG) announced today a draft of the new video compression standard called H.265 and also known as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) and MPEG-H Part 2. As the name suggests, it delivers the same video quality in half the bandwidth of the current (nearly a decade old) H.264 standard, which is adopted across Apple's iOS and OS X platforms...

Samsung says Apple lifted the iPad’s design from a 1981 tablet, other prior art claims

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated March 12, 2018

It's the third week of the Apple v. Samsung mega-suit and Samsung is on the offensive with some interesting assertions meant to invalidate some of Apple's key patents. For example, the Galaxy maker, whom Apple accuses of ripping off its iPad and iPhone wholesale, now counterclaims that Apple stole its patents related to things like e-mail, photo albums and playing music in the background.

Furthermore, Samsung brought a number of experts who testified that Apple's patents should be invalidated due to a bunch of prior art. Heck, the company even wheeled in a monstrous Surface-like tablet computer into the courtroom in an attempt to invalidate Apple's pinch-zoom feature and establish that everyone, even Apple, takes inspiration from someone else's work...

The big question looms: does iPhone 5 have world support for numerous LTE bands?

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 15, 2012

iDB first discovered traces of high-speed fourth-generation Long-Term Evolution (LTE) cellular networking in iOS 5.1 code. Since then, multiple code hooks, hardware hints and credible sources have all but confirmed the industry's worst kept secret, that the next iPhone is widely expected to work over 4G LTE networks.

But is it going to be a worldphone in respect to 4G? What if it doesn't support a variety of LTE frequencies in use today? A new report from South Korea alleges that local telcos have been attempting to talk Apple into supporting the 1.8-gigahertz LTE frequency used in the country. This implies that the iPhone 5 may not support the numerous 4G frequencies in use across the world...

Thief also stole Steve Jobs’ wallet with his yearly salary in it

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated July 24, 2016

Yesterday's newspaper report told a story of 35-year-old Kariem McFarlin who last month burglarized the Jobs' family house in Palo Alto, stealing $60,000 worth of computers and personal items.

The house was under renovation and surrounded by a temporary construction barrier, leading the police to speculate the homeless man raided it by accident.

A new report sheds more light on the crime and lists the stolen items. Among them: valuable Tiffany jewelry and Steve's wallet with his annual salary in it...

Fake iPhone 5 screws get a Joy of Tech treatment

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

News of Apple working on special screws for the next iPhone with asymmetric heads to prevent tampering spread like wildfire across the blogosphere. It wasn't that the made-up story was attributed to a particularly credible source, not at all. At least on the surface, the report came across as perfectly plausible.

After all, Apple did switch to Pentalobular screws for the iPhone 4, provoking an outrage from repair experts iFixit. As you know, the story was exposed as an elaborate hoax by a Swedish design shop Day4, a case study of sorts on how sticky crazy Apple rumors really are.

Joy of Tech, a webcomic created by Canada-born Liza Schmalcel and Bruce Evans, has a funny take on the short-lived iPhone 5 screws meme, see it right below...

We’re giving away 10 copies of BrowseInApp

Cody Lee ∙ Updated August 26, 2017

A little over a week ago we reviewed BrowseInApp, an extremely handy jailbreak tweak that allows you to open URL links in apps like Messages and Mail without ever having to switch to Safari.

If you liked the tweak, and haven't purchased it yet, you'll be happy to know that iDB has teamed up with the developer to give away 10 copies of BrowseInApp to our awesome readers...

More purported details regarding the iPad mini surface

Cody Lee ∙ August 14, 2012

Amidst all of the leaked parts and reports regarding the new iPhone, we haven't seen or heard much of anything regarding the iPad mini. The absence of information has some folks thinking that the smaller tablet was just a myth.

But according to a new report, the iPad mini is very real, and coming this fall. It will look very similar to a larger iPod touch, with smaller bezels, and front facing camera for video conferencing. More details after the break...

RIM confirms new phones, BlackBerry 10 OS is essentially complete

Christian Zibreg ∙ Updated January 25, 2016

Good news for fans of Research In Motion: the embattled BlackBerry maker may soon see some much-needed light at the end of a long tunnel as the company has confirmed putting finishing touches on the way overdue BlackBerry 10 operating system. RIM also has some new phones and they're all done, too.

Yesterday, RIM’s new CEO Thorsten Heins agitated spirits with news that his company is actively seeking partners to license BlackBerry 10 software, which was unveiled three months ago. It would mark a significant departure for RIM as the company never allowed a third-party to make BlackBerry-certified handsets.

Today, Heins reveals a couple more tidbits on the state of the BlackBerry platform...

Samsung designer: we didn’t copy Apple’s icons

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 14, 2012

Attorneys for Apple embarrassed Samsung last week by showing the jurors half a dozen images meant to prove that the Galaxy maker shamelessly ripped off the look of the iPhone's icons. Though Apple believes that Samsung’s TouchWiz interface makes it a copycat, that's ultimately up for the jury to decide.

Today, a Samsung designer took the stand to testify that she didn’t copy Apple when creating the icons for the Galaxy line of products. Call me stupid, but how the heck then she'd managed to come up with icon design that strikingly resembles Apple's?

Fragmentation? Here’s your iOS platform matrix

Christian Zibreg ∙ August 14, 2012

A developer took it upon himself to create a handy chart with all of Apple's iOS devices, their key hardware characteristics and iOS software builds running. Even a brief glance reveals very little fragmentation as approximately 70 percent of all iOS devices in the wild are shown running iOS 5, the latest public version of Apple's mobile operating system.

The upcoming iOS 6 is already on five percent of devices in the wild and iOS 4 is still found on approximately ten percent of devices. On the hardware front, both the third-generation iPod touch/iPhone and newer plus all iPad models run on the ARMv7 application processor.

This makes software optimization much easier than on the Android platform, where a variety of form factors, hardware configurations and device models contribute to high fragmentation....

Chart shows all of Apple’s patent claims against Samsung

Cody Lee ∙ Updated April 18, 2018

On the surface, Apple's beef with Samsung is fairly easy to understand. Apple feels that Samsung has intentionally copied the design of its smartphones and tablets, and it wants justice (along with compensation).

But in reality, Apple's claims are much more complicated. They involve four design patents, three feature patents, and around 20 different Samsung devices that Apple believes are infringing on its inventions...