Analyst: iPhone 5C may exclude Siri, but will boost margins and attract new sales

For some time, Wall Street investors and Apple watchers have stressed the iPhone maker must adjust to more modest profit margins, as well as a worldwide reality where cheap Android smartphones enable competitors to attract price-conscious consumers. Now comes a voice saying Apple could have it all: a cheap handset, fatter margins and a larger international audience.

By attracting the prepaid market, Apple's much-expected iPhone 5C will do all that by going after a huge pool of prepaid wireless customers that's four times larger than the current U.S. subscribers. Meanwhile, another analysts believes he knows the cheaper iPhone will exclude some features, such as Siri...

Analyst: iPhone 5S fingerprint sensor limited to user authentication, secure payments due in 2014

The upcoming iPhone 5S revision, likely slated for an announcement at Apple's upcoming September 10 media event, is widely expected to include the fingerprint scanning feature based on Apple's 2012 acquisition of smart sensor experts AuthenTec.

Now, there's been a lot of uncertainty as to what software features the smart sensor might support.

According to a research note issued late yesterday to clients, an analyst predicted the feature would be initially used to authenticate users in place of the iOS slide-to-unlock feature because rumored secure payments which are dependent on the smart sensor won't be ready in time for the iPhone 5S introduction...

Judge says Apple could renegotiate iBook contracts with publishers

The judge in the government's antitrust lawsuit has weighed in on settlement negotiations between the Department of Justice and Apple.

The iPhone maker could reopen staggered renegotiations with e-book publishers, U.S. District Court Judge Denise Cote reportedly said Monday.

Government lawyers had recommend that Apple agree to drop its current e-book contracts and abstain from a new agreements for five years. Judge Cote, who ruled Apple conspired with publishers to raise prices of e-books ahead of the iPad's launch, also wants to hold another hearing, possibly to review guidelines she is suggesting...

Sphere review: now with iPhone panorama upload

A few years ago, TourWrist hit the App Store with its high-quality panoramic photography service. User could use the company’s publishing tools to create “panos” that could then be uploaded to the app and made viewable by others.

In July, TourWrist was completely redesigned and is now Sphere. One of the biggest updates just came last week in the form of publishable Spheres using your iPhone’s panorama camera feature…

Apple hosting massive iTunes movie bundle sale

Ok movie buffs, listen up. Apple just launched a major iTunes movie bundle sale that would put the $4.99 Blu-Ray tub at Walmart to shame. There's dozens of different bundles available, of various genres, starting at just $9.99.

I myself have already grabbed the Matrix Trilogy for $9.99, as well as Taken 1 and 2 for the same price. There's also the Lord of the Rings trilogy, and the Jurassic Park trilogy, and several other movie sets/bundles to choose from...

New Audi app uses augmented reality to help you find stuff on your car

Audi has recently launched a new iOS app that could offer a glimpse into the future of vehicle manuals. It's called eKurzinfo, and it uses the camera of an iOS device, along with some augmented reality tech, to help users identify parts and features on their car.

Built for the popular A3 hatchback, the app covers over 300 elements of the car from windshield wipers to the oil cap. Engine overheating? No problem, simply launch the app and pan the camera across the A3's engine bay to find where to put your coolant...

Larry Ellison joins the Apple doomsayers camp, here’s why he’s disillusioned

Apart from being one of the richest entrepreneurs on the planet, the Silicon Valley billionaire and Oracle CEO Larry Ellison is also known as a long-time friend of late Apple co-founder Steve Jobs. The two men go a long way back and shared a passion for minimalism, spirituality and unconventional managerial style.

The one notable exception, of course, being Ellison's penchant for spending his fortunes on expensive yachts and houses and indulging himself in otherworldly pleasures.

So should you be worried after hearing Steve's personal friend openly suggest that Apple can't thrive without its legendary co-founder because "we already know" Apple is doomed without Steve because "we conducted the experiment" before?

In a word, no...

Bloomberg weighs in on upcoming iPads and iPhones

With less than a month until Apple's September 10 iPhone event, Bloomberg has scanned the blogs and talked to its unnamed sources in an effort to dig up some previously unknown "facts" about Apple's upcoming iPhone and iPad refreshes.

Now, stop me if you've heard this before, but much of Bloomberg's reporting centers around a thinner and lighter iPad 5 with iPad mini style design.

Where it gets interesting, however, is a claim that Apple also plans to introduce a Retina iPad mini this year rather than in 2014...

Facebook acquires speech recognition firm Mobile Technologies

Facebook has announced this afternoon that it has acquired Mobile Technologies, a private company that develops speech recognition and machine translation technology. The move reiterates the social network's commitment to its mobile strategy.

Honestly, I hadn't heard of the company before today. But some quick digging shows that Mobile Technologies is behind the popular Jibbigo translation app, which the developers claim is the "world’s first" online/offline speech-to-speech translator...

Photos of alleged ‘iPhone 5C’ volume buttons hit the web

Though we're fairly confident that Apple will be holding an event on Tuesday, September 10 to unveil a new iPhone, we're still not exactly sure what it will present. Safe money is on a new iPhone model, the iPhone 5S, but what else?

It's starting to seem more and more likely that the 5S will share the stage with a lower cost, plastic handset next month. We've seen dozens of leaked parts corroborating the theory over the summer, and today, we're adding a few more...

Apple software engineer on how the iPhone’s Tri-tone text tone came to be

The iPhone is such an iconic handset that a number of its features are instantly recognizable. The app-laden Home screen, the single Home button below the touch screen. Heck, even the sounds—how many of you check your phone when you hear the Tri-tone alert?

Well as it turns out, there's actually an interesting story behind that chime, which dates all the way back to 1998. It actually started as the sound to alert a user when a CD burning session was complete in an app called SoundJam, which was later acquired by Apple...

Sony said to ready iPhone lens accessories with full-fledged camera features

Sony already supplies the main eight-megapixel iSight camera module on the back of your iPhone 5 and is likely to provide a thirteen-megapixel camera upgrade for the upcoming iPhone 5S, the rumor has it. There's a very good reason why Apple shops for iOS device cameras from Sony: the Japanese giant produces arguably the best CMOS sensors out there.

Case in point: a rumored lens camera accessories reportedly being worked on by Sony's engineers. These things will latch onto your iPhone or Android smartphone and provide your smartphone with a standalone sensor featuring Carl Zeiss optics, the same used by the Nikon 1 system...